All party fundraiser on Hill for hurricanes Katrina and Rita: Bill Clinton to visit Ottawa next month
Can you say photo op? The so-called “Hands Across the Border,” all-party, power-housed charity barbecue on Parliament Hill this week has already raised $75,000 to help out hurricanes Katrina and Rita victims and organizers say they’re expecting 1,000 on the front lawns of Parliament Hill for the event. Liberal MP Andy Savoy (Tobique-Mactaquac, N.B.), chair […]
Forget Flaherty
Re: “Dissident Quebec Conservatives slam Harper’s leadership,” by Julie Van Dusen (The Hill Times, Sept. 19). Anyone who even remotely would consider Jim Flaherty as a suitable candidate is either totally ignorant of politics or has a short memory, or worse still, is a member of a small and radical advocacy group that has wreaked […]
Defence and security debate
Bill Graham used to say a lot when he first became minister of National Defence that for the first time in many years the defence portfolio will be front and centre in the government’s agenda. That’s more true now. This week, Mr. Graham tells The Hill Times Canada’s peacekeeping role is changing, Canada is looking […]
Recent government appointments
On Sept. 16, the federal Cabinet appointed Diane Labelle as acting assistant Clerk of the Queen’s Privy Council for Canada. On Sept. 14, Defence Minister Bill Graham appointed the following people to various aspects of the Department of National Defence: Rear-Admiral Ian Mack, former commander, Canadian Defence Liaison Staff (Washington), will not retire and is […]
New House session to be dominated by more politics: Liberals may engineer their own defeat and then blame the Opposition
This House session will be dominated more by “politics than policy”in the lead-up to the election which means an extra workload and an extra hectic schedule for all staffers on the Hill, and particularly for senior PMO and Liberal Party headquarters staffers, say Liberal insiders. “Typically as you’re heading into an election, everything all of […]
Cannon’s a catch for Harper
Re: “Dissident Quebec Conservatives slam Harper’s leadership,”(The Hill Times, Sept. 19).That an out-of-power political party has grumblers and schemers would not come as a great surprise to most of us, but perhaps it is front-page news here, which tends to put “life in sleepy Canada” in perspective. In the vale of tears anger and juicy […]
Tory Sen. LeBreton’s CBC theories insulting to reporters
Re: “Sen. LeBreton’s right to be concerned,”(The Hill Times letters to the editor, Sept. 19). Boris DeWiel overlooks several possibilities in his comment on Conservative Sen. Marjory LeBreton’s original column in The Hill Times. First, is it necessarily true that the CBC is biased toward the Liberals? Second, assuming biased coverage, does it affect the […]
Locked out CBCers doing good deeds
From picket lines to soup lines… Locked-out CBC employees in Ottawa quietly used their forced time off work this summer to lend a few helping hands here and there. Starting the second week of the lockout, which began in mid-August, the CBCers – on-air stars,”techies,”producers and all – took turns to help prepare and serve […]
Governing Liberals contemplating fall election
Liberals are seriously thinking about pulling the plug on Parliament this fall. The governing Liberals are seriously contemplating pulling the plug on Parliament later next month and calling an election, government and Liberal insiders say. “It’s a long haul between now and the middle of April,” said one top government insider, who suggested that the […]
Glass houses
It is all very well that Prime Minister Paul Martin criticized the UN for its lacklustre performance in terms of reform. However, back at home there is also a lot of “empty rhetoric”floating around about achieving Millenium Development Goals of reducing global poverty and disease, while slashing CIDA’s budget from $140-million in 2005 down to […]
