Tag Archives: Justin Trudeau

The Sins of the Father

Canada is complicated, though most of the world probably doesn’t see that. Our politics is never simple, and decisons made one year can reverberate for generations. Is it like that where you live? Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has a new political problem, thanks in large part to his father, who was Prime Minister from […]

Not Your Ordinary Denial

Of course they believe in climate change – most of them anyway. They aren’t stupid. But they are upset. They decided to make a point. Last weekend, delegates to the Conservative Party of Canada policy convention defeated a motion that acknowledged climate change as real. It was embarrassing for leader Erin O’Toole, who has been […]

Quacking Like A Duck

“Stephen Harper used prorogation to avoid difficult political circumstances. We will not” – Justin Trudeau, 2015 So much for promises. Again. The funny thing is, Canada’s Prime Minister has good reason to prorogue (reset) Parliament. A new plan for the COVID-19 era makes sense. It’s the timing that makes it look so bad. He appears […]

Rolling The Dice

Political junkies in Canada are watching an unusual story unfolding in Parliament today. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is to appear before a parliamentary committee to answer questions about his latest ethics scandal. The general rule of thumb is that Prime Ministers don’t appear before committees, especially not ones investigating them. That Trudeau is ignoring this […]

No Shame Anymore

The feeling was one of sadness as I heard the news reports on Canada’s latest government scandal. “Not again,” I thought. “What about integrity is unclear?” Maybe it is all part of a government conspiracy to lower voters’ expectations. Make ethical breach after ethical breach. Apologize when you are caught, saying your actions were unintentional. […]

Do Ethics Matter?

Canada’s Prime Minister is once again being investigated for alleged ethical violations. Does anyone care? I won’t go into the details. It is too depressing that someone who has twice been censured by the Ethics Commissioner would once again break the rules so flagrantly. What is worse, to me, is that Justin Trudeau doesn’t seem […]

Only In Canada

The Calgary Flames hockey team fired their coach last week. Well, he resigned before they could fire him over an alleged racial slur made a decade ago. Bill Peters might have been fired anyway, given the team’s poor performance of late, but the situation has cast the spotlight once again on the Canadian double standard. […]

Building A Better Cabinet

On November 4, 2015 I posted my thoughts on the process involved in cabinet building – the political kind as opposed to home renovations. Today once again the Prime Minister is set to unveil his new cabinet, which makes that four-year-old post relevant. I had concerns the first time around that turned out to be […]

And They’re Off…

I know some people don’t like it when I compare politics to sports, because they think I am trivializing the political process. But there are similarities. You have winners and losers – and a lot of heartbreak. The stakes are higher though. When it comes right down to it, it doesn’t matter who wins the […]

The Gift

A Conservative friend refers to it as “the gift that keeps on giving.” A political scandal that should never have been. As someone with an intense interest in politics, as a sometime practitioner of the art, I cannot believe that Canadians are still talking about the SNC-Lavalin scandal more than two months after it first […]