Columns

National Column: As Liberals bond, kettle starts to boil

“My problem is it’s been nearly a year since the election and I still don’t know about 90 of these people,” I said to a veteran Liberal MP as his colleagues filed out of a hotel ballroom in Saguenay, north of Quebec City. […]

Columns

National Column: Cabinet committees hint at a cabinet shuffle

In the bad old days of the Soviet Union, Western intelligence agencies used to grab at the tiniest details to figure out, in the absence of reliable information, who was up or down in Moscow. Seating orders on reviewing stands at May Day parades. The placement of articles in Pravda. Musical choices on state radio. Any scrap or tidbit.
[…]

Columns

National Column: Cabinet retreat is a chance to learn

Summer ends for the Liberals this weekend. On Sunday and Monday, the cabinet meets in Sudbury for a two-day retreat. Thursday and Friday the full Liberal caucus will be in Saguenay, north of Quebec City, for two days of meetings to prepare for the autumn sitting of Parliament. Four days after that, Justin Trudeau leaves for eight days in China, a trip his office views as a high priority. […]

Columns

National Column: Enough shirtless Trudeau pics: Time for work

But enough of summer silly-season stories. Justin Trudeau’s biggest problem isn’t that he has spent August wearing only half his clothes. It’s that Canada has spent 2016 wearing only half its economic growth.

Fixing the latter challenge will be way harder than throwing on a shirt. […]

Columns

National Column: A young leader at the helm of a young party

There was never any doubt, of course, that this had become Justin Trudeau’s party. But had there been any remaining question of that anywhere in the land, it was removed as the prime minister tightened that grip on the Liberal party here Saturday. […]

Columns

National Column: Ottawa has fumbled assisted-dying bill from start

This country’s highest court ultimately gave Parliamentarians 16 months to craft legislation on assisted dying. That apparently wasn’t enough.

Missing the court-imposed June 6 deadline will not plunge this nation into some type of chaotic constitutional abyss, but the past 16 months leading to that deadline have taught us a lot about our political system and the men and women who represent us. It tells us a lot about the perils of fixed election dates, a move to remove partisanship from the Senate, the management of the legislative agenda by a rookie government – but most of all it tells us a lot about the timidity of our elected representatives. […]

Columns

National Column: Deadlines undermine Liberal legislation

Deadlines can focus the mind and sharpen our work. For some, however, the ticking of the deadline clock can overwhelm the substance of our work.

This week, the Liberal government is expected to hand in its homework on two pieces of legislation that were expedited by deadlines imposed by the Supreme Court of Canada. […]

Columns

National Column: Electoral reform appears destined to fail

Among Justin Trudeau’s commitments, few are as time-sensitive as his promise to have a new voting system in place for the 2019 federal election.

And so, as the weeks turned into months and eventually into more than half a year without any action from the new government, questions arose as to how committed the Liberals were to a promise they had made when they were twice-removed from power. […]