Section: Macleans (Canada)
A drama-filled March, and manufacturing madness
It’s a brand new month, a brand new quarter and, hopefully, spring. March was undeniably a hectic month, with diverging trends around the globe: as the ECB finally launched their quantitative easing program and the U.S. continued to be the world’s economic bright spot, the euro and the dollar inched suddenly close to parity. So far,...
Cost of Iraq and NATO reassurance missions ‘classified’: DND
President of the Treasury Board Tony Clement . (Patrick Doyle/CP) OTTAWA – Parliament may have approved a year-long extension to the country’s combat mission in Iraq and Syria, but the Harper government is once again refusing to say how much it will cost taxpayers. Nor will it reveal the estimated price tag for upcoming involvement in...
Maclean’s on the Hill: Ukraine, Ed Broadbent, Bill C-51
Each week, the Maclean’s Ottawa bureau sits down with Cormac MacSweeney to discuss the headlines of the week. This week, we talk to NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg about the situation in Ukraine, sit down with former NDP leader Ed Broadbent to discuss progressive hopes for this year’s federal election, and discuss Bill C-51,...
The Interview: NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg
(David Kawai for Maclean’s Magazine) Jens Stoltenberg has been secretary-general of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization since October. Before that, he was prime minister of Norway for nine years. He was in Ottawa this week. Q: You met this morning with Prime Minister Harper and with some senior ministers, including Jason Kenney and Rob...
A cash crunch, a downgrade, and making fast-food pay
Yesterday we took a look at economic crises rocking Brazil and Venezuela, so today, spare a thought for our usual suspects (and their lenders), Greece and Ukraine, whose fortunes just seem to keep on crashing before our eyes. A default for Ukraine is “almost certain”, according to Moody’s, which downgraded the country’s credit outlook...
Must-see QP: How legal are Canadian airstrikes in Syria?
Adrian Wyld/CP Maclean’s is your home for the daily political theatre that is question period. If you’ve never watched, check out our primer. Today, QP runs from 2:15 p.m. until just past 3. We livestream and liveblog all the action. The must-see moment Stephen Harper once dissed Vladimir Putin and then showed off that he told another...
Femen and the theory of toplessness as protest
Neda Topaloski briefly interrupted the business of the House of Commons yesterday—forever entered into history as “[disturbance in gallery]“—when she yelled out from the visitors’ gallery with her objections to Bill C-51, the government’s anti-terrorism legislation. Protests in the galleries are an occasional occurrence, but...
Astronaut Chris Hadfield issues prime directive: improve quality of life for all
VANCOUVER – Astronaut Chris Hadfield has commanded the International Space Station, made three flights into space and orbited the globe more than 2,300 times. Yet he still spends time marvelling on the small things that put him there, such as the elegant mechanics of a set screw. “I constantly remind myself that, in fact, this is just a summed...
It’s Friday – so kick back and watch the CRTC
What do you really want to watch on TV? That’s the question the Canadian broadcast regulator has been mulling this week, as they move to restrict “bundles” of TV packages for subscribers as part of a broader overhaul of Canadian TV. The move is great for consumer choice (sick of paying for channels you never watch?), but could result in...
The real target of Taber’s new law: Mennonites?
Photograph by Chris Bolin It’s one o’clock on a damp Sunday afternoon in Taber, Alta., three weeks after the town council enacted a bylaw that imposes a curfew, fines for swearing and yelling in public, and gives police powers to break up groups of three or more people. Like every other Sunday here, pickup trucks begin pulling into...
