Keith Beardsley’s View From the Hill – Reflections of the Future – January 2, 2012
CFN – As we move forward from the Christmas/New Year’s season and face another year of political warfare in Canada, it is time to reflect on what awaits us. Fortunately, this time of the year provides plenty of opportunity to discuss politics, be it at family gatherings, neighbourhood parties or an evening out with friends. [...]
Keith Beardsley’s View From the Hill – Walking a Fine Line in Cotler Country – December 13, 2011
CFN -Speaker Andrew Scheer has delivered his ruling on the Conservative Party’s attempts to undermine Irwin Cotler in his riding of Mont Royal. The ruling Scheer presented today referred to the organized telephone contact program conducted on behalf of the Conservatives in Cotler’s riding. The questions in this survey left the impression that Cotler might [...]
Keith Beardsley’s View From the Hill – The Name Game – Attawapiskat – December 7, 2011
CFN – As I predicted a few days ago, the situation in Attawapiskat has deteriorated into a blame game with politics becoming the most important exercise… lost in this are the people who need help. It became a political issue as soon as the Chief stood with a provincial and federal NDP member on each [...]
Keith Beardsley’s View From the Hill – Pointing Fingers Over Attawapiskat – November 30, 2011
CFN – Yesterday, Bob Rae stood in the House of Commons and delivered a thundering attack aimed at the Conservative government’s lack of action and compassion for the families living in third world conditions in Attawapiskat. Along with the other attacks from the NDP it is clear that the finger pointing has begun in earnest. [...]
Keith Beardsley’s View From the Hill – The Con Game: The Campaign of Nobodies – November 25, 2011
CFN – It was Pierre Trudeau who famously said that MPs were nobodies once they were 50 yards from the Hill. That reference could certainly apply to the present day NDP leadership campaign. It’s a bit of a con game, IE a campaign of nobodies. While the candidates are a decent bunch of individuals and [...]
Keith Beardsley’s View From the Hill – Shooting One’s Self in the Foot – November 20, 2011
CFN – What are Canadians reading about today? Is it the new government pension proposal which is a good news story or is it Pat Martin’s Twitter comments and the “Dummy” comments made by both a minister and opposition members in the House of Commons yesterday? What are Canadians talking about at Tim Horton’s or [...]
Keith Beardsley’s View From the Hill – Is the Majority Harper Government Acting Like One? – November 8, 2011
CFN – Anyone watching the House of Commons in action over the past few weeks could be excused for thinking that we were back in the days of a minority Conservative government. Certainly behavior back then from both the NDP and Conservatives wasn’t much different from now. The Conservatives haven’t yet figured out that [...]
View From the Hill by Keith Beardsley – Prime Minister Harper’s First Six Months…and next six. – November 3, 2011
CFN – Yesterday Frank Graves and I had an interesting discussion with Don Martin on CTV’s PowerPlay. We looked at Prime Minister Harper’s first six months with his majority government and then at where we felt things might go down the road. I thought this would be a good time to go into more detail. [...]
Keith Beardsley’s View From the Hill – How French Proficient should the Auditor General of Canada be? November 2, 2011
CFN - With some six weeks to go before MPs break for the Christmas holidays their focus remains on whether the Conservative nominee for the position of Auditor General has a level A, B or C proficiency in the French language. The Conservatives have chosen Michael Ferguson who’s French is not up to high civil [...]
Keith Beardsley’s View From the Hill – Milk, Cheese, Eggs – Who is Looking Out for the Consumer – October 28, 2011
CFN – Canadian consumers are growing increasingly frustrated that we pay more than our American neighbours for the same products even though our dollar is comparable to the US dollar. The problem for the Harper government is how do you contain that frustration and prevent it from turning into anger, anger that down the road [...]
Keith Beardsley’s View From the Hill Asks if the NDP Will Stand up for Consumers? October 25,2011
CFN – It was nice to see the NDP out there defending Canadians from the recent $5.50 US surcharge that will be applied to tickets sold to Canadian air and ship travelers who visit the United States. When President Obama signed this into law on October 21st, he removed Canada’s exemption which had been in [...]
Keith Beardsley’s View From the Hill – Time for MPs to Push Back – Response to John Turner Comment – October 19, 2011
CFN – John Turner made some telling points when he was interviewed recently about his political career. Some of his comments are worth following up and hopefully it will lead to some discussion by current MPs from all parties. Turner said “Who wants to be a Member of Parliament when the job isn’t worth anything [...]
Keith Beardsley’s View From the Hill – Wall Street Protests All Media Hype? October 18, 2011
CFN – Did anyone other than the media know that Canada was occupied over the weekend? I woke up to that realization as the media were out in full voice to tell me so. At first I thought we had been invaded by hoards of War of 1812 reinactors, but no we were “occupied” by [...]
Keith Beardsley’s View From the Hill – Harper Government’s Intervention into Air Canada Negotiations Motivation – October 12, 2011
CFN – The Harper government has decided to intervene in the negotiations between Air Canada and its flight attendants and the government has indicated that it will move to quash a legal strike mandate. One has to question the motives behind this and the government’s insistence that they are moving now to prevent a strike [...]
View from the Hill by Keith Beardsley – Lessons from Ontario Election – October 7, 2011
CFN – The Ontario election has now moved into our history books. It was a relatively dull campaign with few issues that grabbed the imagination of the voter. What made it interesting though was the come from behind victory of the McGuinty Liberals. Each of the federal parties can learn something from this campaign which [...]
Keith Beardsley’s View From the Hill – Brad Trost and Private Members Bills – October 2, 2011
CFN – Conservative Member of Parliament Brad Trost created a bit of a stir this week when he publicly criticized a decision of his own government. What made his comments so newsworthy was the rarity of the occasion as it is most unusual for Conservative MPs to speak publicly against any government decision. It is [...]
Keith Beardsley’s View From the Hill – THE UNCIVIL HOUSE September 28, 2011
CFN – Canadians remember the discussion that Jack Layton initiated on improving decorum and civility in the House. It was a concept that all of the party leaders supported. Here are a few examples of the leader’s comments. Jack Layton “New Democrats have committed to work respectfully, to end heckling and to give this place [...]
Keith Beardsley’s View From the Hill – Muzzled ministers? The $90,000 Question?? September 21, 2011
CFN – For the last couple of days Canadians have been treated to our MPs performance in Question Period. So far it hasn’t produced too many surprises. For the most part the opposition parties went where expected. There were several relevant questions on the economy, a few on Air Canada, some on staff cuts and [...]
