Ford’s Toronto city council shakeup is a vote-winner, at least for now
OTTAWA—Ontario Premier Doug Ford has given new meaning to starting with a bang. Out of nowhere, except perhaps the deep recesses of his mind, he announced last week that he was cutting the size of Toronto’s city council from 44 members (which was to become 47, after a planned expansion this fall) to 25. Anyone […]
Northern Ontario offers insight into Canadian paradox
SAULT STE. MARIE, ONT.—For the past two weeks, I have been fulfilling a longtime dream, to cycle from Dryden, Ont., in the province’s northwest, to Toronto. When I arrive in the Toronto area at the end of this week, I will have cycled 1,700 kilometres. But it will also signify the last link in my […]
Ontario Minister MacLeod wants Ottawa to foot $200-million bill for province, cities
The Ontario government is demanding that Ottawa foot a $200-million bill for the province and its two largest cities to cover costs associated with the supporting migrants who have made asylum claims after crossing into Canada from the U.S. In a hearing before the House Immigration Committee on Tuesday, Lisa MacLeod, the province’s minister in charge […]
There’s no one-size-fits-all sex-ed policy
OTTAWA—Ontario’s hot, steamy summer just got warmer, as Ontario Premier Doug Ford fulfilled his campaign promise to cancel the sex-education curriculum that was introduced in 2015 and to revert to a dated, 20-year-old version. That reversal lasted one entire weekend because as of Monday the Ford government had flipped to a 2014 plan. The Ford […]
Circumpolar Inuit gather for historic assembly in Alaska
UTQIAGVIK, ALASKA—Inuit from four circumpolar nations are gathered on the shores of the Beaufort Sea this week for the quadrennial general assembly of the Inuit Circumpolar Council (ICC). They include Canada, Alaska (United States), Greenland, and Chukotka (Russia). The meeting is taking place in the birthplace of the international Inuit organization, founded 41 years ago […]
Conservatives counting on new faces in Quebec, with few obvious ridings to target in 2019
The federal Conservatives are counting on well-liked local candidates and a message of “openness” from leader Andrew Scheer to convince Quebecers to give them more seats in 2019, say political players. Despite the Bloc Québécois’ messy divorce, however, there are signs it will be tough to build on the party’s recent success in the province. […]
Telling feds to pay more for asylum seekers is fair game for Premier Ford, stopping cooperation is not
New Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s move to stop cooperating with Ottawa on asylum seekers arriving in the province is, at best, a negotiating tactic for more federal support, and at worst, a cynical, political manoeuvre at the expense of good public policy. Let’s hope it’s more the former than the latter. Mr. Ford has cancelled […]
Ford government’s move to withdraw support for resettlement of asylum seekers ‘short-sighted,’ says Vaughan
The Ford government’s decision to halt its co-operation with Ottawa on the resettlement of asylum seekers could throw a wrench in the plan to establish an information-sharing system between the province and the federal government that seeks to alleviate pressures on social services. Calling the influx of migrants entering Canada a “mess” that Ottawa is […]
If gender equality is so important, why don’t Canadians give female premiers a second term?
If gender equality is so important to Canadians, why do we not allow female premiers a second term? Many argue that, historically, parties in decline and doomed to electoral defeat elect a female leader to clean up their mess. When the mess gets tidied enough for a possible electoral win, they replace the female with […]
Ford Nation and the demise of the campaign playbook
OTTAWA—Last week, Scott Reid, formerly Paul Martin’s communications director and currently a political analyst and speechwriter who “was pitching in” for Kathleen Wynne’s team, wrote one of the more sobering post-mortems on the Ontario campaign. The piece, published in the Globe and Mail, posed the question as to whether campaigns even matter anymore: “In an […]
