In this edition of Listen to This, associate editor Nick Taylor-Vaisey brings us the first in a three part series we’ll be running throughout this fall, talking with the leaders of Canada’s First Nations, Inuit, and Metis peoples about the current political environment and their relationship with the government. With a new Minister of Indian […] More »

UPDATE, Sept. 22, 1:55 pm: CanWest Postmedia reports that C-391 sponsor MP Candice Hoeppner “has all but conceded defeat” and “given up on last-minute lobbying” for today’s vote, and calls the eight liberals and 12 NDPers who voted in favour last time, “turncoats.” She estimates the government is one — one! — vote short, which […] More »

Peter Milliken has had it made for almost ten years. He lives just down the hall from work, gets to throw lavish parties at a country estate, and makes a whole lot of money every year. Such is the life of the Speaker of the House of Commons—according to the image propagated by most news […] More »

Britain’s five days of post-election limbo are over as David Cameron, Conservative Party leader and now Prime Minister, announced Britain’s first peacetime coalition government since the 1930s.  Ushering in an era of cross-bench unity, Cameron’s Conservatives will join forces with Nick Clegg’s Liberal Democratic Party.  Cameron has appointed six Liberal Democrats to the cabinet, including […] More »

The more things change, the more they stay the same. This certainly rings true in the world of health policy: there’s a lot of talk, and the idea of change or reform is nice to think about, regardless of whether it ever happens. Recently, it seems that absolutely nothing is changing at all. Because for […] More »

“Working people did not cause this crisis … and we won’t pay for it!” These words were printed in bright red letters on a flyer recently published by the Communist Party of Canada as part of its effort to raise public awareness about the root causes of the global economic crisis. The flyer sat atop […] More »

For the past six months, opposition parties in Ottawa and in Quebec City have been persistently calling for the appointment of Royal Commissions. At the federal level, the demand has been for an impartial inquiry into the fate of detainees that Canadian troops turned over to local authorities in Afghanistan, and whether or not the […] More »

Last night, I wondered whether it was worth writing about Ann Coulter. When I think of her at all — which isn’t too often, actually — I think of her as being a deeply vile but mostly irrelevant self-promoter. (It would be going too far to call her an ideologue, because that would imply ideas, […] More »

Most videos on YouTube are total fiascos, but at least they’re entertaining fiascos. Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s debut on YouTube—in which he responded with carefully prepared talking points to carefully screened video questions in a carefully pre-taped appearance—was dull because there was nothing at stake. It was like watching a man walk a tightrope across his […] More »

The climate issue is struggling to gain political traction in this country as of late. As much as media likes a hot story, they also appreciate access to good information, to local quotes and home-grown science. The Conservative government is continuing a war on science, not just because of their distrust of the method, but […] More »

Progressive Canadians seldom get very excited whenever a Conservative government brings down a budget. More often than not, the priorities of the two groups are so wildly different that it’s almost not worth the effort to make a fuss. Last year’s budget was a different story. Stephen Harper’s team came up with a plan of […] More »