Columns
National Column: Courts are main threat to Canadian medicare
The biggest challenge to medicare comes not from right-wing politicians who would openly dismantle Canada’s public health insurance system.
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Columns
National Column: Ottawa aims for the moon shots
One of the best little rules in Ottawa requires that public opinion research done for the government be made public after it is submitted.
When you know what the feds are polling on, it’s a pretty good proxy for knowing what they’re planning. […]
Columns
National Column: Trouble and opportunities in the new Trump world
Is Dion the best pitchman for Canada-U.S. affairs? A connected Freeland gets a second look
Count back from known events. Late this month the Trudeau cabinet will hold a two-day retreat outside Ottawa. The last time the prime minister summoned his colleagues for one of these occasional getaways, in Sudbury at the end of August, he gave a few ministers new jobs and shook up the committees that organize their work. […]
Columns
National Column: Health-care power play on deck
On Friday evening, something will happen that hasn’t happened in nearly 13 years. The prime minister and the provincial premiers will talk about Canada’s health-care system.
Oh, the fun they had last time! Paul Martin was the prime minister. He had run and won re-election on a promise to “fix health care for a generation.” […]
Columns
National Column: Trudeau chose family first, but Ottawa’s Castro policy has always been ambivalent
I want to talk about the rest of Canada’s weird, hesitant relationship with Cuba. But first, since I’m just getting to it now, a few words about Justin Trudeau and Fidel Castro.
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Columns
Liberal fundraiser raising a stink with opposition
Justin Trudeau’s government was three weeks old when his office released ethics guidelines for cabinet ministers.
Trudeau was eager for everyone to notice. […]
Columns
National Column: Amid economic gloom, a bet on infrastructure
That sea of troubles, it just keeps rising. The floodwaters of uncertainty turned the English Channel into a gulf between Britain and Europe. They may yet sink Hillary Clinton. The $6 billion a year that Bill Morneau set aside for – wait for it – a rainy day have already vanished beneath the waves. […]
Columns
National Column: One year on: Promises, what promises?
Much celebration – for the most part justified – is attending the first anniversary of Justin Trudeau’s election victory. Twelve months later, polls elicit no buyer’s remorse. Many voters who did not support Trudeau last year are on balance happy he won. […]
Columns
National Column: Diversity approach should be defended
Here is a much abbreviated list of the current and former Canadian politicians who believe that when it comes to cultural diversity, Canada should be exporting its live-and-let-live model, not looking for inspiration from countries such as France that have put in place coercive measures to affirm their national identity. […]
Columns
National Column: NDP brief keeps electoral reform wide open
If one had to take away just one thing from the NDP’s just-released submission on electoral reform, it is that it strenuously avoids tracing a party line in the sand.
As leader, Thomas Mulcair campaigned on a mixed-member proportional system. But in its brief, the NDP carefully avoids pinning itself down to a specific system to the exclusion of others, or to a process to achieve a reform. […]
Columns
National Column: The bluster on health-care funding
“Your French is getting better,” a reporter told Jane Philpott on Wednesday as the federal health minister wrapped up a chat with some members of the press gallery before the weekly Liberal caucus meeting. […]
Columns
National Column: Trade talks reopen Canada’s fascination with mysterious East
by Thomas Walkom The mysterious East continues to beckon. Previous Canadian governments looked to trade deals with Japan and South […]
Columns
National Column: Parties of Canada’s left, right bereft of proper leadership
by Chantal Hébert What do the federal New Democrats, the Alberta and federal Conservatives, and Quebec’s two main sovereigntist parties […]
Columns
National Column: Folly to assume we’re immune
by Paul Wells So Canada is not immune to terrorist threat. Did anyone still think we aren’t immune? Already there […]
Columns
National Column: Canada’s relationship with Russia getting more complicated
by Thomas Walkom Ottawa is under pressure from Washington to take command of one of four new NATO battle groups […]
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. […]