Deja vu? Then, U.S. interference favoured Pearson’s Liberals. Today, China’s interference favours Trudeau’s Liberals Held on April 8, 1963, Canada’s 26th federal election was notable for two things. It ended John Diefenbaker’s nearly six years as prime minister, thus bringing the Liberals back to office for another extended run. And in a foretaste of current…
Bill C-11 is a bad bill that gives bureaucrats the power to regulate what counts as Canadian content NDP leader Jagmeet Singh has a golden opportunity to show that he can stand up to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau by keeping the government from removing important amendments to Bill C-11. Hundreds of thousands of Canadians, civil…
Chretien’s assessment? “He looks good until you put him on the ice.” Mulroney’s? “A great man and a victim of timing” On the occasion of John Turner’s death in September 2020, a column of mine earned a gentle rebuke from a regular reader. The problem wasn’t that I’d said anything factually inaccurate. Rather it was…
The chickens are coming home to roost
Could the Liberal-NDP agreement actually collapse if a proposed national dental plan for low-income Canadians isn’t implemented by year’s end? That’s what NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh reportedly threatened to do. The national dental plan was one of the centrepieces of the three-year agreement when it was signed by Singh and Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau…
Simply put, NDP and Liberal supporters found nothing of value in their parties' platforms
Ontario Premier Doug Ford and the Progressive Conservatives were triumphant in the June 2 election. That hasn’t stopped their critics and opponents from pouring cold water on this impressive victory for something not of their own making. The PCs won 40.82 per cent of the vote and 83 of the 124 contested seats. This was…
Playing little brother to the Liberals is not necessarily a winning strategy
In March, the federal Liberal and New Democratic parties agreed to a deal that would keep Justin Trudeau as prime minister until 2025. In return for policies that would increase spending on dental and pharmaceutical care and continue to strangle the oil industry, the NDP promised not to support any non-confidence motions against the Liberals…
Is the NDP-Liberal coalition attempting to whitewash the inquiries?
The Emergencies Act was invoked for the first time in Canadian history on February 14, 2022. While the public order emergency was repealed nine days later, it remains unclear whether the Trudeau government had a rational basis for concluding that it had the power to proclaim such an emergency, or whether the special parliamentary committee…
Does the party really believe women can't win in a fair fight against men?
Political parties propose and support many policies and ideas. Some ideas are top-flight and beneficial to their political fortunes. Others seem good in theory, but may require additional tinkering or minor adjustment(s). Still other ideas may turn out to be untenable, or require a significant overhaul or have to be abandoned. Then there are ideas…
Is it too much to ask for honesty from the Prime Minister?
George Orwell would likely have caught his breath at news of a prime minister caught in a flagrant fib on a day dedicated to capital T Truth. Orwell, of course, spent his journalistic career ferreting out and castigating the incessant political lying of the mid-20th century. His magisterial essay Politics and the English Language includes…
Our surfer boy PM has been a national and international embarrassment since 2015
When Justin Trudeau was first elected prime minister in 2015, there were political issues he said he wanted to tackle immediately. One of his earliest priorities was a desire to repair Canada's fractious relationship with the Indigenous community. "It is time for a renewed, nation-to-nation relationship with First Nations peoples," he told some Quebec-based First…