Opposition MPs declare ‘war’ over feds’ efforts to ram through sweeping changes to House rules, ‘we’re filibustering to protect the right to filibuster’
Opposition MPs spent nearly 15 hours in the basement of Centre Block on Tuesday, holed-up in a committee meeting room filibustering the Liberal government’s attempt to expedite a study on possible sweeping changes to how the House of Commons rules, and the saga is set to continue on Wednesday too. After going through much of […]
Enbridge cutting 1,000 jobs after completing takeover of Spectra Energy
Enbridge Inc. (TSX:ENB) says it is cutting about 1,000 jobs or six per cent of its workforce following the takeover of Houston-based Spectra Energy. Calgary-based Enbridge says it is laying off people to address overlaps in the combined company’s organizational structure after completing its acquisition of Spectra in late last month. Company spokesman Todd Nogier […]
Bill Morneau’s budget caught between Trump and a hard place
It’s safe to say that the budget Finance Minister Bill Morneau unveils today won’t be the one he originally intended as a second instalment of the Liberals’ plan to help the middle class — and all those seeking to join it. Part of the reason is that his first budget — with the billions dedicated […]
Maxime Bernier’s campaign says it will now forward any complaints about membership violations to the Conservative Party and no longer publicly discuss them, including allegations of vote-buying against fellow leadership candidate Kevin O’Leary. Kory Teneycke, the former vice-president of Sun News and communications director to Stephen Harper who is advising Mr. Bernier on his leadership […]
Read MoreConservative leadership hopeful Kevin O’Leary wants every Conservative party membership to be scrutinized. “I want every single member vetted and audited,” the political firebrand told CTV Power Play on Tuesday from Saint John, NB. “That’s the only way you can know with certainty, regardless of which man or woman leads the leadership contest, how they […]
Read MoreThe Liberal MP whose private member’s motion condemning Islamophobia has divided the House of Commons used her final submission on Tuesday to address what she called “outrageous” arguments being made about her proposal. During the final debate in the Commons, Liberal MP Iqra Khalid said her motion, M-103, does not give one religion or community […]
Read MorePrime Minister Justin Trudeau will try to convince Canadians he’s just as good at generating growth as he is at handing out checks. Bill Morneau, his finance minister, releases a budget at 4 p.m. Ottawa time that will address the country’s lackluster economic performance, and will lay out how the Liberals, who came to power […]
Read MoreThe wave of asylum-seekers crossing from the United States into Canada was not spurred by the immigration policies of the Donald Trump government in the U.S., says Canada’s immigration minister. Asylum claims began rising in 2015. Mr. Trump won the presidential election late last year and was inaugurated earlier this year. A survey of those […]
Read MoreThe Alberta government is looking to this afternoon’s federal budget to support infrastructure projects, clean water for First Nations communities and the struggling oil and gas industry. Liberal Finance Minister Bill Morneau will table the budget in the House of Commons at 4 p.m. Alberta time.
Read MoreFeatured Ink
There Is No Silver Bullet For Fake News
The adverse effects of fake news and “alternative” facts south of the border have raised alarm here in Canada. There were parliamentary committee hearings and now Facebook is set to introduce to Canada tools that crack down on fake news. A technological filter is necessary, but it cannot be the only or even primary solution for fake news. […]
It’s a mystery how the Liberals are encouraging innovation and helping the middle class
Wednesday’s budget will be about the middle class and innovation. Maybe it’ll even be helpful! That would be nice. Unfortunately, the Trudeau government’s handling of both files so far has left them in something close to a shambles. I wrote here, somewhat quizzical, after Social Development Minister Jean-Yves Duclos gave a presentation to reporters about […]
Liberals likely to resist the urge to let spending taps gush in Wednesday’s budget
The size of the deficit in the coming fiscal year will be “broadly similar” to the $27.8 billion shortfall revealed in the fall fiscal update, says a senior government official familiar with the plan. The “not dissimilar” fiscal projection to be revealed in Wednesday’s budget by Finance Minister Bill Morneau suggests that the Liberal government […]
Get over your funk NDP, and stick to the Layton script
It’s budget day. Deficits, debts and the state of the books will likely be the top of the talk. It’s important stuff. Look at the last election. The New Democrats lost – or so the fable has it – because they made the mistake of campaigning on a balanced budget. Tom Mulcair pledged not to […]
Senators Meredith, Beyak textbook examples of communications gone wrong: Powers
For a second week in a row, my focus is going to be on the Senate. Not for some of the good work they have done recently on challenging bills that have come from the House of Commons or initiating reform to end genetic discrimination. No, instead it is to look at two bad apples […]
Pathetic history of clergy confusing forgiveness with innocence
There was a time when senates were filled with noble and ancient Romans. A mere sniff of immorality or impropriety and the veins were opened and death made an entrance. Such self-slaughter is not the done thing any more than goodness and I would never wish any harm on a Canadian senator, even when they […]
Trudeau and Ottawa’s culture of secrecy
He likes to talk about being ‘open’ and ‘transparent’ — but his backbench isn’t buying it. Budget day is like a big surprise party for politicos and finance geeks. The media is complicit in the surprise plotting beforehand — huddling for hours in the ‘lockup’, poring over the soon-to-be-announced numbers before the finance minister does […]
Can Alberta handle a taxing truth?
There is a day of reckoning coming in Alberta if it hasn’t arrived already. The ugly state of the province’s economic condition was once again laid bare in the NDP government’s latest budget. The debt numbers seemed to catch most off-guard; projected accumulated arrears of $71-billion by 2019-20. By pan-national standards it isn’t that extraordinary, […]
Don Meredith would like your sympathy now
By claiming to be the victim of racial persecution, he’s insulting the actual victims. Senator Don Meredith (Don Meredith would like you to know) is a victim of Canada’s prevailing and overwhelming racism. As a 52-year-old black man, he is seen as a predator, sexual and otherwise, who has risen too high in life for […]
The price of Ann Coulter’s ‘statehood’ is too high
Calgary has been rejected by Ann Coulter as the 51st U.S. state. Finally, she says something I agree with. We hadn’t exactly asked for statehood, but never mind. Coulter, the far-right American provocateur, disowns us for being tolerant and helpful. It started with Anna Brooks’s recent story in the Herald about the halal food and […]
Nixon and Trump, Trixon and Dump, Tricky Dick and Donnie Boy, you try telling those two apart. Our eyes move from the black-eyed villain seeking payoff for a lifetime of rejection to the bloated man with long yellow hair who needs petting from dawn to dusk. Which one will history judge as worse? After the […]
Read MoreVideo transcript: Donald Trump has a right to whine when the media call him a liar — not because it’s false but because it’s incomplete. This week the FBI head chimed in. Former national intelligence chief James Clapper already effectively said Trump lied about being wiretapped. But four years ago Clapper was asked if the […]
Read MoreThe first caveman to pick up a rock was putting somebody out of a job. Sharpened into a knife, it enabled him to scrape the meat off a mastodon’s bones twice as fast; attached to the end of a spear, it allowed him to kill twice as many in the same hunt. This ought to […]
Read MoreNothing concentrates the mind like the prospect of a hanging, and right now Conservative Party leadership candidates are checking their necks for the presence of a noose following allegations of membership vote-rigging. These kinds of allegations, while extremely serious, are sadly nothing new; dodgy party membership sales are as old as leadership races. And it’s […]
Read MoreThe controversy over Chrystia Freeland’s family background can be confounding. No, our foreign minister isn’t answerable for her Ukrainian-born grandfather, who edited a propaganda outlet for the Nazis in occupied Krakow. Yes, the Russians are playing a dirty game of demonization by spreading incriminating stories about her distant family background. Guilt by association plays well […]
Read MoreWhat should Canada do about our Safe Third Country Agreement with the United States? Part of the U.S.-Canada Smart Border Action Plan, the agreement states that refugee claimants must request protection in the first ‘safe’ country in which they arrive, unless they qualify for an exception (for family members, unaccompanied minors, certain document holders, and […]
Read MoreDon’t send out the wedding invitations just yet. The possible marriage between Alberta’s conservative parties moved a little closer to fruition Monday afternoon when new Progressive Conservative Leader Jason Kenney met with Wildrose Leader Brian Jean in Edmonton. They talked collegially for half an hour, we are told, but there was no, um, consummation. Not […]
Read MoreBelieve it or not, the new leader of the Alberta Progressive Conservatives won on a promise to kill the party. The party of Peter Lougheed and Ralph Klein, the party that held the reins of government for 44 years is now on life support, waiting for its leader and majority of members to pull the […]
Read More“There will be no Shariah law in Ontario,” Liberal premier Dalton McGuinty said in 2005. He was announcing that religious arbitration decisions would no longer be backed up by Ontario courts. “There will be one law for all Ontarians.” We made the right choice then. But a lot has changed in the years since. Would […]
Read MoreThe Liberals have made the middle class the focus of their government, at least as far as their communications strategy goes. But as we head into their second budget, Canadians at the middle of the income distribution could be forgiven for being puzzled. Although it has been the primary focus of the Liberals’ message, the […]
Read MoreThere is the power of position, prestige, influence, manifest manhood. There is the power of an adolescent girl’s sexual allure. Both Don Meredith, the senator, and Ms. M., the teenager, came to their clearly “inappropriate” liaison with weapons. And they wielded them. Ms. M.: The erotica of explicit online photos, pungent texts and Skype foreplay, […]
Read MoreDodge, obfuscate, duck, weave. That was the path that Senator Don Meredith took when the Red Chamber’s ethics officer investigated allegations he had a relationship with a teenage girl. Now that a damning report has been issued, the senator insists God has forgiven him. But the Senate has no right to be so forgiving. The […]
Read MoreYou’ve got to hand it to Maxime Bernier. The Quebec MP became a laughingstock after his premature turn as foreign affairs minister under Stephen Harper ended because his then-girlfriend turned out to have ties to a motorcycle gang and access to his classified briefing notes. By Canadian standards, that should have been the end of […]
Read MoreWill Canada become the next domino to fall to right-wing populism? It’s been successful just across the border. Why not here? The emerging movement of angry populism, the so-called alt-right, has already turned U.S. politics upside down. Its exponents, such as Donald Trump and his adviser Stephen Bannon, are at the top of their game. […]
Read MoreOn Saturday, as was generally foreseen, Jason Kenney became leader of the Alberta Progressive Conservatives. This sounds portentous and impressive. But one of the things that strikes you, since Kenney is proposing to (at a bare minimum) re-brand the Alberta PCs, is that their leaders are not exactly an honour roll of mighty statesmen. The […]
Read MoreEntertainment Plus
‘Gong Show’ Host, Creator Chuck Barris Dead at 87
Game show legend Chuck Barris — creator and host of “The Gong Show” — died Tuesday of natural causes at his home in Palisades, NY … according to his publicist. In addition to starting ‘Gong Show’ in 1976 … Barris had also created “The Dating Game” and “The Newlywed Game” in the ’60s. He claimed […]
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