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New 'green group' poll: Foreign oil patch money a bigger concern than foreign money in green groups

For the last month or so, there has been increasing attention (partly, I’d like to think based on some of the reporting our organization has done on the issue) of the influence foreign, mostly U.S., organization have had on what could broadly be termed the Canadian environmental lobby. This PR war is now heating to a fever pitch as the three-member independent review panel gets set to start hearings tomorrow into a proposal to build a $5.5 billion 1,177-kilometre from the Alberta oilsands to a port on the northern B.C. coast, from where supertankers would take Alberta bitumen to markets in Asia and the U.S.

Today, the green groups started firing back, Continue reading New 'green group' poll: Foreign oil patch money a bigger concern than foreign money in green groups

NDP insider: Saganash, Ashton should pack it up. Topp maybe, too

Ian Capstick is a smart fellow who knows a lot about the political backrooms that most journalists never get to see. He’s a former aide to Liberal Sheila Copps but who eventually left the Liberals to join the federal New Democrats and was, when I first met him in 2005, the very effective and efficient press secretary to the federal NDP caucus. He’s never afraid of a good political fight. Indeed, I believe he enjoys one. And, perhaps most importantly in a town where many inflate their sense of themselves to get ahead, Capstick, in my experience, rarely blows smoke.

So, here he is tonight on CBC’s Power and Politics, responding to some questions from my friend Evan Solomon about the departure from the NDP leadership race of the unilingual Robert Chisholm: Continue reading NDP insider: Saganash, Ashton should pack it up. Topp maybe, too

Tory MP wants to ignite Parliamentary debate on abortion

Out this morning from Conservative Stephen Woodworth, who represents the Ontario riding of Kitchener Centre:

MP Stephen Woodworth calls for another look at Canada’s 400 Year Old Law

A recent poll disclosed that 80% of Canadians believe that Canadian law protects the fundamental human rights of children before birth in the later stages of gestation. Continue reading Tory MP wants to ignite Parliamentary debate on abortion

Flaherty exits boldly from one fine mess

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty boldly went Monday where no finance minister has ever gone before when it comes to the billions upon billions Ottawa transfers every year to the provinces for health and social services.

He told the provinces they would continue to get the billions upon billions from the federal treasury and — here comes the bold bit — told them they could spend it however they saw fit.

Imagine that: A federal government program with no strings attached.

Still, provincial finance ministers are a tough act to please. Continue reading Flaherty exits boldly from one fine mess

An encouraging take on Kim Jong-Il's death: Signs of change!

It’s from Christian Caryl, a Senior Fellow at the Legatum Institute and a Contributing Editor at Foreign Policy magazine, writing at the blog of the New York Review of Books. And I say it’s encouraging because of lines like these that suggest there is some hope for limited change in the Hermit Kingdom:

After all, isn’t the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea a staunchly totalitarian state where nothing ever changes? Actually, no. You could have gotten away with writing that just a few years ago. But too much has happened in North Korea in the interim . . . Continue reading An encouraging take on Kim Jong-Il's death: Signs of change!

David Dodge's predictions for nominal GDP growth

Yesterday, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty announced (too abruptly for some, mostly the finance ministers of provinces east of Saskatchewan) that the rate of annual increases of the federal-provincial social and health transfer will continue to be 6 per cent per year until 2016 and then, from that point until 2024, it will increase at the rate of inflation plus the rate of the growth of the economy, something economists call nominal Gross Domestic Product or nominal GDP.

So: Who’s got some predictions for nominal GDP going out 12 years? Continue reading David Dodge's predictions for nominal GDP growth

UN agency slams Canada on Attawapiskat

The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples just released the following statement that began this way:

“I have been in communication with the Government of Canada to express my deep concern about the dire social and economic condition of the Attawapiskat First Nation, Continue reading UN agency slams Canada on Attawapiskat