Bring in quotas, financial incentives to get more women to run, says House committee
Federal parties and riding associations should set goals and report publicly on their efforts to recruit women as candidates, as well as set quotas for the number of women they field as candidates, recommends a new House committee report, which also suggests giving parties financial incentives to get more women to run. As well, House […]
Senators blame bad bill, justice minister’s absence for long C-58 study
A Senate committee’s work overhauling a bill meant to reform the federal access-to-information regime has been one of the Upper Chamber’s longest studies of a government bill, said its chair Senator Serge Joyal, a delay some Senators blamed on the five months it took to get a justice minister to testify on a key section […]
New NAFTA deal gets it right on digital trade
Canada has quickly become a leader in digital innovations. Our federal government has, in the last few years, launched superclusters across the country, with the goal of transforming our innovation economy. We are leading the world in the development of artificial intelligence, with research hubs in Montreal and Waterloo, among other cities. And we are […]
Growing global population: burden or boon to the environment?
Historical overview As the chemist and geographer Daniel B. Luten observed on the eve of the famous 1980 Julian Simon-Paul Ehrlich wager, since the late 18th century “the question of limits to growth and optimism and pessimism regarding the human prospect [has been] debated without consensus” while interest in the issue has “waxed and waned […]
The Sahel Spring: who will own the future in Sudan, Algeria?
The protests had gone on for weeks—so long that life in the capital was now divided into before and after. Viral villains and heroes emerged and faded, demands were issued, princes were toppled, and euphoria was witnessed and registered around the world. “It was a sense of liberation for me,” said one high-profile opposition leader. […]
Trudeau right to focus income distribution, but has failed to achieve productive economy
TORONTO—If there is a central core to the Trudeau government’s promise to Canadians it is that it will improve lives of the middle class. This was central to its 2015 election platform, has been at the centre of every one of Finance Minister Bill Morneau’s four budgets, and some reference to the middle class can […]
New Fisheries Act could mark a turning point for Canada’s depleted fisheries
This month, as the Senate reviews amendments to the Fisheries Act, Bill C-68, it has a rare opportunity to help right a historic wrong: the chronic overfishing of our wild fish populations and failure to rebuild them. If the Senate passes this bill, we can be on the path to restoring the abundance that was […]
Opioids are killing Canadians in the thousands, ‘we need to care more’
“I wasn’t born to be a drug addict,” said a brave member of the audience at our recent open caucus meeting in the Senate on the opioid crisis in Canada. He told us of his struggle with drug addiction over two decades. His closing words hung in the air for us all to absorb: “We […]
Public works require public input, but can’t be hamstrung by it
The Oxford English Dictionary defines infrastructure as “the basic physical and organizational structures and facilities needed for the operation of a society or enterprise.” You’d think pretty much everyone would be in favour of building the structures needed to operate our society. But before I became a Senator, I spent 30 years as a journalist, […]
‘We’re in ambition mode’: Champagne says infrastructure funding free from politics
Infrastructure funding is being being spent free from political considerations, says Infrastructure and Communities Minister François-Philippe Champagne, but his Conservative critic says money is going to where Liberals want votes in October. “I often say when you look at infrastructure, this is not about politics,” Mr. Champagne (Saint Maurice–Champlain, Que.) told The Hill Times on […]
