Public debate on minority Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s decision to “prorogue” the Parliament of Canada, until March 3, 2010, at least seems to have grown to a greater degree more quickly than many who follow such obscure events at first imagined. And I am among those who have been pleasantly enough surprised. At the […]
These are not easy days for aspiring progressive voters in Canadian federal politics, at the edge of four by-elections that actually will happen on Monday, November 9. According to the October 29 EKOS poll, eg: “Stephen Harper’s federal Conservatives lead the second-place Liberals by a double-digit margin for the fourth week in a row, suggesting […]
It is still not altogether clear that there will actually be a Canadian federal election this fall. But two contradictory trends have developed over the past few days, as all who are still interested await the return of Parliament on Monday, September 14. First, among those closest to the ground in Ottawa there appears to […]
On the Calgary Herald website there is a photograph of “Prime Minister Stephen Harper at a news conference in Calgary Sept. 1, 2009” – just after Michael Ignatieff announced “Liberals will vote against government.” And it is at least arguable that the prime minister looks a little like a cat who has just swallowed the […]
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 17, 2009. “No summer election as Harper, Ignatieff reach deal” is the headline for a Canadian Press story run in the Halifax Chronicle Herald today. Yahoo Canada is carrying a later revised version, re-titled “MPs brace for fall election as summer vote averted.” Other variations include “Harper and Ignatieff reach deal” (Globe and […]
OTTAWA. WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 2009. 8 PM ET. The dubiously prorogued Parliament of Canada has been back in business some two and a half weeks. It now has a more or less big economic stimulus budget to its credit - though is it big enough, etc, etc? And it is time to wrap up our already […]
What is known in Canada’s province that is not a province like the others as “Sondage Nanos” has released two intriguing opinion polls over the past several days. They suggest the prorogued 40th Parliament that will return to life on January 26 will not be a cakewalk for any of the parties involved. On the […]
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 12, 2008. 10:00 PM ET. The great Canadian political crisis of 2008, that started with the Conservative minority government’s financial update on November 27, is at last disappearing into the year-end holiday season. And already obituaries are being written for the alternative Liberal-New Democrat governing coalition, backed by the Bloc Quebecois – which […]
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 2008. 11:30 PM ET. [UPDATED DECEMBER 1 BELOW]. All day today CTV Newsnet has been breathlessly broadcasting that, on the basis of a tape of a “telephone-conference meeting” that Jack Layton held “with his caucus Saturday morning” (surreptitiously recorded by the Conservatives), the “New Democrats and Bloc Quebecois held talks to form […]
The term “Speech from the Throne” itself reminds us that the present confederation began as the mere first self-governing dominion of the British empire – back in “the era of Queen Victoria,” and so forth (as the excellent Governor General Michaelle Jean put it on the afternoon of Wednesday, February 19, 2008). And the peculiar […]
