Kate Purchase
Liberal strategist

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While Canadians may be relying more on agricultural imports, some food policy experts say the tide will turn to local food. A national food policy will be essential to getting Canada to that goal, while also improving food security, and some food policy experts are looking to the new government for that.

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Assembly of First Nations National Chief Perry Bellegarde wants the Liberal government to set up a joint Cabinet committee with the AFN executive—which would include Mr. Bellegarde and the regional chiefs—as a first step in resetting the relationship between First Nations and the federal government. 

“We view the joint Cabinet committee as part of the need for early and regular ongoing engagement to ensure we advance the First Nations agenda,” Mr. Bellegarde told The Hill Times last week.

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Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government will be sworn in this week and a new roster of Cabinet ministers will take over their files. In addition to the expectations brought on by a number of policy promises come expectations about how those pledges are implemented—what role the new ministers and their departments will play compared to Mr. Trudeau’s Prime Minister’s Office.

The expectations are high on both fronts. As much as any particular policy proposal, the Liberals’ capture of the change vote on Oct. 19 was about tone and attitude. Beginning on Nov. 4, when the Cabinet is sworn in, the new government must demonstrate the change it promised.

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Oct. 24 marked the 70th anniversary of the creation of the United Nations, whose initial purpose was to prevent anything like the Second World War from ever happening again. Its mandate has grown substantially since then.

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Observing the cathartic effect of the end of the Harper regime reveals just how traumatized millions of Canadians were by nearly 10 years of rule. The analogies and metaphors keep coming: like getting out of jail, like waking up from a nightmare, like the end of an occupation. 

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Observing the cathartic effect of the end of the Harper regime reveals just how traumatized millions of Canadians were by nearly 10 years of rule. The analogies and metaphors keep coming: like getting out of jail, like waking up from a nightmare, like the end of an occupation. 

This election will provide students, pundits and authors with career-building opportunities to dissect the results. Part of that analysis will, of course, examine the unprecedented assault on democracy carried out by the Conservatives. 

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Wednesday night, as always, NDP MPs and party and Hill staffers packed in to Brixton’s, their home turf on Sparks street. For many of the bar’s most loyal patrons, it would be the final gathering.

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In a major speech on the environment in June, Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau told his Vancouver audience “we need to take real action on climate change.” But nothing he has said since then—and this includes the Liberal Party platform—has told us what he means by “real action.” He has promised carbon pricing, but without details, and has not even set a greenhouse gas emissions reduction target for Canada.

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Stephen Harper may have departed from the political stage, but the memory of his time in office will linger on—or at least his memory will long linger in the minds of Liberals.

But not in a good way.

Indeed, Harper will forever haunt Liberal nightmares.

I can imagine how 30 years from now, Liberal parents will frighten their children by saying something like, “Eat your vegetables, kids, or else Stephen Harper will get you.”

Why has Harper attained the status of political boogeyman?

It’s simple.

For nine years, Harper managed to deny the Liberals what they crave most of all in this world: political power.

Nine long years!

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As the dust settles on Canada’s longest federal election campaign since 1872, Canada’s environmental community is hopeful that the new government will reverse Canada’s long decline in environmental leadership.

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The new government will soon take office, carrying with it the hopes of a broad range of Canadians. And for those of us who value scientific research—either because we use it in our professional lives or simply because we value its role in a modern knowledge society—there are many reasons to be optimistic.

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The long awaited federal election has come and gone and we now have a new government and new Prime Minister. The tide came in for Justin Trudeau and went out for Stephen Harper, as is the way of our democracy. The question now becomes whether or not the electorate made an intelligent decision that will ultimately prove good for the country.

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Industry insiders applaud the government’s move to more strictly curb the use of antibiotics for animals, something the animal drug sectoritself pushed for, and some say it has to be just the tip of the iceberg in cracking down on the overuse of the drugs, which have been sold as a growth promoter in the past.

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Everyone loves a winner. The preliminary results of Innovative’s online post-election survey of 2,874 Canadians shows the Liberals up on party image and leader image, and with high expectations that they will make almost every policy in government better.

The biggest standout is the post-election change in views of Justin Trudeau. The PM-designate’s favourables have grown from 47 per cent in our last pre-election survey to 59 per cent now, while his unfavourables dropped from 30 per cent to 23 per cent. Most impressively, he is now the choice of 48 per cent as best Prime Minister.

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In his victory speech, Justin Trudeau said his majority government would have sunny ways, be positive and repeated that it would operate with openness and transparency.

More than 30 years ago, Pierre Trudeau brought in with great fanfare access to information legislation but with many secrecy exceptions and broad Cabinet record exclusions. 

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The incoming Liberal government has promised dozens of electoral and Parliamentary reforms as part of an ambitious agenda. MP Stéphane Dion says his party remains committed to its plan for “open and transparent government” but experts say it could be tricky for the Liberals to pursue the reforms right off the bat.

“We need to make sure that they will be implemented and we are very willing to do so. It will be a significant improvement of our democracy,” said Mr. Dion, the former party leader and democratic reform critic who was re-elected in Saint-Laurent-Cartierville, Que. on Oct. 19. 

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Farmers who rely on income from growing food crops for fuel may face some tougher times ahead as subsidies come to an end and the low price of oil makes corn-based ethanol and other, more expensive, alternative vegetable-based fuels less attractive. 

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Justin Trudeau is expected to announce an historic federal Cabinet next Wednesday. For the first time in the history of our country, half the ministers will be women.  

It was one of the promises Trudeau made during an election campaign that became about more than simply a change of government.

His victory represented a generational change. Among the three major candidates, Trudeau and his team were palpably younger, more energetic and had fresher ideas than either of his two opponents. 

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The election is over, but he post mortems continue, this time regarding the media’s role in the 78-day campaign. From early coverage of the Mike Duffy fraud, breach of trust and bribery trial, to an “angry Tory” calling journalists “lying pieces of shit,” to photos of dead children on beaches changing the channel on refugee and immigration issues during the election, and various endorsements for various parties from multiple media outlets, the media’s role was to some, controversial, and to others, influential.

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