American writer Carl Sandburg once said politicians should have three hats: one for throwing into the ring, one for talking through and another to pull rabbits from.
Chrystia Freeland, having already made clear her ambition to succeed Justin Trudeau as prime minister, made good use of her other two hats in a speech on inflation to a Bay Street audience on Thursday.
Chrystia Freeland is more vexing than Justin Trudeau. This is quite a milestone. We all grant that she is smarter. But we thought he had commanded that other territory as all his own.
From the evidence to date, what should be a solemn, substantive principled hearing into the invoking of the Emergencies Act by the Trudeau government is being treated by all the relevant ministers and particularly Finance Minister Freeland, as a laugh, as some comic diversion eating up the prestigious time of so-important cabinet ministers who have so many other deeper, more powerful things to think about.
She’s the girlfriend you were happy initiated the break up with you.
“Canadians need to decide for themselves whether they are getting their money’s worth when it comes to how governments are spending their tax dollars.”
Freeland says Canada’s economic reputation was at risk, prompting Emergencies Act
The risk to Canada’s economic reputation was behind the federal government’s invocation of the Emergencies Act to deter the “Freedom Convoy” blockades across the country, the deputy prime minister and finance minister repeatedly told MPs Tuesday.
But Chrystia Freeland — the highest-ranking minister yet to appear before the special committee investigating the government’s unprecedented use of emergency powers — would not share specific data that would have been available at the time the Act was invoked, which would have shown the protests were damaging the national economy.
But trade was up….
The economic nightmare that wasn’t? Border blockades had little effect on trade, data reveals
Despite the highly publicized blockades at Ontario’s Ambassador Bridge and Coutts crossing in Alberta, cross-border trade in Ontario and Alberta was up 16 per cent in February, compared to the same month last year, according to data from Statistics Canada.
And while some businesses were impacted by the blockades, the trade figures also raise questions about the government’s use of the Emergencies Act – a decision, in part, justified by “threats to (Canada’s) economic security” brought about by the blockades.
Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland is finally gearing up to address our inflation predicament head-on, and not a moment too soon.
On Thursday on Bay Street, Freeland will deliver what’s being flagged as a “significant” speech on inflation, affordability and the government’s plan to guide the economy through the current turbulence to a smooth landing.
The Star has learned that she’ll have a $7-billion (or so) list in hand that spells out exactly how federal programs are ramping up to help those who are particularly exposed to the harms of inflation.
The Conservatives are calling on Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino to step down from his cabinet post as questions linger about who wanted the government to deploy emergency powers to end an anti-vaccine mandate protest earlier this year.
A Parliamentary committee is examining the government’s decision to make use of the Emergencies Act, which it did to end an anti-vaccine mandate protest that occupied Ottawa in January and February of this year.
Global Affairs decided it would be a good idea to send a senior representative to the Russian Embassy to celebrate Russia Day last week.
They defended the decision, despite Canada’s official position that Russia has committed genocide during its illegal invasion of Ukraine.
When all hell broke loose, Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly promptly apologized, but it was too late. It was such a deplorable decision that there was no possible rationalization.
Saying “F— you” to a woman calling for the end of vaccine mandates found a Liberal MP and Olympic kayak gold medallist up the creek with no paddle or manners.
“Sit quietly and we will control all that you see and hear.” These famous words used to usher in viewers of “The Outer Limits,” but they could more aptly describe the designs of the CRTC, the broadcasting regulator that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government seems intent on putting in charge of anything that moves or makes a sound.
What are facts? What is the truth? Questions that schoolchildren used to be able to answer now trip up journalists and prime ministers. We’ve tumbled from a world that generally agreed upon what is true and what is not, down a rabbit hole where the pursuit of power, money and clout twist and stretch reality until it’s sometimes barely recognizable.
For once, a Liberal who isn’t spinning fairy tales about the coming disruption his party’s “green” policies will cause ordinary Canadians.
Last Monday, during debate on this year’s federal budget, Whitby, Ont., Liberal MP Ryan Turnbull admitted, “Achieving net-zero is not going to be easy, that’s for sure … We are going to have to switch our lifestyles and that is going to be painful at times.”
OTTAWA — Nowhere in the Liberal government’s latest attempt to craft clear, practical gun control legislation — by introducing a new handgun “freeze”— does it say “thou shalt not buy, sell, import, trade or transfer handguns.”
Instead, the mechanism to slap a freeze on the acquisition of handguns is found in the legalese of a 55-page bill — and accompanying regulations — that are typical of the morass that is firearms law in Canada.
It’s a classic example of the Liberals’ beleaguered efforts at gun control, which can often seem like more talk than action to its supporters and critics alike.
So far, the various justifications the Trudeau government has given for invoking the Emergencies Act against the Freedom Convoy protests have fallen apart.
Consider the record to date.
Neither the RCMP nor Ottawa police asked the federal government to invoke the act, contrary to claims by Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino.
Record-high gas prices in Canada are driving concerns for taxi and ride-hailing app workers across the country, with many struggling to make ends meet.
The Canadian national average for gas prices has surpassed $2 per litre for the first time ever this year, according to GasBuddy and the CAA. That means drivers are spending more to fill up their tanks and working longer hours on the road.
There’s no doubt about it: Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino misled Parliament.
Oh, maybe the words Mendicino spoke in front of Parliamentary committees don’t meet the precise, legal definition of misleading the House and Senate. Maybe they don’t rise to the level required to expel him.
But at best “misleading” is the polite word for the minister’s justification of the Liberals’ use of the Emergencies Act back in February.
