Category Politics

Dealing With Bullies

You learn it on the playground as a kid. The only way to stop bullies is to stand up to them. If you don’t they will continue to pick on you. Which is why many Canadians are wondering why the federal government hesitated to expel the Chinese diplomat accused of threatening the family of a […]

Anniversary to Remember

I realized earlier this week that it has been four years since I last posted this piece. Every May 4 I remember Kent State, even if I haven’t always noted it here. This year i already had some humor scheduled, but I didn’t want to let the day pass by without sharing this.. Forty-five years […]

Words Matter

It was a friend in the United Kingdom who mentioned it. “I see your Prime Minister is lying again.” I hadn’t seen the interview. So I looked it up. Turns out Justin Trudeau didn’t lie in this instance. He said very clearly that he didn’t force anyone to be vaccinated against COVID-19, that the millions […]

Check Your Facts

“A Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian. And you devalue the citizenship of every Canadian in this place and in this country when you break down and make it conditional for anyone.” – Justin Trudeau, 2015. Back then he was talking about whether convicted terrorists should be stripped of their citizenship. Times seem to […]

Nothing To See Here…

…or is there? After months of hiding, Katie Telford will appear before  a House of Commons committee today. Don’t expect to learn anything. Telford, the Prime Minister’s chief of staff, will do her best to not answer questions about foreign interference in Canada’s electoral system.  She has a problem though. If she was briefed by […]

The Arraignment

Why shouldn’t a former president face criminal charges?. Or even a sitting president? Isn’t equality under the law one of the central tenets of American justice? Donald Trump in turns himself in at a New York courthouse today to face charges – exactly what he doesn’t know yet – and his appearance will be the […]

Thoughts for a Sunday

Looking for something from the archives that would fit my mood today, I can across this one from April 2015. I’ve spent most of my weekend reading and writing about ethics in political life, or perhaps the lack of it. This was a reminder that there are still principled people in public life. Canadian politician James […]

Only In Canada…

…would a government that has had several ethical challenges, led by a Prime Minister who has twice been found to have violated Parliament’s ethics rules, appoint as Ethics Commissioner the sister-in-law of a cabinet minister who himself has been cited for ethics violations. If I was a fiction writer, I would reject that idea as […]

Two Presidents

When Barack Obama visited Ottawa in 2009 the city went wild. People were excited to catch a glimpse of him. I remember that day well. As my colleagues went up to catch a. glimpse of Obama arriving on Parliament Hill, I stayed in the office to answer the phone. After all, he’d only been in […]

A Matter of Perception

“I can go back to my constituency and tell people, first of all, I’m white, I’m of Dutch descent…Obviously I am not working for China.”  She doesn’t get it. Which is probably part of the problem. Liberal MP Anita Vandenbeld told a House of Commons committee that she is safe from people thinking she has […]