Author: Dale Smith

While NDP
MPs were in Ottawa to meet over the issue of the interim leadership, I caught
up with queer rights critic Randall Garrison this afternoon.

Q: It’s
Outgames and Pride in Vancouver. What were you involved with there before this
caucus…

News of
Jack Layton’s health crisis came just as NDP MP Libby Davies was ready to
celebrate Pride in Vancouver. I caught up with Davies after the caucus meeting
this morning.

Q: Vancouver
Pride and Outgames are this week. What are your plans …

On the
eve of their caucus meeting to “consult” on the topic of the interim leader,
NDP MPs seem to all agree that Nycole Turmel is a good choice, and there don’t
appear to be any ruffled feathers by the deputy leaders. …

As
you’ve no doubt heard by now, NDP Leader Jack Layton is taking a temporary leave of absence in order to deal with a new type of cancer that he is now
battling. He has recommended that newly-elected Hull-Aylmer MP Nycole…

Newly
minted NDP MPs are complaining to the media that outgoing MPs shredded constituency files rather than turn them over when they took office. Pardon me
while I make a call to the Minister of State for Poor Little Bunny. These files
te…

Because we are a country that apparently believes in informing on one’s neighbours, the government took the rather unprecedented move of posting the names and photos of 30 “suspected war criminals” that it says may have ente…

As it seems to be Liberal MP Carolyn Bennett’s week to man the fort in Ottawa, she called a press conference this morning to draw attention to the fact that Statistics Canada has released their annual crime statistics, and oh, look – t…

In case you haven’t noticed, it’s sweltering in the Nation’s Capital, which is probably what’s smothering the news cycle. At least, here in Canada, anyway.What’s that? The federal government is failing to protect&nbsp…

The government is set to strip the citizenship of some 1800 Canadians who apparently attained it fraudulently. The kicker – some of them may not know that their citizenship is fraudulent. Meanwhile, the newly reformed refugee system is set t…

Populist rhetoric on Senate reform is nothing new, but this Maclean’s interview with Tim Uppal, the newly appointed Minister of State for Democratic Reform – and the man Harper has put in charge of pushing through his Senate &ldqu…

The Parliamentary Budget Officer has created a new database to help MPs track government spending so that they have more timely information when it comes time to review expenditures for the supplementary estimates. Which is great. But then th…

While 24 Sussex continues to deteriorate, Harper continues to refuse to move out so that they can do the necessary renovations, knowing full well that the longer he holds off, the more it will cost the treasury. Justin Trudeau says he’s…

I know this particular speech has been floating around the Internet for a couple of weeks (also available here if the previous link is behind a firewall), but I felt it important to raise it once again, in light of my post&nbsp…

The Ethics Commissioner has ruled that Helena Guergis did indeed contravene ethics guidelines when she promoted a company that her husband was connected to in a letter to her local council. But might I just add that the NDP have no room to co…

In less than 24 hours, the Conservative government decided that perhaps they were being a bit foolish, and they released the report on the Champlain Bridge, which apparently wasn’t as bad as they were intimating. And it also laid out so…

I know we’re all playing the Champlain Bridge drinking game at this point, but here it goes. The government received a report on the state of the bridge – which is crumbling, and the opposition parties have been hounding that it n…

The Conservative government has declared that if provinces want to create their own long-gun registries when they’ve finished killing the federal one, they’re welcome to do so – but not to expect any help with either existin…

At a Stampede event in Calgary, Stephen Harper declared the “long Liberal era” to be over. Also, Conservatives need to reach out to Quebec, because their honeymoon with Quebec will eventually be over. Bob Rae calls this arrog…

“Popular rule is not democracy, Anakin. It gives the people what they want, not what they need.”This line comes from a deleted scene from Attack of the Clones of all films, where Padmé Amidala talks about how she resisted t…

Tony Clement promises that budget cuts won’t put Canadians at risk, though there are already some disputes about that with the closure of rescue centres in Newfoundland and Quebec City. Not to mention the longer-term damage of cuts to things…