Pharmacare: don’t let NAFTA 2.0 stand in the way
Canada is closer today than ever before to achieving a public prescription drug plan for everyone. Provinces, cities, labour unions, businesses, doctors, nurses, health-care workers, economists, and patient groups have come together to form one of the broadest coalitions in Canadian history—in favour of a national pharmacare program. Nevertheless, NAFTA poses an existential threat to […]
Tax reform the first true test for Trudeau
OTTAWA—Is Justin Trudeau’s government truly vulnerable for the first time? Failure to deliver on electoral reform, a badly broken deficit promise, and even a $10-million payout to Omar Khadr have had to date no real impact on his team. But what looks like an ill-conceived tax-reform package—potentially drafted by officials who have never actually run […]
CBC should stop trying to demonize the Russians for their guns
OTTAWA—I happened to catch a news item on the CBC’s The National last Thursday night that illustrates how modern Russian society celebrates its association with the world-famous Kalashnikov assault rifle. It is true that since it was first created by gun designer Mikhail Kalashnikov in 1947, the weapon that still bears his name has become the most […]
The media paints the Senate as having had no spending rules; but I know there were
Recent media comments on Senator Mike Duffy’s lawsuit against the Senate and the attorney general echo many of the inaccuracies that emerged during the Senator’s trial, such as that there were no rules to regulate Senators’ spending, and that the Senate was, to say the least, an indulgent place. Images were painted that the Senate […]
A lesson from Kenya
If there were any doubt remaining after the 2016 U.S. presidential election about the status of election outcomes as high-value corruption targets, the death of Chris Msando is worth considering. Msando, whose mutilated body was found in the woods outside Nairobi more than a week before the Aug. 8 presidential election in Kenya, was neither […]
Good for Tories, Grits for mature co-operation on NAFTA
They’re allowed to disagree with the government. Heck, that’s a huge part of their job. But when it comes to NAFTA, the official opposition Conservatives have taken a tactful approach so far in not bashing the governing Liberals, and it’s worth continuing under new foreign affairs critic Erin O’Toole, international trade critic Dean Allison, and […]
Negotiating NAFTA, the first time: from scare to scripture
John Stewart spent 20 years as an economist and manager with the United States Embassy in Ottawa. This is the last of two excerpts from his book Strangers with Memories: The United States and Canada from Free Trade to Baghdad, now available from the fall catalogue of McGill-Queen’s University Press. The top priority of the U.S. Embassy in […]
Allowing Quebec City Muslim cemetery is the right move
As an organization of Jewish and Muslim women, we welcome Quebec City’s decision to accept a land offer from the Quebec Islamic Cultural Centre allowing the dead to be laid to rest in a Muslim cemetery. We are relieved that this cemetery provides both a centralized location for Muslim burial and the opportunity to affirm […]
Macdonald’s other legacy: francophone migration south
KAMOURASKA, QUE.—Whenever friends visit from elsewhere, I make sure to bring them to a small graveyard and chapel located about five kilometres outside of the current town of Kamouraska. A large sign identifies it as “Le Berceau de [The Cradle of] Kamouraska.” Between 1691 and 1792, this was the religious and political centre from Rivière […]
Will the real Joe Clark please stand up?
NIAGARA-ON-THE-LAKE, ONT.—It was clear from the moment they handed out the “Budget in Brief” in the media lock-up for the Progressive Conservatives’ 1979 budget that Joe Clark’s minority government was done for. “Part of the reason for our disappointing economic performance during the past decade has been the failure of governments, particularly the federal government, […]
