No apology was necessary.
Immigration Minister John McCallum sounded a bit testy with the news media the other day. They had probably forced him to give the same answer to the same question more…
Peter Lowry
Two thumbs up for the Charbonneau show.
As Cole Porter put it in “Another Op’nin’, Another Show” to open his hit musical Kiss me Kate, there really is no business like show business. And there is nothing…
Would they also kill the first-born?
It seems many liberals were outraged when somebody suggested that we only accept Syrian women with children as refugees. Now we find out that fathers are included. Maybe we should…
Can the provinces keep the money?
It seems that the point has been made about climate change: Industry can destroy the environment if they pay a tax on it. And that is why the provinces are…
Is America destroying the dream?
A reader asked recently why we were ignoring the current American political scene. It is not that we are not following what is going on. We just feel sad about…
Ontario: Socially responsible or greedy?
Fear not fellow Ontarians, we will soon have some beer in some of our supermarkets. We are told that this is all being done to be socially responsible about booze.…
Is the media the measure?
Commentator Chantal Hébert worries that Justin Trudeau lacks the gravitas of former Prime Minister Jean Chrétien. Thomas Walkom fears Trudeau is out of touch with the world leaders who have…
Don’t have a cow DiManno.
Toronto Star writer Rosie DiManno is the reason better publications have the best editors. And the reason many people do not waste their time on her stuff is that the…
Canada’s new PM is entitled to a victory lap.
When the victor in a gruelling race gets up from the finish line and gamely trots around the track one more time, nobody begrudges them their victory lap. It is…
“Fear us,” said ISIL. But should we?
“Fear us,” said bin Laden’s al-Queda. And the Americans feared them. They involved the West in foreign wars that nobody has won. The people who call themselves an Islamic State…
Marc Garneau blots his copy book.
Why is it the people you like who can really screw things up? And what could be a safer job for MP Marc Garneau than Minister of Transport? You would…
No pirouettes for Justin.
There will be no pirouettes to mock the Queen when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau stops over in London to meet the Queen on his way to the Malta meeting of…
The makeover of Brother Brown.
The best thing you can say about Ontario Progressive Conservative Leader Patrick Brown is that he is a real piece of work. He is a person who works very hard…
Advice for new (and old) politicians.
Interim Conservative Leader Rona Ambrose made her first mistake last weekend. It was in a reply to something Tom Clark asked her on his West Block show for Global Television.…
Pick your preferred pollster.
They say that if you cannot beat them, you might as well join them. Obviously nobody has learned their lesson about pollsters. Through most of this past year, we had…
Fix policing by fixing police boards.
It seems there was an attempt recently to get the Toronto Police Services Board thinking about reform of policing. It is reported that the board spent $200,000 of public money…
“You can’t get to Heaven on the Yonge Streetcar”
While the song might have had its origin in the U.S. Bible Belt, the guys in our Canadian Air Force barrack seemed to know at least a dozen verses, including…
“It is your friends who bring you down.”
That headline was a casual comment by Susan Delacourt of the Toronto Star on Tom Clark’s West Block show on Global last Sunday. She was, of course, talking about politics.…
Practicing polite politics.
If there was a single fixed point of departure from the Harper era to the new Trudeau government, it would be in foreign affairs. The choice of former Liberal Leader…
Is politics really a team sport?
In the Pearson-Trudeau era of Liberal politics in Canada the chief political apparatchik of the times was the later Senator Keith Davey. He was a friend and a mentor. He…