Donner Prize Finalists
Donner Prize Finalists Want to know the Donner Prize finalists for the best book on Canadian public policy? The winner, to be announced in Toronto on April 27, will also win $35,000 Rethinking the Welfare State: The Prospects for Government by Voucher, by Ronald J. Daniels & Michael J. Trebilcock, Routledge. Blurb: “Rethinking the Welfare […]
MPs expect budget? Early May
Finance Minister Jim Flaherty is expected to table his government’s first federal budget on May 2, say opposition MPs. NDP MP Judy Wasylycia-Leis (Winnipeg North, Man.), who is also her party’s finance critic, said there is widespread speculation the budget will be tabled on May 2. “How much can you place in rumours? But that’s […]
Harper gets presented with two equally unpalatable notions
Of all the difficult jobs on Parliament Hill these days, few are about to become as demanding as that of Quebec adviser to Prime Minister Stephen Harper. That is so because one of the hardest calls Harper will have to make soon is how much of his political future he can afford to stake on […]
Three federal Conservative organizers hired for Quebec grassroots campaign
The Conservative Party has hired three election campaign staffers to help out with a sweeping grassroots campaign of signing up party members in Québec, Québec Tory Christian Paradis told The Hill Times. Mr. Paradis (Mégantic-L’Érable, Qué.) confirmed that Pierre Coulombe, the Conservative Party’s chief organizer of the Quebec membership campaign, has hired Nelson Bouffard, Robert […]
State Department’s human rights report: Canada’s world class
WASHINGTON, D.C.-During the past five years, and notably since 9/11/2001, the annual United States Human Rights Report (HRR) has become increasingly controversial. During the Clinton presidency, the USG placed a significant priority on advancing human rights throughout the globe. As a consequence, the HRR became a major tool in this process and exercised leverage to […]
Lobbyist Registrar agrees to investigate years-old complaints
The Lobbyists Registrar, who enforces the federal lobbying law, has agreed to investigate a number of years-old ethics complaints, said Duff Conacher, coordinator of the ethics advocacy group Democracy Watch. Democracy Watch filed the lobbying complaints between 2000 and 2004 with former Ethics Counsellor Howard Wilson, who was replaced in 2004 when former prime minister […]
Most Cabinet ministers fail to file travel and hospitality expenses by March 31 deadline
Conservative Cabinet members may be discovering that when it comes to full transparency, the devil is in the details-and the deadlines. According to Treasury Board rules on proactive disclosure, all federal departments are required to post on their respective websites a quarterly report on all travel and hospitality expenses incurred by ministers, Parliamentary secretaries and […]
PM Harper talks hockey on TSN
Nothing is better than playing hockey, says Prime Minister Stephen Harper (Calgary Southwest, Alta.). “I love my job as Prime Minister, but if you could be a hockey player, I mean, what could be better than that?” Mr. Harper said in a television interview with TSN last Thursday, prior to the NHL’s hockey playoffs. Speaking […]
Harper government not proactive for the environment: Friends of the Earth poll
Eighty-two per cent of Canadians don’t think or are unsure that the new Conservative government will do better on tackling environmental issues, according to a poll by Global Market Insite for Friends of the Earth Canada. “It’s clear from these polling results that Canadians are among the most concerned citizens of the world when it […]
What’s your take on the Conservatives’ decision to ban BlackBerries and cellphones from their national caucus meetings for security and caucus confidentiality reasons, but still allow them at Cabinet meetings?”
Mike Storeshaw Conservative strategist “It’s pretty simple, really. Apart from the obvious desire not to see a play-by-play of caucus meetings on the cover of The Globe and Mail-a regular occurrence with Liberal meetings-cellphones and BlackBerries can be a distraction. There’s a reason why you turn them off in movie theatres too, or at least […]
