It’s by-election day in four ridings across the country – two in Alberta and two in Toronto. Despite the usual lazy story ledes about how this is somehow yet another “test” for Trudeau, it would seem to me that this is more of a test for Mulcair with the two Toronto ridings, as to whether or not he can hold the one seat he had there or make gains with the other, while in Alberta, it’ll be a test as to how much Harper can retain his own base – something he has had trouble with in the past few by-elections, whether in Calgary Centre or Brandon–Souris, where significant leads were lost and their wins were narrow and marginal compared to resurgent Liberals who had not had traction in those regions in decades. And Fort McMurray will be a very interesting race to watch, not only because of the amount of attention that Trudeau in particular paid to the region, but because of the deep unhappiness with the industry there to the changes to the Temporary Foreign Workers programme, which they rely on heavily because of an overheated market with no labour available. That may be the biggest upset if they decide to punish Harper at the ballot box. All of which is a far more interesting lede than whether the Liberals are being “tested” once more.
Tomorrow being Canada Day, we can expect great parties around the globe for our ex-pat communities. Err, except that the government privatized the celebrations in places like London and New York, and they couldn’t find enough sponsors so they cancelled. Yay Canada! Meanwhile back home, a number of “pariah” states, like North Korea, Fiji, Belarus, Syria and Madagascar are expressly not invited to local celebrations, because they’re in our bad books (for good reason, mind you).
Most, if not all of the provinces, won’t have their Canada Job Grant agreements with the federal government in place by July 1st, despite already getting a three-month extension to deliver it by then. In fact, it looks like those agreements won’t be in place until the fall, which can’t be doing much to burnish the government’s image on this file.
Despite an ambitious free trade agenda, most of the agreements this government has been crowing about are stalling, for a variety of reasons, including concerns in Germany that signing onto CETA with Canada would give American litigators a backdoor channel to sue European companies through their Canadian subsidiaries.
Public Works keeps saying that their work on the West Block renovations are all on time (and on budget), but taking a closer look at their reports shows that they’re not quite as on time as they like to say that they are, and that one of the items on their timetable – business continuity planning for the House of Commons – was dropped from reporting because it was so far behind that it was red-flagged in their report. So “on time” apparently means insuring that you juggle your reports to make it look like you are, in any case.
Yukon First Nations are planning to challenge the government over changes to the way environmental assessments are conducted in the North.
An Afghan boy who was sent to Canada ten years ago for a heart transplant now regrets that he couldn’t have stayed here, given his ongoing health issues and the harassment he and his family face from the Taliban, who consider them spies for the Canadians.
NDP MP Wayne Marston talks about the forces that shaped him – childhood poverty, his father’s alcoholism, his mother’s mental illness, and so on.
Jennifer Ditchburn profiles three MPs who started out as immigrants to this country.
Ten-year Conservative MP Joe Preston won’t be running again in 2015. Perhaps his time as chair of Procedure and House Affairs, and the childish shenanigans therein, have been enough to convince him to throw in the towel.
And Susan Delacourt writes about the reasons to celebrate Canada Day from the perspective of politics watchers in this country.