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Sunday was big in Ottawa. January 23 marked five years ago to the day that Stephen Harper won his first election victory. His talk had all the hallmarks of a campaign stump speech, noting all the positive changes the Conservatives have made in Canada since 2006 and carefully omitting some of the more divisive history. Hey, it’s a party, right?
How are people taking this anniversary? We survey the country’s media to find out.
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Timidity isn’t something Stephen Harper and his government stand accused of very often. But some of the news this week did bring up something we’ve been pondering for a while—namely, is there something a province that isn’t Ontario could demand that Harper wouldn’t eventually find a reason to cave on?
No logo: the federal securities regulator's branding is slammed before it even exists
In the ongoing family feud between Ottawa and some recalcitrant provinces over whether to have a national securities regulator or not (we’re looking at you, Alberta and Quebec), the arguments have been pretty surreal. Despite the fact that the vast majority of securities trading happens in Toronto, the delicate sensibilities of our provincial siblings mean that the head office of a national regulator can’t be in Toronto. Today, we learn that the latest offense to people’s feelings is that the feds had the nerve to hire a graphic designer before getting permission from the Supreme Court.
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Over the past several years (and elections), the Conservative Party has been trying hard to wrest the votes of new Canadians from the Liberal Party, and doing a lot of bridge building for it. The problem? They’re still conservatives. This means doing things like cutting budgets to programs they do not think are worthwhile. So today, a handful of Toronto-area Liberals are trying to shine a spotlight on the Tories’ new $53-million cut to immigrant settlement centres.
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Last October, Stephen Harper caused a bit of a fuss by demonstrating that he had artistic skills and a beating heart—he sang “With a Little Help From My Friends” by the Beatles. Well, it’s a bit late, but he’s once again felt the need to demonstrate his mammalian nature, this time by bringing out some classic rock tunes; The Who, Neil Diamond, the Rolling Stones and others made it into his live performance this time. You can find videos of it all at Sun correspondent David Akin’s blog.
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Earlier this year, the federal government announced Bill C-12, a proposal to add new seats to the House of Commons in the areas that are currently lacking—basically, big metro areas that are under-represented relative to the whiter, older, more rural parts of the country. According to the Globe and Mail, there’s been a quiet agreement among all parties in Ottawa to kill C-12 so as not to upset Quebec or the Maritimes:
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Canada’s record of almost doing interesting things and then chickening out (cough, cough) is unbroken: after an Ontario judge ruled in September that Ontario’s laws against prostitution violate the Charter rights of sex workers, the federal and provincial government asked an appeals court to stay the decision until this can be settled by the Supreme Court. According to the Toronto Star, the feds got their wish this morning:
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The National Post has some more memos from the ongoing (and periodically hilarious) Wikileaks drop, only these ones don’t involve a CSIS bigwig bad-mouthing Canadians to the Yanks. Instead, we get amateur television criticism from someone in the U.S. embassy in Ottawa. Apparently, the Americans got quite exercised by the portrayal of Homeland Security staffers in CBC shows The Border and Little Mosque on the Prairie.
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The torrent of gossipy revelations from Wikileaks’ latest outpouring—this time, classified diplomatic cables from U.S. embassies all over the world—has mostly left Canada untouched (so far). The big exception to this is the one and only cable to have been leaked from the Ottawa embassy, in which Canada’s then-CSIS chief Jim Judd had some choice words about, well, us.
Michael Ignatieff visits now-defeated Liberal candidate Tony Genco during the Vaughan by-election campaign (Image: Michael Ignatieff)
Apparently, all it takes to be the talk of the nation is for a GTA by-election to go your way. Vaughan, best known to Torontonians as “the approximate location of Canada’s Wonderland,” went to the polls on the same day as two ridings in Winnipeg, but all anyone wants to talk about is what Julian Fantino‘s election means for the future of Parliament, Canada, the Liberals, humankind and the universe. So let’s join in, shall we?
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The Liberals managed to make the Vaughan by-election a tight race—so tight that it wasn’t called until after midnight—but, in the end, Conservative star candidate Julian Fantino won a seat in Parliament that had been held by the Grits for a generation. The Tories’ early lead in the riding was in jeopardy during a campaign that made Fantino look more like a fugitive than a decorated former police chief. In the end, the CPC took the riding by only two points.
Like all good Canadians, we can’t help but notice when Canada is mentioned in international media, whether it’s The Daily Show, The West Wing or The Economist. So the news that Canada has finally made it into a Wikileaks document dump has us positively transfixed, of course—and the same can be said for the Toronto Star, Globe and Mail and CBC. According to the Globe, this dump is expected to be really juicy:
“These revelations are harmful to the United States and our interests,” State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said. “They are going to create tension in relationships between our diplomats and our friends around the world.”
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In the Toronto Sun, Warren Kinsella notes that this coming Sunday will be the fifth anniversary of Paul Martin’s defeat in the House of Commons—the one that triggered the election Martin lost and that put Stephen Harper in power. Wikipedia suggests that the traditional thing to do would be for the Liberals to give Harper wood—it really does—but that is unlikely on a number of levels. Instead, they’re probably going to give Harper what he really wants: a little more time consumed with Liberal backbiting.
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One traditional definition of “chutzpah” is for a person to kill their parents and then beg for mercy as an orphan. Stephen Harper apparently thinks that’s a grand idea. After having his party’s senators kill the opposition-supported climate bill C-311 yesterday, Harper responded to Liberal and NDP catcalls by saying that if those parties are so upset over the fate of C-311, they should “support the government’s Senate reform bills that are before the House.” Say this for Harper: ballsy.
With the story still developing, we scoured the Web to see what people have been saying about the death of C-311.
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Marq de Villiers with His Excellency David Johnston (Image: Sgt. Serge Gouin, gg.ca)
Governor General David Johnston inducted his first group of distinguished Canucks into the Order of Canada last night. Among the 40 people to receive the honour—the highest a civilian can receive in the Great White North—were seven Torontonians, including Michael Wilson (the former ambassador to the U.S.), Marlys Edwardh (the lawyer who helped overturn the wrongful conviction of Guy Paul Morin) and the late David Pecaut (co-founder of the Luminato Festival). We’re chuffed to report that former Toronto Life editor and publisher Marq de Villiers was also among the inductees. De Villiers now writes in-depth non-fiction works with his wife from their home in Nova Scotia.
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