The brutish mother of all federal elections is (mercifully) nearing its conclusion. But a few twists and turns are still possible, as the leader of the third party recently showed us. The Tories are ahead of the Liberals in most opinion polls, albeit by a narrow margin of one to two per cent. The former…
How the NDP can still be competitive in oil-and-gas rich provinces like Alberta and Saskatchewan when it is devoutly anti-energy is beyond me
My dad, Anthony “Tony” Diotte was a locomotive engineer at Algoma Steel in Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., a long-time executive for his United Transportation Union local as well as a staunch supporter of the NDP until his death in 1994. But I can guarantee you my father would not vote for the federal NDP today.…
Canadians have witnessed major scandals, offensive remarks, daily mud-slinging and policy proposals with big, shiny numbers that are wasteful enough to make adults cry
The federal election has just passed the halfway mark and many Canadians can’t wait until it’s over. This isn’t related to the usual malaise and frustration we see and hear during election season. Rather, it has everything to do with the fact this has been the most ridiculous political campaign in Canadian history. Where to…
The Greens offer the most comprehensive plan. But it, like all the other platforms, is significantly shortly on details about costs
During this federal election campaign, my youngest grandchild turned three months old and I had my 79th birthday. What can I hope for our futures? I cast my first vote for John Diefenbaker’s Progressive Conservatives before most of today’s voters were born and steadily migrated through the ideological spectrum. I worked in Pierre Trudeau’s Liberal…
Maybe Trudeau should have dressed up as a clown at that party in 2001. It would have suited him better
Pierre Elliott Trudeau’s defining accomplishment as prime minister was the creation of Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Regardless of the politics surrounding the creation of the document, it embodies Canadian democracy in the highest form. The senior Trudeau’s intention was to create a “just society” – a term that was his trademark during the…
Four years after retiring from talk radio, he has things to tell you about the state of the Canada, Alberta and Calgary. And he has a new YouTube show to get you up to date
Dave Rutherford is a longtime broadcast journalist and commentator in Calgary. What are you up to? Rutherford: It's been four years since I was on the radio full time and I'm not going to lie, it has been a difficult transition into retirement. A year or so after leaving the airwaves, the NDP was elected…
Democracy is not something that merely happens in the natural course of events. And it’s not an unsavoury meal you push away from
So begins the quadrennial Canadian season of sound with no substance, rhetoric with no relevance and promises with no perspective. In other words, dear reader, it’s election time. But wait, you cleverly elucidate, elections don’t manufacture vapid, gormless, pontificators; politicians are always with us, like potholes. Agreed: No, they don’t; and yes, they are. The…
Warren Kinsella could end up being the Green Party’s most important political acquisition
When the Globe and Mail’s Robert Fife tweeted last week that longtime Liberal strategist Warren Kinsella would advise Elizabeth May and the federal Green Party in the fall election, it surprised some Canadians. Kinsella’s disappointment with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau isn’t a big secret. He’s not been impressed with his leadership, policy positions and public…
So, Green Party, you want to build a kinder, gentler corner of the world? How? What, exactly, do you have in mind?
It wasn’t too long ago the only viable alternative to the Grit and Tory machines in Atlantic Canada was the New Democratic Party. You remember them? They used to come knocking round your front door every election cycle – their game faces plastered on with the permanent ink of utter conviction – offering voters newer,…
From such a hollow declaration playing to a general anxiety about the future will come ill-considered actions with real consequences
“If language is not correct, then what is said is not what is meant; if what is said is not what is meant, then what must be done remains undone; if this remains undone, morals and art will deteriorate; if justice goes astray, the people will stand about in helpless confusion. Hence there must be…