Visitors to the Hill are greeted with fencing blocking off roughly half of the parliamentary lawns. This perimeter, erected in connection to work on the second phase of the underground Visitors’ Welcome Centre, will remain up through the entirety of Centre Block’s renovation. The Hill Times photograph by Andrew Meade
‘We’re flying the plane while we build it’: demolition work in Centre Block has begun
By this winter, PSPC expects work to assess the state of the Centre Block building to be completed, with schematic design plans expected by spring.
Platform costing measure gets nod, but fixes for getting info needed, says PBO
'Different leadership could have decided that ‘no, we won’t collaborate with you, because we don’t have to under the legislation,’ says Parliamentary Budget Officer Yves Giroux. 'We want legislation to be clarified.'
Rookie MPs get crash course on life in ‘Ottawa bubble’
Learn to reach across party lines for relationships and resist sticking to talking points, new MPs told at a Carleton University-hosted orientation event.Politics This Morning
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Iranian investigator into downed Flight 752 should be replaced due to past, says former Liberal justice minister
Iran's chief justice Ebrahim Raisi was part of a 'death commission' in 1988, during a period of political repression which saw thousands of dissidents executed. Lingering Phoenix issues ‘no surprise’ to union leaders, as annual survey shows increase in pay problems
The 2019 federal budget allocated $523.3-million over five years, starting in 2019–20, to 'ensure that adequate resources are dedicated to addressing pay issues,' according to PSPC. Senate should be ‘very careful’ of widespread rule changes and ‘unintended consequences,’ says retiring Sen. Day
From a boyhood dream of holding the country’s top political office to almost 20 years in the Red Chamber, retiring Sen. Joseph Day reflects on his parliamentary career.Agriculture Minister Bibeau was the most-lobbied MP in 2019
In an election year, lobbying activity dropped by 30 per cent compared to 2018.No more shush deals: Senators ready to press for accountability, harassment reforms once Parliament returns
A Senate subcommittee approved a new policy for dealing with harassment in the Red Chamber before Christmas.
‘There’s a risk of excessive polarization of the party’: Harper’s interference in Conservative leadership dividing Conservatives
Some Conservatives say Stephen Harper is certainly entitled to his opinion, but others say he should stay out of this critical leadership race.
Reboot of Trudeau ‘from sunny to serious’ a recognition Canadians want a serious prime minister, say politicos
‘It's almost like we're seeing a new prime minister,’ says Jennifer Stewart, CEO Of Syntax Strategies.Visitors to the Hill are greeted with fencing blocking off roughly half of the parliamentary lawns. This perimeter, erected in connection to work on the second phase of the underground Visitors’ Welcome Centre, will remain up through the entirety of Centre Block’s renovation. The Hill Times photograph by Andrew Meade
‘We’re flying the plane while we build it’: demolition work in Centre Block has begun
By this winter, PSPC expects work to assess the state of the Centre Block building to be completed, with schematic design plans expected by spring.
Newfoundland and Labrador’s Snowmaggedon shows the power of community helping community
Somewhere in heaven, John Crosbie is sipping on his rum and coke muttering to himself: 'I always said I’d leave with a bang.'Omnibus bills could be ‘new normal,’ says Samara researcher
In the last Parliament, the Senate appears to have exercised its authority more of providing 'sober second thought.'If requirements are ‘unattainable,’ drop out of race, says Conservative Senator to leadership hopefuls
'When you have a $300,000 buy-in, you’re not going to get away from having people tag you as ‘elitist,' " says Najib Jutt, who has advised both Liberal and Conservatives in the past. 
Feds’ silence on funding, transition plan for child welfare law causing ‘intense nervousness and frustration’
Bill C-92 takes effect Jan. 1, bringing in new, stricter, and culturally sensitive standards to Indigenous child welfare decisions. Continued Liberal delays to end sexist Indian status rules ‘baffling’ to Indigenous advocates
The Liberals have promised to fully remove sex discrimination from the Indian Act by the election, but advocate Shelagh Day says with no public plan and no official date, 'it’s still only a promise.' Liberals passing the buck on weapons ban
If the Liberal government truly believes that the legal availability of assault weapons puts the public at risk, then why not enact measures that are available to them right now, while they are still in power?
Happy Year of the Rat! Please tip your waitress
Beijing is celebrating the Lunar New Year by cracking down on satire. This is not a good sign in a presumptive superpower.Demand for answers about Flight 752 can’t exclude Americans
How can one disassociate the American assassination of Iranian general Qassem Soleimani with the escalated tensions and Iranian reprisals against U.S. targets in Iraq?Trump, who built U.S. trade policy on a lie, leaves Americans hanging with China
While U.S. President Donald Trump and his allies touted last week’s ‘Phase 1’ agreement with China as a victory, most analysts saw it as, at best, a saw-off.
CIJA, Dairy Farmers lead last lobbyist push before election call
Lobbyists filed 772 reports last month, down from 972 in July, and from the 1,478 reports filed in June.
Despite majority support for a Canadian handgun ban, the politics of doing so may remain insurmountable
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberals promised in 2015 to take handguns and assault weapons ‘off our streets,’ but have made only limited progress in the face of strong opposition.Tale as old as time: Liberal ethics breach proves politics still about comforting the comfortable
The SNC-Lavalin affair is about a political system that is rife for abuse, and those responsible for the recent abuses are seeking re-election on a platform of open and transparent government. 
Gov. Gen. Payette to visit Auschwitz and Israel to mark 75-years since death camp’s liberation
Plus, Senator Mohamed-Iqbal Ravalia battles Newfoundland blizzard, and The Toronto Star's parliamentary bureau is moving to the Byward Market to join iPolitics.
Key directors hired in Labour Minister Tassi’s office
Plus, Danielle Keenan has been named director of communications to Diversity, Inclusion, and Youth Minister Bardish Chagger, among other recent hires.
Flanagan named one of two policy heads to Environment Minister Wilkinson
Erin Flanagan is director of climate, energy, and regulatory affairs, while Jamie MacDonald is director of nature conservation in the minister’s office.
Canada-China Relations House Committee members announced, to meet to decide chair
Plus, Marco Mendicino takes to the keys before a CBC interview, and former PMO spokesperson Justin Kingsley’s film Chaakapesh is coming to Ottawa.‘There has never been an ethnographer-activist the likes of James Teit’
Wendy Wickwire talks about her compelling new book, At The Bridge: James Teit and an Anthropology of Belonging.‘One of the best drummers in the world’: politicos remember the life of Neil Peart
Plus, Lisa Raitt, Jane Philpott, and Megan Leslie to discuss modern leadership In Toronto on Jan. 20, and Jean Chrétien celebrates 86th birthday in the air. 
Lobbying Act review overdue, but court case could delay it further
The Lobby Act is two years past a mandated review by Parliament.
Lobbyists’ Code of Conduct establishes principles, rules of ethical behaviour expected from lobbyists
'I believe that transparency is a pillar of a healthy democracy. The federal lobbying regime, with its public Registry of Lobbyists, is a key tool for transparency,' says Lobbying Commissioner Nancy Bélanger.
Public officials are expected to always act in the public interest
'One of the best tools our Office currently uses to demonstrate transparency is our public registry,' says Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner Mario Dion.
Stewardship of public trust a foundational block of our duties as Parliamentarians
In the 43rd Parliament, we have an opportunity for collaboration across party lines to strengthen national institutions and to return the ethical pendulum to equilibrium, a position of adherence and restraint.Lobbying and democratic governance in Canada
We have the duty to initiate a reflection on developing forms of political control and public scrutiny that have the potential to induce more accountability in the relations between the PMO and its corporate courtiers.
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Politics This Morning: Ambrose rules out run for Conservative leadership; Trudeau to convene national caucus
Plus, the World Health Organization is set to decide today whether the cornoavirus, is a global health emergency.
More than a decade spent working in the borderlands between formal and informal politics has taught me that for democracy to endure, we need to redouble our commitment to citizens representing citizens.
By exclusively focusing on the dissemination of some of our values, Canada is merely amplifying its domestic priorities outwards while other pressing geostrategic issues are flouted.
A Public Safety draft June 2019 memo noted that climate change losses to the economy could be as high as $5-billion in 2020 and could escalate to between $20-billion to $40-billion a year by the 2050s.
Canada’s interests will probably therefore coincide increasingly with western Europe and those economies seeking to strengthen the core values that underpin liberal democracy globally.
Can we, Conservatives, really be all that surprised that the left has quite successfully been able to persuade voters to believe this stereotype that we're a party of old, white men?
Veteran Conservative strategist Yaroslav Baran provides this thumbnail post-mortem and action memo for moving forward.
‘There has never been an ethnographer-activist the likes of James Teit’
Wendy Wickwire talks about her compelling and historically important book, At The Bridge: James Teit and an Anthropology of Belonging.
Politics This Morning
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Big changes in the PMO: former MP Lapointe joins as new caucus liaison
Plus, Andrée-Lyne Hallé has moved over to Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland’s office as deputy chief of staff and director of operations. Ministers Anand, Fortier make headway in firming up their staff teams
Associate Finance Minister Mona Fortier has hired two of her now-former MP assistants to work in her new ministerial office.Mark Bourrie, Robyn Doolittle among authors shortlisted for Taylor Prize
Plus, former PC minister John Crosbie dies at 88, and Trudeau honours fallen Canadians at Parliament Hill vigil. Trudeau comes back to Ottawa with a vacation beard
Plus, Stephen Harper has been named to Order of Canada, and the feds have opened up online consultations for a new Afghanistan monument. ‘The tail doesn’t wag the dog’: PSAC wants a deal of its own amid ongoing negotiations
The government is ‘disappointed’ PSAC rejected an offer in line with recent agreements signed by 34 other bargaining units, according to a Treasury Board spokesperson. New deputy ministers at helm of immigration, innovation, health, environment
Former public service commissioner says preparatory work needed in government before an election 'best led by a deputy minister,' and that governments tend to avoid major appointments once writ is dropped. CTV’s Don Martin delivers barn burner speech, brings the house down at farewell shindig
Don Martin will soon be found on a golf course in Florida. Hillites celebrate new Parliament at old, favourite watering hole
They served poutine!From ‘failed state’ to stability: Rwanda has made ‘impressive’ strides, says envoy
High Commissioner Prosper Higiro speaks of his at times risky path to politics and how far the country has come 25 years after the genocide.Ecuador’s future is in mining, and Canada can play a big role, envoy says
Ambassador Diego Stacey says there’s 'political will' in oil-exporting Ecuador to improve its trade relationship with Canada.
Liberal caucus huddling in Ottawa for winter retreat, Jan. 22 to 24
Liberal caucus chair Francis Scarpaleggia is pictured at a post-caucus reception in January 2019. The party's winter caucus retreat will be held in Ottawa from Jan. 22 to 24. The Hill Times photograph by Cynthia Münster
Ottawa-area residents gather on Parliament Hill for a candlelight vigil on Jan. 9, 2020, in memory of those killed in the plane crash in Iran. More than a hundred victims were on their way to Canada. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Ottawa MPs and ministers Catherine McKenna and Mona Fortier were among those who paid their respects. 
