Justin Trudeau has received a fair amount of coverage for his “new” idea to tax the rich and give the middle class a tax break while using the new tax money to help balance the budget. However, one must keep in mind that in modern politics nothing much is new,Continue Reading
Harper’s visit to Iraq, the Kurds and eventually the Netherlands to join with our vets in celebrating VE-Day was great political theater. It reminded me of the vintage propaganda film footage we see from World War Two where the leader flies in to visit the troops and he is thenContinue Reading
Political types tend to look at every action that takes place as a win or lose situation. This is especially true in today’s hyper-partisan political environment where each side regards the other parties as the enemy, not just as competitors for the hearts and minds of voters. In this superContinue Reading
CFN – This past week we have seen Prime Minister Harper keep with tradition and stand during Question Period to defend two of his embattled ministers. One has to wonder why? The foul ups and bad optics that Veteran Affairs minister Fantino created for himself, should not require the PrimeContinue Reading
CFN – It was interesting to hear Tom Mulcair try to dodge the issue of how poorly the NDP did in the last two bye-elections, as well as the previous one where they lost Olivia Chow’s former seat. If you are the leader of a party your worse fear isContinue Reading
CFN – Canadians woke up today to the realization that there were two bye-elections yesterday. You have to wonder how many outside of the Ottawa bubble even gave it a second thought. I will hazard a guess and say that more Canadians were probably talking about the weather than theContinue Reading
CFN – As the debate on whether or not Canada should join the military campaign against ISIS heats up it is interesting to watch Justin Trudeau in action. Remember this is the same newly minted Liberal leader who promised to do things differently. He was not going to be likeContinue Reading
CFN – It is hard to believe that it is 30 years ago today that I was a young campaign manager sitting in our riding election office trying to find ways to keep our candidate busy (and out of our hair) on what was then an election day- September 4th,Continue Reading
CFN – The latest Abacus poll was interesting as its numbers show how few people think anything would change under a Liberal or NDP government. For instance under a Liberal government, 46% don’t think there would be any difference when it comes to job creation. For the environment 51% don’tContinue Reading
CFN – Conservative and NDP fundraisers must be patting themselves on the back today and thanking Justin Trudeau for their good fortune. With Trudeau’s pronouncement that he plans on winning a 170 seats and a majority in the next election, the fundraising letters to NDP and Conservative supporters almost write themselves.Continue Reading
CFN – Don’t you just love the summer doldrums and some of the political speculation that abounds in the news? One such story around speculation that the Conservatives under Harper could win ten seats in Quebec in the next election was certainly attention getting. This would require quite an extensiveContinue Reading
CFN – Was anyone really surprised by the results of the June 30th bye-elections? For the most part turnout was low and that has been blamed on the government because the date they picked was just before a long weekend. There will be some truth to that but if someone reallyContinue Reading
CFN – Peace and quiet reigns on the Hill now that our MPs and Senators have departed. I doubt that too many Canadians will miss any of them. They certainly won’t miss the ugly debates and nasty partisan attacks that dominate our air waves when they are in town. TheContinue Reading
CFN – Once again we have the Defence Department making a decision that leaves most fair minded Canadians shaking their heads. It seems the brain trust at DND has decided that while our embassy staff and ambassador require soldiers to protect them in Kabul, the soldiers don’t merit danger pay?Continue Reading
CFN – The spin keeps coming from all of the federal parties and the new buzz words are “open nominations”. Really? This is politics, just how gullible do they think the public is? I know everyone preaches it, but how realistic is it to expect there to be a trueContinue Reading
CFN – Watching the NDP’s feigned outrage at the Conservative’s use (misuse) of government aircraft generates flashbacks to when the Conservatives were in opposition. At that time as head of the Conservative research group looking into Liberal misdeeds, we would often check the Challenger jet flight logs. Most of theContinue Reading
CFN– They say that truth is one of the first casualties of war, but it should not be a casualty in the daily war of words we see in the House of Commons. Recently, House of Commons Speaker Andrew Sheer ruled on an NDP motion which had accused Conservative MPContinue Reading
CFN – Once again we have a spending scandal occupying the attention of Canadians. This time however, it doesn’t involve our esteemed senators but two former generals, Andrew Leslie who is presently a senior Liberal advisor and Daniel Menard who retired in disgrace from the armed forces. Leslie claimed $72,000Continue Reading