Columns

Letter to the Editor re: Article – Council puts brakes on red light and stop sign camera discussion

Cliff and I would publically like to thank Councillor Barry Turner, who intercepted Mr. Steer about the wording of the presentation. Having attended the Committee of the Whole meeting [Mar. 15], specifically to listen to this presentation, in our opinion it sounded like a sales pitch to Council on something that had already been decided on. Councillor Turner made it very clear that there has been no decision in Morinville to apply this technology. […]

Columns

National Column: Trump an issue for new-look Tories

Federal Conservatives have moved with astonishing speed and depth in their repudiation of the Stephen Harper years.

Some senior members of the party now talk of the need for carbon pricing. They back the Liberal inquiry into missing and murdered indigenous women. They talk of a national anti-poverty strategy, speak in more centrist tones and are showing Canadians a softer, more appealing style with Rona Ambrose as interim leader. […]

Columns

National Column: NDP must consider sad truths

As the New Democrats ponder the future of their federal party and its leadership, here are a few inconvenient truths they might have to face up to.

1. Yes, the NDP lost the last federal campaign on a fiscal and social platform that the Liberals could have written. The key planks of yearly balanced budgets and a national child care program were lifted from outdated red books. It was a decidedly middle-of-the-road document. […]

Columns

National Column: Trudeau should push for UN reform

OTTAWA-When Canada lost its bid for a United Nations Security Council seat to Portugal in 2010 it was widely seen as a humiliation, an embarrassment, the dagger through the heart of Stephen Harper’s foreign policy. […]

Columns

National Column: Conservatives, NDP have lessons to learn from PM’s trip

As they ponder the leadership of their own parties, what lessons, if any, should the Conservatives and
the New Democrats draw from Justin Trudeau’s picture-perfect official visit to Washington?

Over the coming weeks and months, the NDP and the Conservative Party of Canada will make decisions
that will shape their respective courses to the 2019 election.
[…]

Columns

National Column: Funds key to clinching Tory leadership

It is a political rule of thumb that defeated incumbents tend to drown their sorrows in money and it turns out the federal Conservatives are no exception.

At $5 million, the spending limit imposed on each of the candidates who will vie to replace Stephen Harper between now and next spring is more than five times higher than the maximum allowed for the leadership contest that resulted in Justin Trudeau’s election. […]

Columns

National Column: Trudeau must capitalize on rare U.S. attention

Justin Trudeau is about to be the man of the moment in Washington.

But official Washington’s attention span is notoriously fickle and the prime minister’s challenge will be to parlay the South Lawn pomp and the red carpet into enduring Canadian influence after Barack Obama leaves the White House.
[…]

Columns

National Column: Tories switching their tune on carbon pricing

Over the time that Stephen Harper was prime minister, Canada’s conservative movement used the notion of carbon pricing as a partisan weapon rather than as a policy tool to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions. That may be about to change. […]

Columns

National Column: ‘Fighter’ Mulcair’s pitch to the faithful

Thomas Mulcair went behind closed doors Saturday to plead for his job.

And he did it at the epicentre of last autumnís NDP carnage, downtown Toronto, speaking to party activists in the heart of the city where his New Democrats were wiped out in last autumnís federal election. […]

Columns

National Column: Glow of Paris a distant memory

When Canada’s premiers sit around the table with the prime minister, the elephants will always find a way to squeeze into the room.

Maybe because it has been so long, we’d simply forgotten.
[…]

Columns

National Column: East and West on same side of pipeline debate

When all is said and done, there is no rational reason for this week’s climate-change gathering of first ministers in Vancouver to feature an East-West brawl over pipelines.

Unless the premiers of the energy-producing provinces are irresistibly inclined to lead a charge on windmills, they have no reason to get on their high horses in order to cast themselves as champions of their resources industry. […]

Columns

National Column: Washington awaits the “anti-Trump”

Next week’s White House state dinner will be the first such soiree in 19 years in which the guest of honour is a Canadian prime minister.

But it will be the first such dinner in memory in which the Canadian prime minister will be the subject of fascination by official Washington. […]