FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 2009. 2:00 PM EDT. As expected the Harper minority government’s ways and means budget motion sailed through the Canadian House of Commons easily this morning, with the support of the Bloc Québécois and the New Democrats. The vote was 224 Yea to 74 Nay, with only Liberals voting against. As a result, […]
Anyone who hoped Dalton McGuinty’s governing Ontario Liberals were in for a setback in the St. Paul’s by-election in midtown Toronto yesterday will be disappointed. The Liberal candidate, Dr. Eric Hoskins won handily with 13,192 votes. His Conservative challenger Sue-Ann Levy managed only 7,851 votes, compared with 4,677 for Julian Heller of the NDP, and […]
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 16, 1:30 PM EDT. [UPDATED SEPTEMBER 17]: The New Democrats have now made clear that they will join the Bloc Quebecois in supporting the Conservative minority government’s ways and means budget motion this Friday, September 18. Only a little reading between the lines of NDP spokesperson Thomas Mulcair’s remarks also suggests that his […]
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 2009. 4:30 PM EDT. Well, well, well … Bloc Québécois leader Gilles Duceppe has now officially announced that his party will support the Harper minority government’s ways and means budget motion this coming Friday, September 18 – and thus at least avert yet another Canadian federal election in the utterly immediate future. […]
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 2009. 5:00 PM EDT. [UPDATED 11:00 PM EDT; SEPTEMBER 18; OCTOBER 9]. So the federal Parliament of Canada has now reconvened on the banks of the Ottawa River. In question period today Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff aptly enough told Conservative minority Prime Minister Stephen Harper that “the problem of instability is you.” […]
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 2009. Exactly 250 years ago today the residents of Quebec City awoke to find some 4,000 British soldiers waiting to do battle on the flat open space at the top of the cliffs, known as the Plains of Abraham. And this finally proved the penultimate act of what is still called la […]
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 12. 11:00 PM ET. [UPDATED SEPTEMBER 13, 18;Â and AUGUST 24, 2011]. Jack Layton has been proud that his New Democrats have so far not “propped up” the Stephen Harper Conservative minority government. He’s been contemptuous of the Liberals for carrying this can when no one else would. But on some readings he […]
[UPDATED MARCH 18, 2011]. According to Jennifer Ditchburn, just after dinner (in Ottawa at least) last night: “A critical vote that could bring down the minority Conservative government has been tentatively scheduled for next Friday, sources tell The Canadian Press … Conservative sources say the motion is likely to be introduced on Sept. 18, and […]
This past Sunday some of us in central Canada were reading about “How Barack Obama lost his mojo.” Listening to his Address to a Joint Session of Congress on Health Care in Washington last night, it was hard to believe that the mojo had ever been misplaced. Senator Barbara Boxer told Rachel Maddow on MSNBC […]
[UPDATED SEPTEMBER 11]. Dr. L. Frank Bunting has finally completed his (as it happens very) in-depth look at the inevitably complex question of whether or not there will or even should be yet another Canadian federal election this fall. For his full report CLICK HERE. For a preview of the three most recent – and […]
