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It’s a good thing that baseball season opened today. For one thing, it is the officially legislated first day of summer, but that’s not the only reason. The Blue Jays are about to show us how well a minor league all-star team can compete in the bigs. That will take our minds off all the ugly stuff happening in the big bad world of politics. There are a lot of things pissing me off these days and they all have a common cause. Common cause starts with C and that stands for Conservatives. Scratch the surface of any bit of political nastiness and you willRead More →

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Happy International Women’s Day, friends, readers and subscribers. Over the past month we’ve seen how two strong and determined women can shake up the government. It’s been a treat to watch how Jody Wilson-Raybould, the former Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, and Jane Philpott, the former Treasury Board President, broke open a can of worms that grabbed the attention of the Prime Minister, his principal secretary, and the highest-ranking civil servant in the land. Good for them. It’s not often we get to look behind the curtain and see how government really works. Justin Trudeau didn’t do himself any favours in his press conference yesterdayRead More →

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A couple of thoughts on the ethical and moral crisis that has gripped the federal government. I watched a lot of today’s testimony by Gerald Butts, Michael Wernick and Nathalie Drouin. As Clerk of the Privy Council, Wernick is the highest-ranking member of the civil service. He is, in effect, the Deputy Prime Minister. Drouin is the Deputy Minister of Justice. Butts was Justin Trudeau’s principal secretary when the SNC-Lavalin scandal was incubating. My first thought was that Wernick was pugnacious and, from my perspective, offensive. He said over and over again that the decision about granting a deferred prosecution arrangement to the company isRead More →

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It’s the stuff that feeds cynicism. If it does nothing else, it reinforces a notion we hold to be true. Whether it is or isn’t doesn’t matter nearly as much as the fact that we believe it to be so. Politicians are by nature crooked liars. Want evidence? Then look no further than Washington, London and Ottawa. All three cities house governments led by powerful politicians who will twist facts, distort truths, and manipulate people to get what they want. It’s all in the interest of keeping their own brand in power. Washington. We have known for years that Donald Trump is a man withoutRead More →