Trudeau delivers important message of patience
OTTAWA—When he landed in Alberta for two days of meetings this week, Justin Trudeau had a number of options. I suppose he could have charismatically willed the price of oil back up to $100 per barrel. He could simply, as the Conservative opposition in Ottawa keeps telling him, just build a pipeline already. He could […]
More government grants is not the solution
One of the key observations when it comes to evaluating Canada’s innovation performance is that compared to our peers among industrialized countries, we spend more public money than average, but a lot less private money. We are actually at the very bottom of the ranking for venture capital investment and business R&D. Yet, over the […]
Academics call for federal government investment in Bombardier
If the government wants a Canadian company to become a global player in the aerospace sector than it will have to pony up the cash to help it along, because that’s the nature of the business, according to some industry watchers. The iconic Canadian company, Bombardier, manufacturer of the troubled C Series plane, is facing major […]
MPs party under the stars, B.C. politicos come to town
Last Wednesday was another event-filled evening on the Hill and in the Hill neighbourhood as lobby groups filled the newly-renovated Sir John A. Macdonald Building reception room on Wellington Street and others flocked to the Party Under the Stars at Ottawa City Hall. The Party Under the Stars event, organized by longtime Hill staffer Cheri […]
What’s up with Alberta conservatives?
OTTAWA—When a group of business executives bandied together on the eve of the Alberta election to warn people about the perils of voting for Rachel Notley’s NDP, it’s fair to say the event didn’t go well. The group of high-profile Progressive Conservative supporters looked especially petulant and out-of-touch when one of the men explained that […]
Your handy, dandy guide to this session’s best Parliament Hill parties
Hillites: prepare to have fun this session because a taste of social Ottawa is coming at you, fast and furious. Given the uncertainty around when the 42nd Parliament would start, many fall events were delayed until the new year, so now after a quiet fall, the winter and spring events calendar is filling up. So, wipe the […]
Trudeau holds Cabinet meeting in New Brunswick as reward for electoral victory, looking to future
It wasn’t just the stunning view that took Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his inside circle to St. Andrew’s by the Sea, N.B., this week for the first Liberal Cabinet retreat outside the National Capital Region in more than a decade—it was a thought to the political future. Of nine electoral districts the Liberals won […]
Aboriginal policy to assimilate, civilize, Christianize, not applied in uniform manner: TRC report
In an effort to shed light on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s findings on Canada’s Indian residential school system, The Hill Times is running excerpts from the final report over the next few days. This excerpt gives an overview of the experience specifically for Inuit and those in Canada’s North who suffered at residential schools. […]
Castles in the air: Canada’s unexploitable hydrocarbon ‘resources’
Seventy-five per cent of Canada’s existing oil reserves, and 99 per cent of the known bitumen resource (Remaining Ultimately Recoverable Resources) will remain in the ground by 2050, if climate change is to be limited to the internationally agreed target of 2.0 degrees of warming by the end of this century. These are the figures […]
Time to restart Canada’s energy conversation
Canada is an energy nation. We have some of the world’s largest reserves of oil, natural gas, coal, and uranium, and we’re a major producer of hydropower and other sources of renewable energy. The recent oil price shock—with its dramatic impacts on our dollar, our investment portfolios, our companies, and our public finances—is a sharp […]
