Illegal border crossings can no longer be overlooked

GATINEAU, QUE.—The influx of mostly-Haitian asylum seekers across the Quebec border could hardly have come at a more delicate time. In the United States, of course, the embers of racism and xenophobia are regularly fanned by an unstable president with no moral centre and little common decency. While Canada isn’t immune from the contagion, so […]
Canadians want Trudeau to offset Trump on welcoming refugees

OTTAWA—Damned if you do. Damned if you don’t. Such is the dilemma facing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau with the increase in ambulatory migrants arriving from the United States in the wake of American removal rumblings. News reports say that more than 7,500 people have streamed across the Canada-United States border in the past three months. […]
Politics This Morning: Freeland to deliver speech urging public support for NAFTA overhaul

Good Monday Morning, All eyes are on Ottawa today as Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland heads to the nation’s capital to drum up public support for reforms to the North American Free Trade Agreement, in advance of the start of renegotiation talks later this week. Ms. Freeland will be at the University of Ottawa […]
‘B.C. is burning and we’re only right at the very beginning,’ says MP Doherty as British Columbia’s wildfires season officially starts

British Columbia is in a state of emergency as the forest fires continue to burn out of control in the province, and the MPs whose ridings have been impacted the most say that while the federal government’s response so far has been adequate, resources are tapped, emotions are running high, and much more assistance will […]
Feds should match wildfire donations
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau visited parts of British Columbia this week where wildfires have burned down homes and businesses and have displaced thousands of people. The federal government has done a lot of good things in responding to this crisis. It acted quickly to set up an ad-hoc cabinet committee chaired by Minister for Sports […]
Alberta Tory MPs lining up behind Kenney in provincial leadership race

Ex-federal minister Jason Kenney is expected to enter the leadership race for Alberta’s new United Conservative Party with support from numerous federal Conservative MPs from the province. Several federal Tories from Alberta told The Hill Times they supported Mr. Kenney’s expected candidacy to lead the new United Conservative Party, and believed the ex-Calgary Midnapore MP […]
Still on cabinet leave, Judy Foote resumes public appearances in home province

Public Services and Procurement Minister Judy Foote has started making public appearances again in her home province three months after taking a leave of absence for undisclosed personal reasons from her ministerial role, though her office says she remains on leave from cabinet. In recent weeks, Ms. Foote (Bonavista-Burin-Trinity, N.L.) has appeared at several ribbon-cutting ceremonies […]
Don’t ram pipelines through provinces that reject them
Re: “‘British Columbians do not want this,’ Trudeau faces tough task on $7.4-billion Kinder Morgan pipeline with incoming B.C. government” (The Hill Times, July 10, p. 1). A visionary federal government would support Alberta by making major investments in transit, building retrofits, renewable energies, clean technologies, and community employment programs. This plan would not only […]
‘From one minute to the next, you don’t know what you’re going to be faced with’: MPs lend a hand, sympathetic ear to B.C. wildfire victims

Conservative MP Todd Doherty is preparing to have family members including his in-laws, cousins, aunts and uncles, and possibly some friends camped out in his Prince George, B.C. living room and driveway by day’s end. The MP’s Cariboo-Prince George, B.C. riding is one of the hardest hit by the fires that have set parts of […]
Compare Canada 150 to Expo 67 to see how far we’ve come

MONTREAL—In the city that I’ve called home for the past 20 years, one would have been hard-pressed to find signs last week that Saturday was a special Canada Day. A bicycle ride across town on the eve of the country’s 150th anniversary elicited no Maple Leaf flag, except at various hotels and official venues. Quebec […]