It’s showtime: Senators say debates in Red Chamber must change
A plan to start televising debates in the Senate will force the Upper Chamber to shake up the unpredictable and often disjointed way it tackles legislation, say Senators on both sides of the aisle. Senators have explored changing the way the Senate organizes its debates for years, but calls for change have accelerated in recent […]
Cultural shift underway, and more powerful men will go down
TORONTO—The Conservative MP shook his head. We were in a restaurant at the Royal York Hotel in Toronto, getting caught up. He’d just told me that a little-known backbencher named Patrick Brown was going to seek the PC party leadership. I’d told him all that I had heard about Brown was that he “had a […]
Liberal MPs hope cabinet ministers, PM Trudeau ‘learned their lessons’ from ‘unforced errors’ of last two years
As Justin Trudeau’s Liberals start the third year of their first mandate, Liberal MPs say they hope their caucus colleagues, including cabinet ministers and the prime minister, won’t repeat the “unforced errors” made in the first half of their term, which have become a “distraction” and have thrown them off the government’s agenda. “It certainly […]
Playing the celebrity game in politics
OAKVILLE, ONT.—NDP leader Jagmeet Singh recently invited reporters to witness and record his wedding proposal to Gurkiran Kaur. Sounds like a cute—even romantic—little media stunt, right? Well, don’t say that to CBC journalist Aaron Wherry, who thinks Singh is taking the wrong path. As he put it, “Inviting a media outlet to document your engagement […]
Suffering in silence: why we need to pay attention to the crises that miss the headlines
The past 12 months have been a horrific year for humanitarian crisis. The war in Syria continued. We watched nearly one million refugees from Myanmar stream into Bangladesh, seeking protection from rape, mass killings and unspeakable violence. After more than 1,000 days of war, more than half of the population of Yemen requires humanitarian assistance, […]
Why ‘King for a Day’ approaches to homelessness don’t work
Three years ago, I set out for clinic on the kind of morning like those we’ve been having in Toronto lately, where even the hair in your nostrils freezes with each breath. I had walked about two intersections before I realized my fingers were stiff from cold—of course, I had chosen that day to forget […]
Nasty fights erupt between some incumbent Conservative MPs and challengers, while two Tories decide not to run again
Two Conservative MPs, who were facing nomination challenges, recently announced they won’t seek re-election in 2019, and nasty fights are erupting between some incumbent MPs and their challengers. Moe Amery, a former Progressive Conservative Alberta MLA, who is running for the nomination against Conservative MP Deepak Obhrai (Calgary Forest Lawn, Alta.), described the seven-term MP […]
Brown’s fall lucky for Wynne
OTTAWA—Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne must have been born under a lucky star. Against all odds, she beat a Liberal establishment choice to win the party’s provincial leadership. Then she parlayed her reputation as a straight-talking minister and a proud lesbian into the premier’s chair. She confounded the pundits, sidestepping certain defeat after the departure of […]
Law of holes of Canadian style
WASHINGTON, D.C.—After more than a generation of excavation in the Middle East, the United States government finally concluded that the hole it has been digging for the Israel-Palestine “two state solution” has no foreseeable “pot of gold” at the bottom. It was not for lack of U.S. diplomatic effort at the highest political level with […]
On the link between immigration and terrorism
OTTAWA—Canada is a nation of immigrants, of that there is no question. Our historical openness to those around the world has made us the country we are, warts and all. And while immigration waves have varied over the centuries—my own family was part of the early 1900s cohort from Eastern Europe—I think we all agree […]
