Since my last blog a couple of things have happened so here are my thoughts on them as shown below. Pipelines Trudeau as expected re-approved the Transmountain pipeline which was the right decision, although doing so a day after voting in favour of declaring a climate emergency is kind of bad optics, but I will… Continue reading Pipelines, Climate Change, NDP Platform and Guns

Ford hurting Scheer If you've been following polls closely, it is pretty clear Doug Ford is not too popular in Ontario and his unpopularity is weighing Scheer down thus making his chances of winning a majority a much steeper hill to climb than it was a few months ago.  Thanks to the large deficit the… Continue reading Mid June Update

Last two weeks I was overseas in Taiwan and South Korea so not able to update my blog, but a few things have happened since so below is a summary of my thoughts. Transmountain Pipeline The courts ruled unanimously BC cannot block the Transmountain Pipeline.  This is a huge victory for Jason Kenney and Justin… Continue reading Political events while I was away

The Saskatchewan supreme court ruled in a 3-2 split that the federal carbon tax backstop is constitutional.  At the moment it is a win for the federal government, but the split decision means we probably won't know one way or another until the Supreme Court rules.  My view all along is the federal government should… Continue reading Carbon Tax and By-election

With the recent elections, we now have 7 out of 10 provinces (might be 8 soon depending on how Newfoundland votes on May 16th) with over 80% of the Canadian population with small c conservative governments.  By contrast only 2 provinces (could be down to one soon) and one territory representing less than 5% of… Continue reading Blue Wave sweeping across Canada?

Tomorrow PEI votes and while normally few of us outside the province would really care, a political earthquake might be on the horizon.  PEI has always voted either Liberal or Progressive Conservative, but polls show the Greens in the lead meaning PEI might have Canada's first ever Green government and this could have profound implications… Continue reading PEI Election

A blue tsunami swept through Alberta yesterday and was bigger than most polls predicted.  I kind of thought there would be a polling error, just didn't know which direction it would be in as PCs in the past always outperformed polls so was this an underestimation of incumbency or of a particular party and I… Continue reading Alberta Election Post mortem

Tomorrow Alberta goes to the polls and it looks like it will probably result in a UCP majority if the polls are correct, but with the NDP forming a decent size opposition, otherwise not the blowout many had predicted.  As someone who has family in Alberta, I always thought it would be more competitive than… Continue reading Alberta Election Final Thoughts

I believe the decision by the Liberals to kick both out was a major mistake.  Yes they are a bit of a distraction, but taking this approach just makes a bad situation worse.  Trudeau should have all along just admitted he made a mistake and apologized.  Had he done that the issue would be forgotten… Continue reading JWR and Jane Philpott kicked out of caucus

In less than a week New Zealand prime-minister Jacinda Ardern has promised sweeping gun control with a ban on all or most semi-automatic weapons (exact details forthcoming).  This is the type of leadership we need on gun control, but it is too bad it took a tragedy as bad as Christchurch mosque shooting for this… Continue reading New Zealand semi-Automatic ban and Alberta election