Smears? Meaner political discourse in Ottawa?
February 20, 2012 | No Comments
When messages appeared on Twitter about details of the divorce of Canada’s minister of public safety, I thought nothing of it. Unlike most of my friends and acquaintances, I have not signed up. Then, thestar.com published this column and Calgary Herald published this column. I prefer the tenor of Kris Kotarski to Tim Harper. Politicians [...]
Parliament reopens Monday
September 17, 2011 | 1 Comment
CBCnews lines up the issues here. Gerald Caplan complains about the lack of scrutiny of these issues here. Meanwhile, the Harper Government continues its consideration of where to cut and spend, including here. Another strike involving federal regulated industries is looming. Prime Minister Harper goes to the United Nations with an agenda including child and [...]
Parliamentarians and their conduct
September 13, 2011 | 1 Comment
One would think after the scandals of former federal minister of state Helena Guergis assigning a parliamentary e-mail account to her husband and former Congressman sexting various women, people would be careful about e-mail messages. Well, these declarations of admiration in 2010 did not help. Lysiane Gagnon asked an interesting question yesterday in The Globe and Mail. [...]
Life after Jack
August 29, 2011 | 3 Comments
See articles by Linda Diebel, Stephen Maher and Jeremy Torobin. Who would have thought a hot contender for the Honourable Leader of Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition is another bilingual guy from Toronto and not a Member of Parliament? I have a strange feeling about the NDP’s next leadership race. I predict it will run very [...]
Commenting today, the last day of this parliamentary sitting
June 26, 2011 | No Comments
It has been some time since I watched Question Period or debates in the House of Commons more than once in a week or for any extended period of time. I could only be a political junkie so long with the previous official opposition yelling scandal here and there. As commented elsewhere by Michael Hammond, [...]
May 2 and after: Random thoughts
May 14, 2011 | No Comments
A few random thoughts on the last federal election. 1. Whereas pundits or the public complained of previous corruption or unresponsiveness in majority governments and thought the country needed a minority government, Stephen Harper won his argument and convinced a plurality of voters that a majority government is preferable. We are back to the relative [...]
Elections (and parliamentary democracy) are interesting again
April 30, 2011 | No Comments
Questions I have this weekend–which I hope Monday’s federal election will shed some light on the answers. How effective and efficient will be the Conservative strategy of consolidation of its voter support and micro-targeting voter subsets and individual electoral districts? Will the Conservatives benefit from Liberal-NDP and Bloc-NDP competitions in Ontario and Quebec? How many [...]
Earthquakes, nuclear reactors, and emergency preparedness
March 13, 2011 | No Comments
I have felt an earthquake only once in my lifetime. In the 1980s, I was sitting at home in Orleans. All of a sudden I felt myself swaying, like on a ship or like when you are standing in a bus, and did not have any insight into what was happening. The night-time news [...]
To shoot or not? That is the question
March 6, 2011 | 2 Comments
Now that popular demonstrations have led to changes in governments in Tunisia, Egypt and Jordan and continue in Bahrain, Libya and Yemen, questions among North American media, politicians and think tanks include whether the world should intervene in Libya. My questions include: Is intervention about preventing Qaddafi’s jets hitting Libyan targets, similar to the NATO intervention to [...]
Campaigning after Labour Day
September 16, 2010 | No Comments
October 25 and November 2, 2010, and September 24, 2011. These are the three dates I mark on the calendar. On October 25 this year, we will know whether Rob Ford or George Smitherman becomes mayor of Toronto. As a municipal councillor for ten years, Ford is hardly an outsider. However, Smitherman is [...]