Well, well, well, this is quite the situation that Harper has gotten himself into. Though it’s definitely a nice example of how being a bully can backfire, it’s hardly the ideal situation for a country that currently has much more important issues to deal with. So now that he’s here, fighting for his job while […] More »

The Liberal-NDP coalition has great support among the countless disillusioned by the Conservative Party. The Conservative’s recent proposals for a “three-year ban on the right of civil servants to strike, limits on the ability of women to sue for pay equity and eliminated subsidies for political parties” struck many the wrong way – notwithstanding the […] More »

From left to right, above: Stephane Dion, Jack Layton, Gilles Duceppe (Artist’s impression) Your This Magazine bloggers haven’t weighed in yet on all the coalition talk that’s sprung up in the last few days, mostly because there’s been so much speculation and so little substance to talk about. The Parliamentary procedures that will dictate exactly […] More »

Yesterday was the Speech from the Throne, the strange annual ritual where the government writes a speech and the Governor General has to read it in Parliament. The Conservatives laid out a cautious — NDP leader Jack Layton dismissed it as “very timid” — and cost-cutting agenda, with a focus on the economy. There were […] More »

This morning the Green Party of Canada announced that it has retained a lawyer to pressure Canadian broadcasters to include the Greens in future electoral debates (including the one rumoured to be announced on Friday). Up until now, the TV networks have always brushed off the Greens because they had no MP sitting in parliament. […] More »

U of T’s The Varsity has just posted a broad-ranging interview with Smilin’ Jack Layton, in which he says the NDP won’t support a Conservative Throne Speech unless it includes new directions on the Afghan mission, the environment and what he calls the “prosperity gap.” “We want to see a fundamental change of direction on […] More »

Best-selling author Yann Martel was so unimpressed with the reception he and other artists received in the House of Commons recently that he’s come up with a web-based response: For as long as Stephen Harper is Prime Minister of Canada, I vow to send him every two weeks, mailed on a Monday, a book that […] More »

It was with incredible joy that I learned that Scarborough Southwest Liberal MP Tom Wappel is not seeking re-election after his current term. From a progressive perspective, you can’t get much worse than Wappel. When he threw his hat in the ring for a Liberal leadership convention in 1990, he pledged to make abortion a […] More »

Stephane Dion is much taller in person. He still looks like a mouse but only in the cute sense. In fact, he’s so unintimidating up close, it’s hard to imagine him being anything more than maybe your second favourite uncle. Not the one who gets drunk at Thanksgiving and offends your mom (he’d be the […] More »

Former Liberal leadership front-runner and second place ballot-finisher, Michael Ignatieff, is to play deputy leader to party leader Stephane Dion? Act of party solidarity, indeed. With the rampant characterization of Ignatieff being “arrogant” and “entitled” the former Harvard professor is apparently not yet finished with Canadian politics and, in a resounding display of humility, not […] More »