Let’s have a bit of modesty in Government’s ability to solve major problems

 There is a yearning in the hearts of Canadians that major issues confronting us will find solutions in our lifetimes. We hope housing may be once again more affordable, food prices will come down, Indigenous peoples will be reconciled, and the world will reduce its carbon emissions so that extreme

Being seriously informed is the only way to save us from real political decline.

 Canadian Politics is facing a double whammy: A CPC leader who mistrusts journalists and believes in conspiracy theories, and growing distrust and reduced influence of journalists. The degradation of Canadian politics continues with the convincing crowning of Pierre Poilievre as the undisputed king of Canadian Conservatives. We now have a

David Moscrop’s novel questions whether our stone-age brains can handle democracy

 Title: Too Dumb for Democracy? Why We Make Bad Political Decisions and How We Can Make Better Ones  Author: David Moscrop  Price: $15.99  Publisher: Goose Lane Editions  ISBN-10: 1773100416 Brexit. Trump. Ford Nation. What’s Going On? In Too Dumb for Democracy? political theorist David Moscrop dives deep into the why. Why do

Pierre Elliot Trudeau reminds us that leaders don’t hide in a crisis

   “For eight years Reagan had the ability to drive through a carwash in a convertible with the top down — and the only one who got wet was Jimmy Carter.” — Art Buchwald By Angelo Persichilli Famous American journalist Art Buchwald’s comment from his book “Whose Rose Garden is it

New year, old world

 As we usher in a new year, many old challenges confronting our global community still haunt us. And we don’t have the luxury to ignore them — unless we want them to fester into bigger, more intractable problems. We must therefore deal with them head-on, with candour and creativity. A

A ‘No Surprise’ Throne Speech

 This week, the 44th Parliament finally began. On Monday, as the first order of business, Ontario MP Anthony Rota was re-elected Speaker of the House of Commons. This was not a surprise, as he was generally seen as an effective and fair ‘referee’ during his first mandate. He carried out

Politics: Al Capone’s version of a team sport

 I do not like Jody Wilson-Raybould. But contrary to popular opinion on social media, this is not because I’m a blind Liberal partisan. In fact, I’ve thought JWR was a hypocritical, self-righteous narcissist since long before she became the Trudeau-hater-in-Chief. Why do I feel this way? Especially about someone who

Election 2021: Race deadlocked!

 Image Source: Global News This is Sergio Marchi’s fifth article, in a series of weekly election analysis and reflections. One week to go. That’s all the time left for political leaders to make their closing pitches for votes. At the start of week four, Nanos Research had the Liberals back

A call for a return to civility in Canadian politics

 ABOVE: NDP Leader Jameet Singh, Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole, Conservative MP Michelle Rempel Garner, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. (Background image: Cole Burston) Former Prime Ministers Joe Clark, John Turner (deceased), Brian Mulroney, Kim Campbell, Jean Chrétien, Paul Martin, and Stephen Harper all believed that politics was an honourable profession. They were civil towards

An immodest proposal for change to climate change

 By Larry McCloskey Jonathan Swift proposed that poor Irish parents alleviate poverty by selling their babies to the aristocracy as a delicatessen in, “A Modest Proposal.” Just to be clear in these humourless politically polarized times, he was kidding; that is, his 1729 Juvenalian straight-faced satire was meant to provoke

Time to rotate some federal cabinet tires

 PICTUTED ABOVE: Steven Guilbeault, Minister of Canadian Heritage, and Harjit Sajjan, Minister of National Defence. So last week I was critical of Doug Ford in terms of his competence to govern – imagine the shock from voting for someone who’s biggest policy issue was the price of beer not being ready

The real cost of cheap beer

 Right now Ontario is paying a huge price for cheap beer. Look, governing is complicated and should only be undertaken by serious people. But the thing about democracy – and we can debate if its a bug or a feature – is that we get the government we deserve based

Paging Mark Carney. . . your table is ready

 Look, Mark Carney is running. For the House of Commons? Yup. For a cabinet seat? Duh. For the Prime Minister’s Office? Yeah, probably that too. The man has become ubiquitous: a special advisor to the PM; author of a new book on the economics of climate policy; media panels; and

“What we have here is a failure to communicate.”

 Above: Paul Newman in an outake from the film Cool Hand Luke. The captain in Cool Hand Luke (1967) wasn’t referring to Canada’s vaccine roll out but man, his famous line is apt. Let’s be clear: most Canadians want the Covid-19 vaccine ASAP. So do most Belgians. And Germans. Argentinians. Indians. South

We should all be concerned about the level of federal debt and continued spending in Canada

 While many Canadians are enjoying the generous help from the federal government to cope with the tough consequences of this deadly pandemic, some are also increasingly concerned about the ability of our country to deal with the post-pandemic financial needs to re-build our economy. It is a difficult task to

Five modest measures to reset the dial and elevate Canadian politics

 By Sergio Marchi When he was elected Prime Minister in 2015, Justin Trudeau promised that he would do politics “differently”. Yet, except for a period of time when federal-provincial cooperation was central to fighting Covid-19, it has largely been business as usual. Don’t get me wrong. Canada enjoys a strong

Lowering the bar on political ethics

 The October 21, 2020 confidence vote in Parliament is one of the lowest points ever reached in Canadian politics. It was a vote about integrity and ethics, versus incompetence or, worse, corruption. It was about the propriety of a sole-sourced contract for almost a billion dollars being given to an

To win, Conservatives first need to see Red

 The starting gun has been fired on the Conservative Party leadership race. Questions of ‘who’s in’ and ‘who’s out’ are swirling. The leadership race is also bringing to the fore another important, perhaps more consequential question: what does it mean to be a Tory today? Maclean’s Paul Wells recently touched

What to do with the West?

 Grumbling in Western Canada about the Trudeau Liberals started months before, and reached a fever pitch on election night. Aside from a few lone MPs in and around Winnipeg, the Liberal Party was wiped out from the Ontario-Manitoba border straight through to West Vancouver. Even the Liberal Party stalwart Ralph

Ottawa Life’s 2019 Election Outlook: Who’s in, who’s out, who’s up, who’s down

 Who's in, who's out, who's up, who's down...the Ottawa Life Magazine 2019 Election Outlook series takes a detailed look at all the national capital area ridings and provides editorial commentary on the incumbents and the challengers in what is sure to be one of the most contentious election in decades. The

It’s Not Just the Law That’s an Ass Mr. Dickens

 Charles Dickens at his writing desk.  The 19th century novelist and author Charles Dickens, who is famous for such great books as David Copperfield, Oliver Twist, A Christmas Carol and Great Expectations, once wrote that the ‘Law is an Ass’.  Dickens had a valid reason for saying this because in

Opinion: Canada needs business, not busybodies

 By Pierre Poilievre, MP Carleton If you are a federal politician looking for an escape hatch from Bombardier’s controversial request for a billion dollar federal bail-out, one of the company’s vice-presidents recently provided it. Rob Dewar said federal help would be “…an extra bonus that would be helpful but is very clearly

Budget Day 2016

 Ever wish you were a journalist working on Parliament Hill? In the slideshow below, celebrated photographer Jean-Marc Carisse captures the excitement of Budget Day 2016. [wzslider height="600" transition="'slide'"]

Rocking the Vinyl on HBO

 Vinyl . J.C. MacKenzie (Front Left) as Skip Fontaine, Ray Romano as Zak Yankovich, Bobby Cannavale as Richie Finestra.  Photo: Niko Tavernise/HBO. You may have heard already that Mick Jagger and Martin Scorsese have teamed up with Rich Cohen and Terence Winter to create a series on HBO that offers insight

From Ottoman to Ottawa

 Canada is a nation of immigrants with a long and proud tradition of celebrating diversity. Part of that diversity includes citizens of Turkish origin. Turks first arrived in Canada in 1901 in small numbers from the Ottoman Empire, working mainly in Ontario in mining and logging camps. However, deteriorating relations between the Ottoman Empire and