Author: Dale Smith

With the passing of Jack Layton, here are
some of the tributes being paid.

Olivia Chow, Sarah and Michael Layton:

We deeply regret to inform you that The
Honourable Jack Layton, leader of the New Democratic Party of Canada, passed
away at 4:45 am…

Stephen Harper has curtailed his trip to
Resolute for the Operation Nanook arctic exercises in the wake of the First Air plane crash that happened over the weekend. That exercise has been cancelled, which
also means that Harper likely won&r…

Determined to continue their “tough on
crime” posturing summer tour, Vic Toews and Jason Kenney unveiled 32 new “most
wanted” names and faces, this time people who were convicted of crimes in
Canada and due to be dep…

It seems that NDP interim leader Nycole
Turmel has an issue with representation by population. Speaking about the
upcoming legislation to give more seats to BC, Alberta and Ontario, Turmel
called it “divisive.” The NDP position is al…

All anyone could talk about yesterday was
the fact that we’ve restored the word “Royal” to both the Navy and the Air
Force, and predictably, there was backlash from the small-r republicans in the
country, as well…

The Commons finance committee met briefly
yesterday at the behest of Liberal Scott Brison, and eventually the NDP’s
committee members, in order to establish the parameters of a study on how the
global economic turmoil will affect the Canadian e…

The Sun chain has shown their gay-baiting
ways once again, this time putting the NDP’s associate queer issues critic Dany
Morin in their crosshairs. The report was that Morin felt that the government
needs a ministerial-level queer …

The government has put chief apple polisher
Candace Hoeppner in charge of the ad hoc panel to look at Supreme Court justice
nominees. Predictably, people cry foul and that it will ensure that only
Conservative-leaning judges get appointed. …

Stephen Harper was in Colombia yesterday to
tout the coming into force of the Canada-Colombia Free Trade agreement, as well as to denounce its detractors. You
know, the agreement that Liberal MP Scott Brison pretty much single-handedly save…

Last week, Amnesty International wrote
Jason Kenney and Vic Toews an open letter about their “suspected war criminal”
hunt, and listed a number of concerns about the process and the fact that if
these are actual war criminals, t…

The Foreign Affairs committee met yesterday
afternoon to discuss the situation in Libya. The progress is largely halting,
with mere incremental progress, and small surprise, the NDP don’t want to
extend the military mission past Septe…

Stephen Harper and several members of his
cabinet have left for a six-day trip to Latin America to “bolster trade” with
countries there, particularly Brazil, and sign a bunch of agreements while
they’re there. Oh, and…

We all suspected this was coming, but
perhaps not in this particular form. Tony Clement and Rona Ambrose held a press
conference yesterday to announce that they were creating Shared Services
Canada, which is designed to do things like work …

Seeing as we never had a chance to chat at
the end of the abbreviated spring session, I caught up with Liberal MP Scott Brison
yesterday by phone.

Q: How were those three weeks back in the House?

A: We have an important job to do with a
governmen…

Oh yes, Canada – this hot mess happened. A
YouTube clip surfaced yesterday (which has since been removed) which showed
Harper at a Rob Ford barbecue, gushing over Ford helping to clean up the “left-wing
mess” in the city…

Oh, NDP. It seems your interim leader,
Nycole Turmel, held a Bloc Quebecois membership while she was also a member of
the Federal NDP. And she’s a current member of Quebec Solidaire provincially
(you know, the guys who think the PQ ar…

A section of a tunnel in Montreal collapsed over the weekend, which I’m sure will reignite the debate over the Champlain
Bridge and other crumbling infrastructure in that city. In fact, if there was a
Question Period held today, we co…

The Friday afternoon of a long weekend in
the middle of summer came and went, and the government didn’t release something
that they wanted buried. Weird, I know. It completely goes against tradition.

Rookie NDP MP Charmaine Borg talks ab…

Well,
that didn’t take long – anonymous New Democrats are going to the media,
slagging off Nycole Turmel saying she lacks “fire” and will be overshadowed by
Bob Rae, while the Conservatives recycled a four-year old story about T…

The NDP
say that they’re not going to suffer from leadership infighting the way the Liberals
did. Really! Why does this sound like famous last words?

Speaking
of the Liberals, a number of party veterans sound like they’re to v…