Rosemary Barton is the Hero We Deserve

I have a new op-ed on the Canadaland website, wherein I make the case for Rosemary Barton to be named the permanent host of CBC News Network's flagship politics show, Power & Politics. As someone who has watched a lot of politics shows (and even wrote about them for a while on Macleans.ca), she is a host that has impressed me more than any other since the days of Don Newman, and in my humble opinion, if the CBC brass were smart, they would make her the permanent host immediately and start branding the show around her with no time to spare.

National Post Radio: Dale Smith and Jen Gerson square off on Justin Trudeau’s plan to fix Ottawa

Finally online is a Canada Talks radio debate that I had a few days ago with National Post digital comment editor Jen Gerson about electoral reform, and in case you haven't read my work before, I took the con position, arguing that there's a lot more going for the status quo than people tend to believe.

The Senate is killing private members' bills – and that's a good thing

I have a new op-ed in the National Post, wherein I look at the number of private members' bills that are due to die on the Order Paper when the Senate rises any day now, and why it's not such a bad thing, as these bills have proliferated and become a genuine legislative problem in the past few years. Not to mention, it's also validating the role of the Senate when it comes to stopping bad bills before they make it into law, causing more problems down the road.

Government makes a hash of genetic privacy

My column this week on Loonie Politics looks at an issue that didn't get a lot of attention in the media over the course of the last parliament, but nevertheless is a growing issue as time goes on and genetic testing becomes more available. The machinations that took place are fascinating, and shows how the government seems to have dropped the ball on an issue they promised to do something about.

Was the Senate audit worth $23.6 million?

I'm featured this week on CBC Radio One's Day 6, in which I debate with the head of the Canadian Taxpayer's Federation about the Auditor General's report on the Senate, and I took the con position as to whether the audit was worth the money spent on it. Given that few people are raising questions about the audit and its process, I'm glad to be a bit of a contrarian from the rest of the pundit class on the subject, and I was happy to be asked onto the show.

Chong's Reform Act is 'actively toxic to Canadian democracy'

I have a new op-ed on the National Post's Full Comment page, which returns to the issue of Michael Chong's Reform Act, and I continue to deconstruct it as being a step in the right direction, to showing how it will be exactly the opposite. Originally the piece had more about Chong's hypocrisy in his hopes to use the Senate to kill a different bill he didn't like, but we wound up reworking it to stay focused on this bill, but it worked out quite well in the end.

Let’s all take a breath about the Senate audit

I have an extra column on Loonie Politics this week, looking at the Auditor General's report on the Senate. While pretty much every other pundit out there hyperventilates about the findings and is agitating for either a fantasy version of reform or for abolition (which is never going to happen), I try to put the whole report into some perspective in a calm and clear-headed manner, and to put the numbers into context rather than in isolation.

Chong’s Reform Act can’t restore accountability to leaders

My column this week on Loonie Politics takes another look at the Reform Act, and takes apart some of its fundamental goals – making leaders more accountable – and shows how the premise remains flawed while we maintain the current system of leadership selection, not just the method of removal.

Who killed Question Period?

I have an op-ed in the National Post, which looks at the way in which Question Period has declined even more of late than it's usual terrible self, and the ways in which the fixed election date has made a bad situation even worse. I'm also very happy that this made it into the print edition of the Post, for my first time.

Michael Chong's Reform Act is Easy to Hate. So Why Does the Media Love it?

I have a new op-ed on the Canadaland website, where I look at the one-sided coverage of Michael Chong's Reform Act on two of our national political shows, and give some critical commentary on what the one-sidedness of that coverage says about the way in which we're being served by our political media. As one of the few reporters who has looked at Chong's bill from a critical perspective, looking at other coverage has been an interesting exercise.

Why aren’t MPs paying attention to Information Commissioner Legault?

My column this week on Loonie Politics looks at the rather serious issue of the Information Commissioner's special report on the RCMP's destruction of records related to the long-gun registry, and why her concerns aren't registering with most MPs – a mere three questions have been asked on the subject in QP, despite the huge concerns with what happened, and the government's response in trying to change the law retroactively, which is the aspect that people should be most concerned about.

For Evan Solomon, Elizabeth May's Speech was a Democratic Crisis (It was not)

I have a new op-ed up on the Canadaland website, which looks at how the two main political shows covered the issue of Elizabeth May's bomb of a speech at last weekend's Press Gallery Dinner, and her subsequent apology tour. It's been a while since I've done much critical commentary of the political shows – something I didn't quite get into as much during my time writing the Politics on TV column for Maclean's, but I'm grateful that Canadaland has asked me to write more about this.

Why CANADALAND: COMMONS is possibly the worst thing for Canadian politics

I have an editorial on the Canadaland website, which is a rather scathing critique of the first episode of their new Canadaland: Commons podcast. I hadn't expected to write this piece for them – I had expressed my head-exploding disbelief with the show over Twitter with a stated intention to blog more about it later, and was immediately contacted by one of the Canadaland website producers with the offer to write it for them, on a paid basis. I accepted, wrote the piece, and soon found that I was not the only person who felt that way about the show. And kudos to Canadaland for putting critique up about their own podcast on their website.

Conservatives not putting their money where their mouths are

My column this week on Loonie Politics tries to put some numbers to the narratives, particularly where the Conservatives try to position themselves on national security and defence. While a lot of big words get spoken, and photo ops happen near the front lines in Iraq, the truth of the numbers as told by people like the PBO is that the government isn't backing up those narratives with the actual dollars to make a difference, which is a real problem.

No, the Senate is not being put on trial

My column this week on Loonie Politics debunks some of the narratives that seem to be emerging from the Mike Duffy trial currently ongoing, and in particular the narrative that the defence seems to be putting forward. Many pundits seem to be echoing this sentiment, which I try to push back against.

You can’t just turn off the Senate tap

My column this week on Loonie Politics responds to the rather incredulous beliefs that some people – including certain reporters – have that somehow the government of the day can deprive the Senate of funding, as though it wasn't a wholly independent chamber of parliament.

Ticking clock looms over parliament

My column this week on Loonie Politics looks at the limited amount of time left in Parliament before they rise for the summer, the heavy workload before them, and the fact that the government can attempt to game the calendar to ensure that contentious bills – like an upcoming omnibus budget bill – won't get adequate scrutiny because there simply won't be time, which is a problem for democracy.

Selinger gong show a preview of Reform Act future

My column this week on Loonie Politics looks at what happened with the leadership contest in Manitoba, and how Michael Chong's Reform Act can make this kind of a terrible situation a more common occurrence because of how those provisions echo the problems in the Manitoba rules going forward, which is not a good situation for anyone.

Chong’s Reform Act sabotages parliamentary democracy and needs to be defeated

My column this week on Loonie Politics looks at Michael Chong's Reform Act, which is up for a final vote in the House of Commons, and how terrible it actually is in its final wording after numerous amendments. While people seem to be inclined to like the idea of the bill, the substance is terrible, and I break down what is the matter with the bill in the column in the hopes of changing some minds.

NDP satellite offices are just one of many problems

My column this week on Loonie Politics takes a broader look at the issue of the NDP satellite offices and the demands that they repay the Commons for them. The issues underlying it date back to after the 2011 election, and based on conversations I've had with some people behind the scenes, I paint a picture of a broader problem that led to the creation of these offices, and the ways in which the party is now trying to excuse them including outright misdirection.

Paul Rochon, a veteran Finance official

My story on Lobby Monitor today is a profile of the deputy minister of Finance, Paul Rochon. This was a more difficult profile to write as the subject wasn't willing to be interviewed, and finding people who knew him turned out to be a harder task than originally thought, but eventually I made the right connections and got the profile off the ground, and it turned out pretty well in the end.

Beware the unintended consequences of being too family-friendly

I have an op-ed in the Ottawa Citizen which looks to make a contribution to the ongoing debate about how to make parliament a more "family friendly" institution for the MPs that inhabit it. While everyone brings up some standards, like cancelling Fridays or electronic votes, I caution that these changes will have unintended consequences that could damage the institution – and most especially collegiality – based on the history of changes that have been made to date.

The Phantom Parliament

My column this week on Loonie Politics looks at the pre-election landscape and the very real possibility that the House of Commons will increasingly become a ghost house as more and more MPs follow their leaders onto the early campaign trail, convinced that more votes can be found elsewhere rather than in doing their jobs – something that won't serve anyone well.

ABS town hall brings out the skeptics

I have a blog post on the Canadian Lawyer website wherein I recap a town hall meeting that took place here in Ottawa last night over the controversial Alternative Business Structures proposals that the Law Society of Upper Canada is currently contemplating. It was interesting to learn about the topic of ABS and why it's so controversial, and it was an interesting discussion to follow and then distil into a mere 500 words.

No more year-long elections, please

My column this week on Loonie Politics, the first of the New Year, takes the issue of it being an election year thanks to fixed election dates and examines if it really has made our system "more democratic" as such reform proponents like to state. It's not an argument that I buy, and I lay out reasons why including those drawn from conversations I had with government MPs in Ontario on the eve of their previous fixed election date in 2011 as to how it simply changed political calculations but still advantaged the government. With all of the (baseless) talk of a possible early election here, I felt like it was an appropriate time to remind everyone of what a sham our fixed election law really is anyway, and why it deserves to be repealed.