‘Our climate is changing very rapidly and we better start treating it like a crisis’: Layton
NDP Leader Jack Layton doesn’t own a car, rides his bicycle to work on the Hill and recently installed photovoltaic solar panels in his 115-year-old home to go along with his solar-powered hot water heater, which cuts his $5,000 per year electric bill by 60 per cent. He also believes that climate change is “the […]
‘I was in love and still am’ with Centre Block, says Douglas Fisher
There should be little surprise that Douglas Fisher’s favourite place on the Hill is the Library of Parliament, where every once in a while he’ll steal peak up at the dome. Mr. Fisher began his career as a librarian. He switched to politics after the Second World War as an MP for the CCF, then […]
Tories considering a tax rebate for popular hybrid cars: environmental lobbyist Sadik
The Conservative government seems to be preparing the way to offer a tax rebate for purchasers of hybrid cars, Pierre Sadik, a senior policy advisor at the David Suzuki Foundation, told The Hill Times. An official from the Department of Finance said the department “won’t speculate” about future budget decisions, but Mr. Sadik said that […]
LCPO signs up 48,000 new members in just two months
Ontario federal Liberals signed up 48,289 new members province-wide in the two months preceding the July 4 cut-off date for new members, more than doubling the party’s provincial membership since May, according to preliminary membership numbers obtained by The Hill Times. The federal Ontario riding of York West has kept its status as the largest […]
‘Quebec is applying the polluter pays principle’: Environment Minister Bechard
Another measure of which I am especially proud to speak today is the 2006 to 2012 Québec action plan on climate change, which our government launched on June 15 and which will have also positive effects on improving air quality. Even though Québec already has the best record in Canada for greenhouse gas emissions per […]
MIDDLE EAST CRISIS ‘AT THE TOP’ OF TORY CAUCUS AGENDA
CORNWALL, Ont.-While some Cabinet ministers avoided any public discussion of Canada’s position on the escalating Middle East conflict in Lebanon, their colleagues in the federal Conservative caucus said the controversial topic was top-of-mind during their summer retreat in Cornwall last week. Finance Minister Jim Flaherty (Whitby-Oshawa, Ont.), Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Michael Chong (Wellington-Halton Hills, Ont.) […]
Climate change can be solved, but we need a ‘plan to move the car in reverse’
Canada’s climate change problem can be solved. To do so, we must first realize that climate change and the ways we develop, produce and use energy are inextricably linked, because they all relate to carbon dioxide-the waste product of fossil fuels-and have an impact on our atmosphere. Climate change is real, so it is absolutely […]
There will be no mass exodus of Jewish votes from the Liberals to the Conservatives in next election
Soon after the dust settles, and an agreement is finalized on the cessation of hostilities in the Middle East, one of many Conservative backroom boys, cubby-holed deep into the Gothic corridors of Parliament Hill, will be charged with the task of determining the electoral consequences of the PM’s foreign policy shift. If this backroom boy […]
Playing the tough guy would jeopardize Canada’s international image
After wisely staying out of the Iraq war, Canada is being drawn toward the Middle East quagmire that is its aftermath. One step deeper is the suggestion that NATO troops should be deployed in Lebanon-a bad idea with troubling implications at home as well as abroad. For many Canadians, the suggested Atlantic alliance intervention and […]
‘Federal Accountability Act’ doesn’t contain 21 promised measures
As others have before him, Robin V. Sears uses a combination of false and exaggerated claims that ignore fundamental democratic principles, in his attack on the proposed Bill C-2 (the so-called “Federal Accountability Act”) which Sears wrote about in the July 17 issue of The Hill Times. Sears’ first claim is that “political participation by […]
