Author: Peter Wrightwater

On Thursday’s edition of Power and Politics, Evan Solomon and Stéphane Dion had the following exchange:Solomon: Let’s get Mr. Dion’s perspective. Is this fair for Quebec, given the fact that Mr. Uppal has now said that if there is redistribution of se…

If you thought the near death experience of last May’s election was going to make Liberals more disciplined in terms of messaging, think again.Here’s Stephane Dion, the Liberal’s Democratic Reform critic, responding to a question from Evan Solomon on t…

The New Democrat Leader of the Opposition is waiting to get her marching orders from the Liberal Premier of Quebec, before she’ll sign off on the Conservative government’s seat redistribution bill.That was the upshot of a press conference held by NDP I…

Here it is from a PDF backgrounder:A representation rule would apply such that if a currently overrepresented province becomes underrepresented as a result of the application of the updated formula, additional seats would be allocated to that province …

Take a look at this:In an interview with The Globe, [Thomas Mulcair] recounted how he informed the Canadian national director of the Steelworkers, Ken Neumann, that he opposed a reserved voting block for unions at the NDP leadership convention in March…

In an interview with Straight Goods News, Brian Topp put forward one of the questions he wants New Democrats to have uppermost in their minds when they cast their ballots for a new leader.Do New Democrats want to become an angry and divisive party?Resp…

Earlier today, I published a post on the New Democrat’s use of the euphemism "political weight" to hide from Canadians their policy to guarantee Quebec 24% of the seats in the House of Commons, in perpetuity. Shortly afterwards, the Hill Times published an article that gives us an example of just how insidious this kind of deceptive Orwellian language can be.Here’s what the article says:The

In his essay Politics and the English Language, George Orwell writes:In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defence of the indefensible. […] Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cl…

Whenever I’m in the company of progressives, and the topic turns to Barack Obama, the question quickly arises: "What went wrong?"Warren Kinsella recently had a similar conversation, albeit with someone who has slightly more impressive credentials than the folks I talk to: a former advisor to President Bill Clinton.So what did "the Clinton guy" have to say: the public has checked out on Obama; a

In mid-September, we get this in a Conservative Party memo:[Brian] Topp is a union boss and has deep union ties. […] How could Brian Topp speak on behalf of all Canadians, when he is so tied to big union special interests.Then earlier this week, we g…

Yesterday, the Canadian Index of Wellbeing report was released. CIW’s advisor board chair Roy Romanow said:The CIW shows us what GDP cannot: our country is not reaping all of the benefits of our economic growth. Our quality of life has actually gone do…

I’ll have a more detailed post on this once the legislation is tabled, but for now, a word of caution.If the Harper Government uses the Quebecois nation resolution – as the New Democrats and the Mowat Centre advocate – in order to justify giving Quebec…

Steve V., October 17, 2011: from A Liberal MessiahHowever, I would argue we Liberals are in a unique circumstance, our perch precarious. It is important that grassroots Liberals rally behind the flag, and in some respects the post-election period has b…

While in British Columbia yesterday, New Democratic Party leadership candidate Brian Topp seems to have forgotten his party’s longstanding policy to grant Quebec 24% of the seats in the House of Commons in perpetuity:"Also [I] believe a small adjustment should be made to maintain the provinces of Quebec’s… something like its traditional role in the house with an appropriate balance so we need

On October 3rd, New Democrat mp Jean Rousseau introduced Bill C-312, the Democratic Representation Act. The bill seeks to guarantee the Province of Quebec a percentage of the seats in the House of Commons in perpetuity. The bill reads, in part:The prop…

The initial shock and awe of Brian Topp’s run for leader of the New Democratic Party has quickly morphed into a father knows best campaign. Topp keeps piling up the endorsements from party bigwigs while the membership seems expected to do as they’re to…

On Tuesday, David Frum and Lawrence Martin debated the resolution: Pierre Trudeau was Canada’s most disastrous prime minister. The event was part of a four-part series on historical topics sponsored by the MacDonald-Laurier Institute and the Ottawa Cit…

A lot of ones and zeroes have been spilled in recent days lamenting the non-existent New Democrat leadership race.Some New Democrats insist the race hasn’t even began yet. Which only leads me to conclude that the explosions from Brian Topp’s shock and …

I’ll have more on the New Democratic Party’s leadership race – or lack thereof – later. But for now, here’s an interview with candidate Romeo Saganash posted on the McGill Daily’s web site yesterday.The McGill Daily: What prompted you to run for the ND…

In an interview for Macleans, Interim Liberal Leader Bob Rae puts his finger on a very real problem bedevilling the Liberal Party of Canada:“Sometimes issues are in front of you,” he shrugs, “and sometimes issues are not in front of you.” For n…