Trudeau smart to hold his tongue after tough Trump trade talk
MONTREAL—In the big picture, the world is probably having a decent week when Donald Trump turns his rhetorical guns on Canada rather than on North Korea or Russia. On the scale of a nuclear showdown, the stakes involved in a Canada/United States milk war are—to put it mildly—in a different league. But even in the […]
A Trump decoder ring, 100 days in
OTTAWA—When Justin Trudeau met Donald Trump for the first time back in February, it was all smiles, handshakes and cross-border hugs. The Trudeau team had done an excellent job with the White House in paving the way for a friendly and productive meeting. There was none of the belligerence that Trump had shown Mexico, and […]
The case of Justin Trudeau’s ‘often’ missing name tags
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s desk in the House might be a bit harder to find than those of his fellow MPs. Last week, Mr. Trudeau (Papineau, Que.) treated Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni to a tour of Parliament as part of his official visit to Ottawa. Making their way to the House floor, Mr. Trudeau […]
Canada in the U.S.-China crossfire
Was the U.S.-China summit at Mar-a-Lago a bust? A whimper instead of a bang? Certainly, on the surface, the meeting of Chinese President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Donald Trump in Florida earlier this month did not meet the expectations of the Fox News crowd. In fact, in the days leading up to the summit, […]
U.S. dairy industry better off adopting Canada’s supply management system
SAANICHTON, B.C.—It is because the United States dairy industry does not have a supply management system like Canada’s excellent one that their dairy farmers suffer at the mercy of their unregulated system and regularly go through boom and bust cycles. Canada is one of the few countries in the world that had the foresight to regulate the production […]
Canada wears velvet glove to shake hands with U.S.
Ever since last fall’s American presidential election campaign, Justin Trudeau has played nice with Donald Trump, routinely bending over backward to avoid taking the new administration head-on. Parsing the prime minister’s comments on Trump’s eventful first three months, one would be hard-pressed to find anything but kind words about the new occupant of the White […]
Government support for Bombardier to be tested before WTO
An international complaint by Brazil and its aircraft manufacturer Embraer could test the legitimacy of the financial relationship between Bombardier Inc. and the Canadian and Quebec governments. On Feb. 7, it was announced that the federal government is lending $372.5-million to Bombardier, interest-free. The federal government said its funding “will support thousands of good middle-class jobs, strengthen […]
Trade lobbying ramps up as uncertainty over NAFTA renegotiation looms
Three months into Donald Trump’s presidency, it’s unclear what his plans to renegotiate NAFTA will mean for Canada, but lobbyists have been talking a lot of trade with the federal government lately. Lobbyists having been meeting with government officials regularly in recent months to make their views known on a potential renegotiation of the North American […]
Delayed spending puts communities at risk
Budget 2017, despite its promising title, Building a Strong Middle Class, does leave the middle class struggling with rising costs and record household debt, and only serves the interests of the wealthy and the well-connected. Budgets are about choices and, unfortunately, the Liberal budget contains nothing on a number of key areas, and backloads the funding […]
Minister defends infrastructure plan’s roll-out, touts its ‘comprehensive’ approach
It’s full steam ahead for the federal Liberal government’s heavily hyped long-term infrastructure plan nearly two years after the Grits stormed to power on the strength of a campaign platform largely centred on going into debt to stimulate the economy by funding new roads, bridges, public transit, and other infrastructure. The Trudeau government unveiled its decade-long, […]
