Tag Archives: Canada

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 […]

Standing On Guard

This was a familiar scene in downtown Ottawa last Thursday and Friday – snipers, presumably American, on the top of buildings. US President Joe Biden was in town and there were extra precautions. Walking through the downtown core you felt like someone was watching you. Because they were.

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 […]

Dealing With The Issue

The prime minister was outraged and has ordered officials to get to the bottom of this. News reports, based on leaked security documents, allege the government of the People’s Republic of China actively interfered in recent Canadian elections, with the aim of defeating Conservative Party candidates and electing Liberals. The prime minister finds this very […]

Where’s Katie?

For eleven hours Tuesday the Liberals pretended she didn’t exist. At least not for the purpose of answering questions on what she knew and when she knew it. The government is desperately filibustering a House of Commons committee that wants the Prime Minister’s chief of staff to answer questions about foreign interference in Canada’s electoral […]

The No Surprises Report

The Rouleau Commission says that Canada’s federal government was right to impose the Emergencies Act to end the Freedom Convoy a year ago. To many this will come as a surprise, but I had expected it. I don’t feel the government was actually faced with a situation where the security of the nation was threatened […]

The Big Day

We’ll find out at noon EST. But a year later, does anyone care whether the government was justified in invoking the Emergencies Act in face of the Freedom Convoy? Justice Paul Rouleau held a series of hearings in the fall of 2022, as required by law, as to whether conditions warranted the mass suspension of […]

Thinking About Death

I’m not feeling my own mortality at the moment, but still, I have been spending a lot of time thinking about dying. Especially how we die. Canada’s Parliament at the moment is considering a Bill to delay the expansion of medical assistance in dying (MAID) to the mentally ill. That was supposed to happen in […]

An Ocean of Ice – I

Ottawa’s tourism people are probably cursing the weather these days. We’re halfway through Winterlude, the annual winter carnival, and the Rideau Canal skateway, around which many of the activities take place, has yet to open for the season. And with temperatures above freezing in the forecast for every day next week, it is unlikely to […]