Posted in Uncategorized on June 26, 2008 | 3 Comments »
The days following the announcement of Stephane Dion’s Green Shift proposal have been highly illustrative of much of what is wrong in the present political system. I don’t need to go into the Prime Minister’s demeaning “It will screw everybody” - the level of rhetoric speaks for itself.
I’m more intrigued by the pundrity coming out [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on June 19, 2008 | 5 Comments »
It’s gotten pretty dumb in the House lately. Just when we thought things couldn’t get much worse, government members in the House have taken to making the kind of outlandish comments that cast a pall on all of Parliament.
Stephane Dion’s carbon shift plan gets released tomorrow but that hasn’t stopped Conservative members from going “over [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on June 12, 2008 | 4 Comments »
Today was unique in all of Parliament in that the Government of Canada, after more than a century, finally offered an apology to this country’s Metis, Inuit and First Nations peoples for the residential schools injustices. We all took our seats in the House, while the gallery was full of aboriginal witnesses and victims - [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on June 10, 2008 | 2 Comments »
With two weeks to go in this present parliamentary session, the news cycle is fully taken up with stories on a possible immediate election, various scandals and views on Stephane Dion’s carbon shift. My Blackberry received messages and calls all weekend, as if somethings were about to take place.
But today I put all that aside. [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on May 31, 2008 | 3 Comments »
This past week was as wild as it was sad. A foreign affairs minister, plagued by numerous gaffes over the past few months, ultimately committed the unforgiveable sin of leaving classified documents in an insecure location. It was a major indiscretion and his tenure as Canada’s chief foreign representative is over.
I refused to take part [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on May 23, 2008 | 1 Comment »
So, it’s out in the open. Stephane Dion recently announced his intention to put in place a new carbon reduction initiative. The response has been predictable - mixed. The government has had a field day, claiming falsely that it will add 50 cents to a litre of gasoline and that it will hammer middle-class Canadians. [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on May 14, 2008 | 2 Comments »
How does one maintain his or her own inner identity in the turmoil and power playing that come part and parcel with life in Ottawa? It’s a question that doesn’t normally come to mind but the recent attention of this issue raised by the recent Maclean’s article has prompted numerous responses from other members of [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on May 9, 2008 | 4 Comments »
This week I observed an interesting example of how this parliament could work if we just actually got around to the business of cooperating in the national interest - or in this case, the interest of women.
Upon first being elected over a year ago, I requested to get on the all-parliamentary committee on the Status [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on May 3, 2008 | 1 Comment »
We can’t help it and we all do it. As politicians we all follow our own press in the hopes that those who voted for us know that we are, in fact, active in our public lives and following through on our commitments. Other than public meetings or individual correspondence with constituents, the best way [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on April 30, 2008 | 2 Comments »
Listening to all the arguments in Parliament leaves one with the impression that we still live in a time of no limitations. We continue to act as though there are plenty of resources to go around and I’m troubled that a true sense of urgency hasn’t yet gripped all parties.
We have consumed for so long [...]
