Ten Good Reads to to Cozy Up with This Winter

 As the year wraps up, the weather gets colder, and the days get shorter, why not light your fireplace and curl up with a good book? Here are Ottawa Life Magazine’s top ten reading picks for this season in no particular order. From thought-provoking political memoirs to enchanting and heartfelt

The existential crisis in the Conservative Party

 ABOVE: (CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT) Conservative leadership candidates Scott Aitchison, Roman Baber, Patrick Brown, Pierre Poilievre, Leslyn Lewis, and Jean Charest. There is an adage that perfectly fits the Conservative Party of Canada today, “‘Do You Want to Be Right . . . or do you want to win.” The answer to that question

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

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

Democracy Watch calls for update on SNC-Lavalin prosecution

 In February, 2019, the SNC-Lavalin scandal erupted and upended Canadian politics—for a moment. After a six-month-long investigation, Ethics Commissioner Mario Dion concluded Prime Minister Justin Trudeau alone had exerted undue pressure on Attorney General Jody Wilson-Raybould to defer criminal prosecution of the construction company SNC-Lavalin. Though Dion’s report concluded that

Let’s try this again

 Over the past few years alone, the concept of feminism has morphed and changed exponentially. Although the key to feminism simply being ‘equality for all, no matter their gender’ has remained the same throughout generations, how that is viewed in the eyes of society has all but remained fluid. For this,

The SNC-Lavalin scandal and Trudeau’s artificial apology

 Photo credit: Canada 2020 Thirteen years ago, the Conservatives enacted the Federal Accountability Act, designed to bring an end to political interference in the justice system. This act gave independence to the director of public prosecutions. Despite this enactment, for a period of approximately four months from September to December