Ottawa Scene

Stephen Harper`s new cabinet (and the new have-not Ontario)

Nov 3rd, 2008 | By | Category: Ottawa Scene

It’s hard to keep your mind focused on just what Stephen Harper’s new cabinet in Ottawa may mean, with the biggest US general election in your lifetime just a day away. As the Calgary Herald reported this morning, in Canada’s current most economically prosperous province, even up here the duel in the sun between Senators […]



Democracy in dark times .. Canada votes 2008

Oct 14th, 2008 | By | Category: Ottawa Scene

OCTOBER 14, 11:20 PM. [UPDATED OCTOBER 15 BELOW]. Some will say it`s a little too close to a Conservative majority for comfort. The exact results of Canada’s 40th federal election remain uncertain at this still comparatively early hour. But it is quite clear that Stephen Harper’s Conservatives have done considerably better than some of us […]



The greenest shift : Ms. May’s coalition proposal

Oct 4th, 2008 | By | Category: Ottawa Scene

[UPDATED OCTOBER 5, 6].With a mere matter of days left in the still rather obscure Canadian federal election campaign, desperation is setting in on various fronts. And why not join the party? Many progressive voters up here in the true north strong and free do not want a Conservative majority in the 40th Parliament whose exact […]



Canada votes 2008 .. at least the bad old days of Tory Toronto are gone

Sep 1st, 2008 | By | Category: Ottawa Scene

Barbara Yaffe at the Vancouver Sun writes: “We should have known an election was in the cards. Conservatives lately have been mailing a blizzard of political flyers across the country.” But back here on the old east-end Toronto waterfront we seem to have escaped this particular storm. No doubt, no one in Stephen Harper’s party imagines […]



Liberal-NDP-Green alliance : could it ever happen?

Aug 15th, 2008 | By | Category: Ottawa Scene

OTTAWA. AUGUST 15, 2008. [UPDATED AUGUST 18]. So now Canada’s Conservative minority Prime Minister Stephen Harper “hints he may force election,” “threatens election to end ‘dysfunction’,” and/or “hints he will engineer his government’s defeat, trigger fall election.” At the same time, a new poll suggests the Conservatives “could have difficulty maintaining their minority government, much […]



Should Dion Liberals have triggered a July election anyway?

Jun 12th, 2008 | By | Category: Ottawa Scene

On Saturday, June 7 it was reported that “ranking members of the Liberal caucus this week repeatedly pushed Stephane Dion to trigger a federal election campaign next week, but the Liberal Leader rebuffed their pleas.” By the following Monday, June 9 a “Canadian Press Harris-Decima survey compared attitudes toward the Tories and Liberals in a […]



Julie Couillard reminds us why Canada needs Quebec

May 26th, 2008 | By | Category: Ottawa Scene

UPDATED MAY 28. People sometimes ask why Quebec is so important for Canada’s past, present, and future. And every now and then someone like Julie Couillard – who, she has just stressed on TV, is “definitely not a bikers’ chick” – comes along to make the answer clear. Until her dynamic intervention on the evening […]



Waiting for the next federal election

Apr 30th, 2008 | By | Category: Ottawa Scene

[UPDATED MAY 1]. In fact, most people of Canada long ago lost interest in the date of their next federal election. And Angelo Persichilli at the Hill Times has caught the current jaded mood even among political junkies: “Want to know when the next election will be? Call the RCMP … a month ago I […]



Harper’s libel suit against Liberals and Canada’s open society

Mar 3rd, 2008 | By | Category: Ottawa Scene

A dozen days before the Canadian federal election that brought the present Harper Conservative minority government to office, Gillian Wong of the Associated Press reported on how: “US billionaire philanthropist George Soros said … that Singapore could not be an open society as long as its leaders used libel suits against opposition politicians … The use of […]



A + B + C = Canadian election soon?

Feb 14th, 2008 | By | Category: Ottawa Scene

OTTAWA. FEBRUARY 14, 2008. Local party activists, worried about whether or not to rent campaign offices, are having a tough time. Here yesterday, in the depths of what the late 19th century called “the last lumber village before the North Pole,” it seemed a near certainty that there will be a federal election soon. Today […]