Defectors define democracy.
One of the critical strengths of our Canadian democracy is that we elect people in each electoral district to represent us in parliament. While we might choose them because of…
Provincial Politics
If you cannot confront, confuse.
It is a desperation strategy. As one of the three programs fighting greenhouse gases in Canada, Ontario’s ‘Carbon Trust’ is certainly the zaniest. Where ‘Cap and Trade’ lets industries buy…
Premier Notley comes to Ottawa.
She rode out of the west to plead her case in Ottawa this past week. Strangely, it is the same case as her arch rival, Jason Kenney, would have made.…
Meet Ms. Mulroney and Ms. Simard.
Coventry can be described as that place in the corner of the Ontario legislature to where politicians are sent to be forever forgotten. They continue to draw their pay from…
I, Dinosaur.
While ruminating, the other day, over something brilliant to say about the pickle the politicians are in over the unkind machinations of General Motors, I was actually more concerned about…
Where bullies wear blue.
Welcome to Queen’s Park. This is that island in the centre of Toronto that carries the weight of Ontario’s provincial government. The uniform of the day on this island of…
Doppelgangers don’t do it.
There is a tendency among political leaders to have someone very much like themselves to serve as their chief of staff. It gives them confidence that the person will react…
You don’t have to go to St. Mike’s to be bullied.
The original intent was to ignore the bad public relations of St. Michael’s College School. It amazes me that the current situation there could be handled so badly. The principal…
The Bitumen Business: Not for the timid.
As much as we try to keep up to date on the business of bitumen, it is not because we want to report every dip and dive in the industry.…
Chuckles’ confusion of conservatives.
Federal conservative leader Andrew ‘Chuckles’ Scheer knows that a bunch of whales is a ‘pod,’ and a group of geese a ‘gaggle.’ We are guessing that he has also found…
The anger of Alberta.
Canadians saw something of the growing anger and distrust of the people of Calgary the other day. There is no reason to expect more from the rest of the province.…
Doug Ford’s mean streak.
It seems that Douglas Ford Jr.’s mother never told him that what goes around comes around. That is not just a homily. It is a warning. The Ontario premier is…
Is it the HOW or the WHO?
If the citizens of British Columbia are formally debating their referendum on voting systems, there is one resolution that needs to be debated. The question is “Be it resolved that…
Our friends in B.C have been ‘RUP’ted.
Not being from the Wet coast as our friends there sometimes call their beautiful province, we had to get our information about the current British Columbia voting referendum from the…
The confidence of Jason Kenney.
Alberta’s leader of the consolidated conservatives, Jason Kenney, is a strange man. I have never envisioned him as a person who brings people together. He has always seemed more interested…
Ford fights his false phantoms.
Premier Ford of Ontario must think business people in the province are generally stupid. At an Ontario Chamber of Commerce sponsored luncheon, he told the business people there that the…
Let’s have ‘Whack-a-Mole’ voting.
Blame Chantal Hébert. The other day she described the voting reform question as a whack-a-mole game. It just keeps popping up and needs to get a whack. The only reason…
A government built on falsehoods.
Martin Regg Cohn of the Toronto Star described the Ontario conservatives as ageist the other day. He believes that Doug Ford’s Tories are the party of only the old people.…
Kudos to Vancouver’s Kennedy Stewart.
It took guts. That was no walk in the park for a new democrat to give up his seat in parliament and challenge for the Vancouver mayoralty, as an independent.…
Pushing mediocrity to prove what?
If I learned one thing as a political organizer of many years, it is that you never leave the smallest detail to chance. The same rule applied in business when…