Minister Copps to announce Grit candidacy on Feb. 21
TORONTO -Heritage Minister Sheila Copps will announce her candidacy to run for the leadership of the Liberal Party on Feb. 21. Sources close to the minister told The Hill Times last week that Ms. Copps (Hamilton East, Ont.) has made up her mind and will end the speculation in three weeks. “It’s all set and […]
Thank you Mr. Chretien
Parliamentary Press Gallery President Anne Dawson made a point of thanking Jim Munson, the Prime Minister’s new acting director of communications last week, for his work in getting Prime Minister Jean Chretien to hold regular and more civilized press conferences in the National Press Theatre with us not-so-civilized Hill reporters. It was Mr. Munson who […]
Premiers should never drive: Just one more reason to be a passenger
Late one night in a political campaign, I was in the passenger seat of a car driven by a politician who would soon be in the Cabinet. We happened upon former prime minister John Turner who was out for a walk. My candidate friend flashed the lights, tooted the horn and pulled over to say […]
Liberals order revote in hot Perth-Middlesex nomination
In a rare move, the Liberal Party is scrapping the hotly-contested nomination of a former card-carrying NDP member and Presbyterian minister in Perth-Middlesex, Ont., and will rerun it next month, after one candidate claimed there were “irregularities in the voting process.” Members of the Perth-Middlesex Federal Liberal Riding Association will revote on Saturday, Feb. 1, […]
PM should leave political financing bill to successor: Grit MP Harvard
Prime Minister Jean Chretien’s planned and now controversial legislation to limit or ban corporate and trade union donations to political parties should be left up to his successor to deal with, says a Grit backbencher who favours the move but is concerned that riding associations won’t be properly consulted if the bill is brought before […]
Grit leadership candidates to get 30,100 membership forms each
Federal Liberal leadership candidates will get at least 30,100 membership forms each for the upcoming leadership race, says the president of the party. Stephen LeDrew told The Hill Times last week that the provincial wings of the Liberal Party and the competing camps vying for the Liberal throne finally reached an understanding over the controversial […]
Supreme Court a leader
Quietly, and with little fanfare, the Supreme Court of Canada — which has been bringing in some progressive measures over the years to make it more accessible to the people — brought in another historic decision last week. The Supreme Court agreed to a pilot project for pre-judgment media lockups to allow reporters to be […]
It’s survival stupid, North Korea
More a cult than a country, the political equivalent of a Raelian nation-state, North Korea’s behaviour has always seemed to be harder to decode than that of any other country on the globe. An ideology of self-sufficiency piled onto pure communism that has left it poverty-stricken and backward. Bouts of mass starvation that were in […]
Supreme Court to allow media lockups
In what is being called an historic and ground-breaking move, the Supreme Court of Canada has given the green light to a pilot project allowing reporters to know the decisions taken by the country’s top justices in a lock-up briefing room before the briefings are made public. If the “experiment” proves successful, it will put […]
On guns and society: Why must Canadians drag us Americans into your gun registry argument?
WASHINGTON, D.C.–In recent weeks, Canadians have been debating two of the essential questions of society: how to mitigate violence and how to maintain health. In this round, these eternal arguments have taken the guise of the national gun registry and the Romanow report. And, as is appropriate, the cost/effectiveness of each — not the objective […]
