Trudeau’s ‘reconciliation’ translates to Indigenous surrender
CHELSEA, QUE.—The dispute between a giant resource company and a northern British Columbia Indigenous nation over a proposed gas pipeline is multi-layered, and important details are contested, but the images were simple and provocative: Indigenous protesters, peacefully trying to protect their traditional land, hauled away by RCMP at the behest of a powerful corporation and […]
Singh’s leadership haunted by the ghost of a leader past
HALIFAX—Finally, Jagmeet Singh is fighting for a byelection seat he can’t afford to lose—his own. Though he should hold Burnaby South for the NDP, it won’t be easy, especially now that he says in the event of losing, his troubled leadership will continue. The recent leadership of the NDP has been haunted by a formidable […]
Supreme Court to rule on expat voting rights Friday
OTTAWA—The Supreme Court could settle the debate on Friday over whether Canadians living abroad have the right to vote. At issue before the top court is whether Canadian citizens’ right to vote is constitutionally protected. The decision will follow the recent passage of the Trudeau government’s legislation restoring the voting rights of expatriate Canadian citizens […]
Liberal Party says it will pay House for fundraising video, offer to reimburse donations, in letter to Speaker’s chief of staff
The federal Liberal Party is attempting to take responsibility for its decision to shoot a fundraising video of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in his Centre Block office, with the party’s national director writing in a letter that the Liberals will pay for using the space and offer to give back any donations that resulted from that […]
The question for 2019 isn’t: who will win? It’s: WTF?
There was a time—and it wasn’t even as long ago as the last millennium—when the first column of an election year would open with a disclaimer that politics is full of uncertainties and then proceed to flagrantly disregard them by prognosticating anyway. Good times. In 2019, at a time when politics in democracies worldwide is […]
In search of a lost time in U.S. politics
Re: “What Democrats need in 2020: unassailability,” (The Hill Times, Dec. 19, 2018, p. 10). The column claims that rather than this “age of operationalized politics, in which social media enable the manipulation of large swaths of persuadable voters in a matter of seconds,” there was a time in America when, “Presidential campaigns [were] contests of character.” A list […]
TV tangle: CPAC still sorting out new Senate broadcast details
The Senate will begin regular video broadcasts of its Chamber proceedings in a few weeks, but the Cable Public Affairs Channel (CPAC) says it doesn’t yet know how it will balance the broadcast schedule between the Upper and Lower Chambers. Despite the murky details, the elected Chamber is still taking TV priority, according to an […]
Canada should pull troops out of Iraq
OTTAWA—A weapons cache valued at about $10-million is sitting in limbo in a Montreal warehouse, Postmedia reported last week. This arsenal includes .50-calibre sniper rifles equipped with silencers, 60-millimetre mortars, Carl Gustav anti-tank rocket launchers, pistols, carbines, thermal binoculars, cameras, scopes, and medical supplies. The intended recipient of this sophisticated, lethal hardware was the Kurdish militia in northern Iraq. At […]
New ‘virtual’ Liberal Party may struggle to fund next campaign
OTTAWA—Happy 2019. As a perpetual optimist, I am loath to begin the new year with a complaint. But working at home means being bombarded by telemarketers, charitable organizations, and those wonderful people in the boiler rooms of Asia offering great rates on my credit card. To this motley crew I can now add the Laurier […]
It’s shaping up as a tough year for election-bound Liberals
OTTAWA—The polls show conclusively that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the Liberals are in a position where the Oct. 21 election is theirs to lose. Trudeau remains fairly popular, and majority governments usually get a second kick at the can. But after two years of relatively smooth operations by the Liberals, the divisions and risks […]
