Sorted by Month: December 2009

Last Friday the House of Commons rose after a session that was reminiscent of that old saying about the month of March – it came in like a lion and went out like a lamb. A Liberal Opposition that was champing at the bit to bring down the government “at the earliest opportunity” in September was, by December, keen to return to their ridings to regroup and plot their return from the political wilderness.Read Post »

Last week, the Legislature at Queen’s Park adjourned for the holidays, but not without some late-in-the session drama.
It came in the form of an impromptu filibuster by the Official Opposition over — what else — the HST.  It only last a couple of days, but among other things, it created quite a buzz at Queen’s [...] Read Post »

The north side of Fleishman-Hillard’s Ottawa office offers an unobstructed view of one of the most majestic buildings in the world: Centre Block on Parliament Hill.
As I watched the Peace Tower emerge from the fog, yesterday, I was visited by a ghost. The ghost took me to back in time to the re-construction of the [...] Read Post »

With all the rhetoric, accusations and bald face distortions emanating from discussion/reporting of the COP-15 sessions in Copehagen, what’s clear is that the federal government needs to knit a federal emissions reduction policy that is aligned with Washington (whatever that might look like) and meets the diverse regional issues that always obscure the Canadian landscape [...] Read Post »

The Olympic Torch passed through the House of Commons. All parties focused extensively on the report and statements released by General Natynczyk concerning evidence of torture in Afghan prisons.Read Post »

Every now and then, the best minds in government come up with a novel way to deal with a nagging issue. These folks tend to work in central agencies like the Privy Council Office, Treasury Board or the Department of Justice (although there are smart officials elsewhere, of course).
Once they’ve figured out a framework for [...] Read Post »

The Liberals focused the need for a public inquiry into the Afghan torture allegations and requested that the Minister of National Defence resign. The Bloc focused on the need for the Defence Minister to resign. The NDP asked about the need for a full public inquiry into the Afghan torture allegations and Canada’s position in Copenhagen.Read Post »

We need to get people’s attention off the first snowfall and on to global warming this week. The Copenhagen climate change conference is a big deal, notwithstanding the appearance of officials burning up fossil fuels to jet across the globe to attend it.
The head-scratcher is that Fox News and others have successfully ignited a [...] Read Post »

It is hard to believe that 2009 is almost over and 2010 is less than a month away.  If you read the papers, there is a lot of talk about how ONLY last year Stephan Dion was leader of the Liberal Party and holding the PM’s Government hostage with the threat of a federal election.  [...] Read Post »

Today’s Question Period focused on evidence of torture in Afghan prisons and Canada’s role at Copenhagen.Read Post »