Alexander Mackenzie, Canada’s first Liberal prime minister, lived near Parliament Hill in a beautiful Gothic Revival home. He was an honest, thrifty fellow who helped transform the country yet could not stand parliamentary life. “Politics is very low,” he wrote. Today the house is gone and forgotten, just like Mackenzie. READ MORE
If mushrooms killed or hospitalized 10,700 Canadians every year MPs would order committee hearings and mushroom regulations would fly like confetti. Now replace the world “mushroom” with “traffic” and consider the fact accidents claim 10,700 casualties every year. This does not include 150,000 minor injuries. Parliament for years has not enacted a single new traffic safety initiative. A bill that would have required installation of side guards on heavy trucks, C-344 An Act To Amend The Motor Vehicle Safety Act, died in the Commons in 2011. Ontario’s chief coroner said it would have saved bicyclists and pedestrians from being dragged to their deaths. Author Neil Arason attempts to bring the country to its senses. No Accident is a compelling, plain-spoken appeal for what at first glance seems an incredible goal: to eliminate virtually all traffic fatalities. READ MORE
Prime Minister Mark Carney misled media on his private meetings with Chinese Communist leaders, Privy Council records show. Documents written by cabinet aides directly contradicted Carney’s claims that he raised human rights and foreign interference with his Beijing hosts: "On human rights, with the President, yes, we did discuss human rights." READ MORE
Almost half of Canadians surveyed nationwide say immigration is “causing Canada to change in ways I don’t like,” according to in-house research by the immigration department. Two thirds complained immigrants must “do more to integrate.” The research followed Immigration Minister Lena Diab’s most recent cuts to quotas on a promise of “taking back control over our immigration system.” READ MORE
Cabinet agreed to ease some restrictions on migrant labour under lobbying by Tim Hortons franchisees, Access To Information records show. Operators claimed tens of thousands of jobs would go unfilled if they couldn’t hire foreigners: "The food service sector faces over 63,000 job vacancies." READ MORE
Cabinet's Buy Canadian policy does not mean a majority of supplies used in public works or home construction must be Canadian, Housing Minister Gregor Robertson said yesterday. “We’re not being rigid about this,” he told reporters. READ MORE
The Supreme Court yesterday agreed to hear gun owners’ challenge of Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree’s blacklisting of “assault style” firearms. Two lower courts upheld the ban as reasonable though it was introduced without data showing it would fight crime: "There is no way to know exactly." READ MORE
We all have buttons you can push. In Canada the regional buttons are there to be pushed. But the problem is once you push the buttons what are you left with? Are you left with a configuration of people who can solve problems? Or are you left with simply a fragmentation of power and the people who’ve been angry and said, “We’re going to show you.” Our time in government had been very tumultuous. We were in a recession, the economy wasn’t growing. There were just a lot of things happening, and people were mad. And who do you take it out on? You take it out on the government.
