Dragon boat season on the horizon
Public servants and embassy staff are signing up once again to shed their business-wear for life preservers and a chance at glory. Entries are already rolling in for the annual Tim Hortons Ottawa Dragon Boat Festival, a contest for bragging rights among 200 teams of paddlers at Ottawa’s Mooney’s Bay Park on Riverside Drive that will […]
Trudeau flirts with betrayal and political backlash
GATINEAU, QUE.–Is the Northern Gateway pipeline dead, or isn’t it? The fact that people are asking raises serious doubts about Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s honesty, not to mention his environmental cred. Trudeau was never against pipelines per se; indeed, he endorsed the since-rejected Keystone project. But he spoke unambiguously against the Northern Gateway, which would […]
Want to defeat Donald Trump, North America?
PUNTA NIZUC, MEXICO—A wall. Donald Trump, the bilious billionaire who is edging ever closer to the Oval Office, wants to build a great big wall between this country and the United States. He says he is going to get Mexicans to pay for it. The reason? Mexicans are “rapists,” he says. “Murderers,” too. Now, like everyone […]
Politics this morning: Trudeau tours Saskatchewan
Today is Wednesday, April 27. Here’s what you need to know before you start your day: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will make a visit Oskayak High School to meet with students from the Aboriginal Youth Entrepreneurship Program. Later in the day, he’ll be meeting with Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall. It is expected that Mr. Wall […]
Taiwan, Quebec parallels
Re: “Ministers, parliamentarians at Taiwan event anger China,” (The Hill Times, April 20, p. 1). Echoing in my mind more than 40 years later are Charles de Gaulle’s words, “Vive Montreal! Vive le Quebec! Vive le Quebec libre!” and the roar of the crowd caught half in disbelief that someone had the gall to give […]
Hill skin cancer clinic saved Grit MP Casey’s life, it might save yours
Next week, Liberal MP Bill Casey is hosting the kind of skin cancer clinic that saved his life a decade ago. He recalled how in 2006 he attended a skin cancer clinic organized on the Hill by Dona Cadman, a Conservative MP between 2008 and 2011 and wife of the late Independent MP Chuck Cadman […]
CAJ urges MPs to reconsider ‘inherent’ secrecy in review of Access Act
Canada’s current access-to-information system presents a “fundamental challenge” to democracy, was drafted by a political culture that favours secrecy, and MPs should question this “inherent” secrecy as they consider changes to the Access to Information Act, Sean Holman, vice-president of the Canadian Association of Journalists, told the House committee reviewing the act last week. “We have a cultural […]
Quebec’s English-speaking community fighting to maintain disappearing institutional base built over centuries
Canadians are blessed with the opportunity to live, play and work in two official languages. Ensuring this gift is a defining characteristic of our nation’s history. Long ago, we discarded the notion that English and French would be geographically limited, and we have constitutionally guaranteed the presence of our national languages from sea to sea […]
Politics this morning: A cheat sheet for the Shaughnessy Cohen finalists
Tonight, the Château Laurier ballroom will host a crowd comprised of writers and lovers of literature, politicians and political junkies, diplomats and local business leaders. It’s the annual Politics and the Pen gala, which has earned a secondary, unofficial title as Ottawa’s social event of the year. The swanky gathering supports the Writers’ Trust of […]
Trudeau took principled position on BDS: Gladstone
Re: “Trudeau and Israel/Palestine: Paragon of progressives or much ado about nothing?,” (The Hill Times, April 6, online). Mr. Imseis’ complaints against the Trudeau government for failing, in his view, to “return to a more constructive Liberal foreign policy” on the Middle East are based on a series of factual errors. Canada’s move away from Israel-bashing at the […]
