Second time around: notes on Ottawa’s National Day of Reconciliation
OTTAWA—The second annual National Day of Truth and Reconciliation events on Parliament Hill and at LeBreton Flats on Sept. 30 were pretty powerful. All you had to hear was part of Dennis Saddleman’s recitation of his Monster poem, about one person’s residential school trials and survival. Murray Sinclair, former chair of the Truth and Reconciliation […]
Francois Legault: the new Duplessis
KAMOURASKA, QUE.—Here, they call him, deferentially, “Monsieur Legault.” When Quebec Premier François Legault was appearing daily on television, providing avuncular advice on the COVID-19 pandemic, it didn’t matter Quebec had the highest per capita death rate in Canada. He gave the impression he knew what he was doing. If anyone benefited from the pandemic, it […]
Continued federal-provincial faceoff not a winning strategy for the country
OTTAWA—This week has the potential to be a fascinating and important week in Canadian politics. Why? With a just re-elected Coalition Avenir Québec government in Quebec under Premier François Legault and the potential selection of Danielle Smith as leader of the governing United Conservative Party in Alberta, we could see an uptick in federal-provincial friction. […]
Secret cabinet orders continue to rise with 26 so far this year
The Liberal government’s instinct to keep secret a small, but increasing, number of cabinet orders continues as 26 orders-in-council have been withheld from public listing this year so far, leading to calls from the NDP’s ethics critic for a legislative fix. To date this year, 26 adopted cabinet orders have not been made public, which […]
Calls to list IRGC as terrorist entity re-emerge as Tories take four-year push to Foreign Affairs Committee
Amid increasing protests in Iran after the death of a women in custody, Conservative MPs are renewing their calls to list the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist entity, including at the House Committee on Foreign Affairs. Protests erupted across Iran following the Sept. 16 death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini. She was detained […]
Backing blithely into the storm
OTTAWA—In a season of confusion, denial, and self-defeating causes, the man who will be leading Quebec again has been a standout. Last week, while campaigning for re-election, Coalition Avenir Québec Leader François Legault let it be known what he thinks of immigrants. He told the Montreal Chamber of Commerce that welcoming more than 50,000 immigrants […]
‘Keep going’: Legault’s victory message suggests he’ll seek ‘more liberty’ and ‘more leeway’ with Ottawa, say observers
Quebec Premier François Legault swept into a second term on the evening of Oct. 3, and took to the stage for his victory speech saying voters sent “a strong message tonight: keep going!” While Legault did not speak directly about the federal government in his speech, political communications professor Mireille Lalancette said his message to […]
Staff changes for Indigenous Services Minister Patty Hajdu
There are a number of notable staffing changes to catch up on in Indigenous Services Minister Patty Hajdu’s office, where, most recently, Kaitlyn Peters has been hired as the new assistant to the minister’s parliamentary secretary, Liberal MP Vance Badawey. Peters, who joined Hajdu’s team in September, has been working on the Hill as an […]
Centre Block demolition work reaches a pinnacle (four, to be exact)
Almost three years in, demolition work continues inside the historic Centre Block building—now focused on high-heritage spaces on the second, third, and fourth floors—and soon, it will reach the top of the Peace Tower, with a mobile crane set to be erected later this fall to remove the four pinnacles that surround the tower’s clock […]
Poilievre’s ‘adversarial’ media strategy ‘concerning’ for democracy, but unlikely to change as long as it keeps working: Hill observers
New Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre’s strategy to avoid taking questions from traditional media and make adversaries out of legacy media journalists makes him “impervious” to questions, which is “corrosive” and “concerning” for democracy, observers say. Poilievre (Carleton, Ont.) has been sparring with some members of the Parliamentary Press Gallery both during his leadership run and […]
