Paranoid Delusions
When Vic Toews proclaimed this week that those who didn’t stand with the government “stand with the child pornographers,” Ann Cavoukian — Ontario’s Privacy Commissioner — responded, “What it showed…
Owen Gray
Understanding Brush Fires
Chantal Hebert doubts that the NDP’s hold on Quebec is permanent. She points to dwindling support for the party: Ten months after the fact, the so-called Quebec orange wave feels…
Severely Misguided
Anne Richards, the late Governor of Texas, once said that the man who succeeded her — George W. Bush — was born “with a silver foot in his mouth.” Mitt…
Poverty As Moral Trupitude
As the Harper Conservatives peddle the myth that the Old Age Security program is unsustainable, we should be prepared for the next assault. It comes in the form of Charles…
Faux Conservatives
Some commentators looked at this week’s census numbers and saw blue skies and sunshine for Stephen Harper’s Conservatives. As Jeffrey Simpson notes in today’s Globe and Mail, the term “conservative”…
The Hypocrisy Is Stunning
Today, on his road trip through China, Stephen Harper took another swipe at those “radical” environmentalists: Our government is committed to ensuring that Canada hasthe infrastructure necessary to move our…
The Rules Have To Change
Tom Walkom writes that, as things stand, not much could have been done to keep the doomed Electro-Motive plant in London. He points out that Bombardier no longer manufactures locomotives…
Not Your Father’s Conservative Party
Tom Walkom writes that the Harper government is not what we used to call a Conservative government. It does not stand for what Conservatives have traditionally stood for: The old…
This Is Competence?
Stephen Harper likes to claim, as he did in Davos, that his government is a shining example of prudent financial management. That boast, Lawrence Martin writes is the Globe and…
Government By Gaffe
“A gaffe,” Michael Kingsley wrote, “is when a politician tells the truth.” Americans have been treated to several examples of this phenomenon as Mitt Romney seeks the presidency. Last week,…
Smug Stupidity
Jeffrey Simpson wrote in yesterday’s Globe and Mail that: Under the Harper government, Canada lost its bid for a Security Council seat – the first time it had ever been…
We’ve Been Played for Chumps
It’s been quite a week. It began with Mitt Romney declaring, “I’m not concerned about the very poor. We have a safety net there.” It ended with Caterpillar shutting down…
The Fault Is In Ourselves
We have nurtured an old curmudgeon. He or she has been with us for a long time. However, we have never had so many of them at the same time.…
Anti Intellectual
The Harper government is willing to spend money — on prisons and F35 jets. The simple truth is that it’s not willing to spend money on pensions. Therefore, its “improvement”…
Rejecting The Frame
In the last six years, the Harper Conservatives have been very good at defining the terms of debate. That is, they have set the premises of those debates, and the…
Brain Dead?
Richard Cohen writes this morning that Herman Cain’s endorsement of Newt Gingrich is proof positive that the Grand Old Party is brain dead: It’s hard to know who is the…
Canada’s Newt Gingrich
Susan Delacourt writes this morning that when the Liberals made budget cuts in 1995, they sold their program by using fear — fear that we were about to hit a…
Seizing Expediency
The cuts Stephen Harper wants to make to Old Age Security are driven by ideology, not necessity. Consider the Public Appointments Commission and the Employment Insurance Financing Board. Both departments…
Making It Easy
Susan Riley wrote in the Ottawa Citizen yesterday that federal politics these days is truly baffling: It is hard to decide what is more astonishing: Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s inconsistencies…
Full Of Himself
On the same day that the Globe and Mail reported on Stephen Harper’s “grand plan to reshape Canada,” and on Tony Clement’s announcement that the “budget axe could cut deeper,…