Energy East: the unrelenting sales pitch.
Are you as weary as everyone else with the heavy-handed TransCanada Pipelines television commercials? All the company wants to do is convert its main gas pipeline to a heated, high…
Federal Politics
Explaining Canadian liberalism
It is the risk of appearing academic or pedantic (book-smart) that usually precludes any discussion of what liberalism is all about. It reminds us of an old friend—a law professor…
Harper’s friends form formidable phalanx.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper has interesting friends. As the Prime Minister said in New York the other day, neither he nor his friends take ‘No’ for an answer. It was…
Dean Del Gonza
Liberals from coast to coast are revelling in a pot of schadenfreude tonight: Fifth Tory leaves Harper’s caucus in scandal OTTAWA – Prime Minister Stephen Harper lost his fifth caucus…
Iggy Returns
Everywhere you go these days, there’s Michael Ignatieff. I’ve even seen him walking around Yorkville twice within the past month. For those who miss seeing Ignatieff’s face on every third…
Tilting at Toronto transit troubles.
Who won what? How do you compare $660 million from the federal government to $1.4 billion from the province and say Toronto Mayor Ford won? What did he win? And…
The challenge in Toronto-Centre.
It is something of a dry run. If Justin Trudeau is going to make a difference as Liberal Party leader in the federal election expected in 2015, the Liberals have…
The Hair helps His Honour.
You could tell from the news clips of yesterday’s event that the Hair is enjoying his holiday. With Parliament prorogued until late October, the hair has time to visit with…
Burying Blackberry before the buyers.
Thursday nights on CBC’s National News there is an excellent panel of pundits, usually monitored by news reader Peter Mansbridge. The panellists are Chantal Hébert of the Toronto Star, Andrew…
Policy pillars for the 2015 election.
Nobody wants to reveal their plan too early. The key is to take ownership of the key issue(s) at a time when your opponents are already committed and can only…
Mass murder in Lac-Mégantic
The Dangerous Goods Driver’s Handbook for Canada starts with a disclaimer that states: “The transportation of dangerous goods is subject to complicated and changing Government regulations. Transport Canada has a…
Mulcair, in motion.
They took New Democrat Leader Thomas Mulcair to Saskatchewan this week. It was like bringing him home to be baptized. Here they were in Saskatchewan, the home of Tommy Douglas…
The Hair needs better speech writers.
It must be the high turnover in the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO). Did nobody notice when the last speechwriters left? Yesterday we found out that the Hair needs until October…
Harper’s ‘Hail Mary’ for Keystone XL.
A ‘Hail Mary’ is that final play in the football game where you have to go for the goal or nothing. That is the play Prime Minister Stephen Harper is…
Letting in the political fringe.
The local Sun Media newspaper in Babel is very thin. It has very little advertising and little budget. It therefore welcomes free articles from local writers. Some of these writers…
Wither without Verizon on the horizon?
Somebody took away Prime Minister Harper’s big stick. Verizon has declined the opportunity to come up here and play in the Bell-Rogers-Telus sandbox. Do the Canadian telecom trio look pleased?…
Harper can skate backwards.
Do you feel that you have been getting mixed messages from the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) lately? It is like watching a fast-paced hockey game. The puck and the teams…
The long hot summer of M. Mulcair.
It has been a tough summer for our parliament’s Leader of the Opposition. Thomas Mulcair of the New Democrats has been leading from the rear. We have seen more of…
The Hair is hawkish on war.
Is war just a telephone call away? Is it that simple? Can the Canadian Prime Minister just call up the President of the United States and say, “It’s okay. You…
The boring battle over bitumen.
It is really not our favourite topic. Bitumen is boring. The conundrum we are facing is that the Harper Conservatives are so bereft of any solutions to our country’s economic…