Tag: liberals

Chrétien endorses former NDP MP now running for Wynne's Liberals in Sudbury

Jean Chretien
Canada’s former Prime Minister Jean Chretien laughs during an interview with Reuters in Ottawa November 15, 2011. Chretien today endorsed the New Democrat who beat one of his former ministers in Sudbury as the Ontario Liberal candidate in a provincial beyelection. (REUTERS/Blair Gable)

Former prime minister Jean Chrétien and his wife Aline today endorsed Glenn Thibeault, running for the Ontario Liberals in the provincial byelection in Sudbury. Thibeault deserted Thomas Mulcair’s NDP caucus to run for Wynne’s Liberals. Chrétien provided the endorsement even though it was Thibeault who knocked off former Chrétien cabinet minister Diane Marleau in the 2008 general election, becoming the first New Democrat to win in Sudbury since 1968.

Meanwhile, the United Steelworkers are running a radio ad in Sudbury, endorsing the NDP and taking direct aim at the “dirty politics” of Thibeault.

 

Here’s the release from the Ontario Liberals about the Chrétien endorsement: Continue reading Chrétien endorses former NDP MP now running for Wynne's Liberals in Sudbury

Battleground Southwestern Ontario: Electoral Maps Compared

2011SOW

The federal Liberal caucus arrives today in London, Ont. for its two-day winter caucus retreat. As Jane Sims notes in today’s London Free Press, this part of Ontario was been a “Grit barren land” in the last general election. The electoral map, above, from J.P. Kirby’s excellent Election Atlas, illustrates that point pretty clearly. This is what happend in the 2011 general election. In fact, so far as southern Ontario goes, the Liberals now have precisely five seats west of Yonge Street, and four of those are in Toronto. The lone Liberal island otherwise in Guelph where incumbent Frank Valeriote will pass the torch this fall to a yet-to-be-nominated Liberal candidate.

But look at the same electoral map after the 2004 election, (below) Continue reading Battleground Southwestern Ontario: Electoral Maps Compared

For 15 years, voters and those they elect have ignored the Environment Commissioner

Some in Canada will think it perfectly appropriate that Canadian governments have paid little heed to Canada’s environment commissioner annual warnings that Canada just hasn’t been getting it done when it comes to climate change. Others will find this review depressing that we have not got it done on climate change.

Whatever your view: Given the fact that we’ve had five general elections since 2000 (2 won by the Liberals, three by the Conservatives) and no party has been punished for failing to meet their own targets, it’s pretty clear that our politicians have gotten the message about how much heed they should pay the Environment Commissioner: Continue reading For 15 years, voters and those they elect have ignored the Environment Commissioner

The next Liberal to win a majority? Safe bet, it'll be Brian Gallant

They may have had a disastrous decade federally, sinking to the third party in the House of Commons, in the province’s, Liberals are on a roll.

Starting with Stephen McNeil in Nova Scotia last fall, and Philippe Couillard in Quebec and Kathleen Wynne in Ontario this spring (below), it’s been one Liberal majority after another. (If you believe Christy Clark is a Liberal in the same vein as McNeil, Couillard, and Wynne — and I, for one,  do not believe she belongs in that same political category and, in fact, belongs in a category that likely includes Saskatchewan Party leader Brad Wall  — you could extend this Liberal win streak back to the spring of 2013.) Continue reading The next Liberal to win a majority? Safe bet, it'll be Brian Gallant

The Liberal record on job creation by industrial sector

Today on the Ontario campaign trail, Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Hudak was indicting the Liberal governments of Dalton McGuinty and Kathleen Wynne for letting 300,000 manufacturing jobs disappear on their watch. Now, while I was critical of Hudak and the PCs earlier this week for vastly overstating the number of “out of work” Ontarians, Hudak is pretty much spot-on with this latest number. Since October, 2003, when McGuinty took the reigns for the first time, Ontario has, in fact, seen 314,500 manufacturing jobs disappear. That’s what Statistics Canada says.

I was curious which industrial sectors fared worst or better during the Liberal reign and so I crunched the numbers from Statscan for three time periods: Since the McGuinty liberals first won office in October 2003; since the last Ontario election in Oct 2011 (the McGuinty/Wynne years) and the last 12 months. The most recent month for which data is available is April 2014. Continue reading The Liberal record on job creation by industrial sector

Coming soon to your TV: A new ad from Justin Trudeau and the Liberals

It won’t make it to TV screens until later this month but this TV ad posted online today by the federal Liberals and spun by a “senior Liberal” as an attempt at “contrasting Trudeau” with Prime Minister Stephen Harper and not as a response to Conservative ads and frequent Conservative member’s statements in the House of Commons in which Trudeau is derided as “in over his head.” Continue reading Coming soon to your TV: A new ad from Justin Trudeau and the Liberals

PMO slams opposition on Ukraine. Slams. Really Slams.

Foreign Minister John Baird will lead an official delegation to Ukraine later this week. As the government said, the delegation will include community leaders and Parliamentarians but, as we learned today, none of those Parliamentarians will be New Democrats or Liberals. How come, we asked Jason MacDonald, the communication director for Prime Minister Stephen Harper. His answer: Continue reading PMO slams opposition on Ukraine. Slams. Really Slams.

Independent Liberal Senators take their new freedom out for a spin

Well, at first blush, I’d say bravo to the Independent Senate Liberal Caucus — the group of Senators, many of them lifelong torchbearers for the Liberal Party of Canada, who were told a month ago they could not longer be part of the same Parliamentary caucus as party leader Justin Trudeau and the elected Liberal parliamentarians.

This group, known as the Independent Senate Liberal Caucus, today put forward their first initiatives to try out their new freedom from the elected caucus. Now, I disagreed with Trudeau’s decision and one of the reasons I did is because senators who are members of a Parliamentary caucus are at least nominally answerable to an elected member of Parliament, i.e. the party leader, and so, if Canadians wish to hold a senator or a group of senators to account for their actions, they can, in theory, do so through that elected leader.  Continue reading Independent Liberal Senators take their new freedom out for a spin