Results tagged “stephenharper”

Well, look who's offering candy to babies now. Stephen Harper ditches the friendly blue sweater in favour of something a little spookier in this politically themed Halloween montage in Little India. On Woodfield Road, the resident artist's lawn arrangement is placed perfectly for tonight's festivities—the city will be closing down a portion of the road tonight from 6–9 p.m., where a fire eater will be taking the place of cars. And while the performer is busy chomping on flames and captivating the eyes of kids, well, here's hoping the politicians don't pop out and try to eat the children.

In a recent article, we described Canadian democracy as "drunken" and "staggering," eliciting the image of a bumbling, well-intentioned dullard saddled with an affliction that, for better or worse, is an effect of his or her environment or circumstances but manifest as failure for reasons entirely their own. Today, with news from Ottawa that two opposition parties are going to supportively wedge themselves under Harper's armpits for a while, we—like others with a shamelessly professed anti-Harper bias—stand by it.

Cue the trumpets, unfurl the banners, make with the fanfare, and let fly with a triumphant shout of "Sweet merciful crap, here we go again."

As the Star's Susan Delacourt featured this morning, Stephen Harper may have just exposed himself to a Biblical deluge of Catholic fury. Or not—it depends how serious of an issue the tasty, trans-substantiated body of your Lord and Saviour is.

There's more than enough trash-talking to go with the tulips this spring on Parliament Hill, with some distinctly unflowery themes (Fiscal mismanagement! Attack ads! Election threats! Secret tapes!) echoing through the air.

As predicted by Spacing—and now confirmed by the National Post—the federal government is set to pump around $1 billion into the Sheppard light-rail transit line, described as the most "shovel-ready" of the TTC's Transit City LRT routes (the Star reports that construction is now expected to begin this fall). Today's announcement, made by Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Premier Dalton McGuinty at the Transit Commission's Hillcrest Complex, follows last month's commitment by the provincial government of $9 billion for Transit City and other Toronto-area public transit initiatives. Still no word on funding for the city's coveted Bombardier Flexity streetcars, however—a fact sure to keep Mayor David Miller and TTC Chair Adam Giambrone grumbling, though they'll likely tone their complaints down a notch, at least for today.

The Liberal Party of Canada's national convention in Vancouver this past weekend produced few surprises, with delegates officially crowning Toronto Member of Parliament Michael Ignatieff as leader of the once-mighty red machine. One development that did catch our attention, however, was the unveiling on Saturday of the party's new logo, which replaces the maple-leaf-as-rising-sun insignia in use since 2004. According to the accompanying news release, the new logo "symbolizes a re-energized Liberal Party emerging from a process of renewal engaging all Liberal members." A fascinating claim, given that the new wordmark is nothing more than the word "Liberal" in Times New Roman, emblazoned with a maple leaf that appears to have been cribbed from the cover of Maclean's.

Toronto residents, take heart: crime in your city is less severe than you have been led to believe. That's the word from Statistics Canada, which yesterday released the first edition of the Police-Reported Crime Severity Index, a new ranking created at the request of the police community that takes into account both the volume and seriousness of criminal acts. According to the index, police-reported crime across Canada declined in severity between 1998 and 2007, the last year for which data is available. The index also pegs Toronto as the metropolitan area with the lowest crime severity, well below the national average and that of other major cities such as Montreal and Vancouver.

By the time you read this, you may have already received an email from an online group called Avaaz asking you to "pull out all the stops" by spending a minute to fill out an online petition which will be "delivered to parliament" to pressure the Harper government into granting the CBC's loan request, thereby "saving the CBC."

The CBC doesn't always get it right. In the last few months alone we've mocked it for losing an iconic hockey anthem, been exasperated by its new primetime television show, and condemned its poor taste in music venues. Still and all, we're pretty sure that the CBC is essential to keeping Canada, well, Canadian, and we'd very much like for the federal government to stop kicking it around quite so much.

With the national economy struggling under the weight of a global economic crisis, Governor General Michaëlle Jean yesterday delivered a throne speech that was both incredibly brief (the English version contains just 750 words) and, due to the intense Ottawa cold, surrounded by hardly any of the usual vice-regal pomp and circumstance. Which was probably just as well, given that yesterday's speech was really just the pre-game show for today's main event, the federal budget.

Two months ago, Michael Ignatieff joined Twitter. Under his biography, he clearly stated his objective: Michael Ignatieff for leader of the Liberal Party of Canada. Over five weeks, he updated fifteen times ("Is energized by the crowd last night – what a great way to start a week. Off to Ottawa today," he wrote on November 24) and accumulated 754 followers.

                    

Torontoist is ending the year by naming our Heroes and Villains of 2008--the people, places, and things that we've either fallen head over heels in love with or developed uncontrollable rage towards over the past twelve months, with one hero and one villain selected by each participating staff member. On Christmas Day: the heroes. On Boxing Day: the villains. And next week, cast your vote to determine the Superhero and Supervillain of the year.

Although Stephen Harper has started to make concessions on his party's November fiscal update, we can’t forget that he broke his promise of fixed election dates earlier this year and has now also formally parted ways with his pledge to elect senators. Unsurprisingly, the newly appointed senators who were announced today have deep ties to the Conservative Party, but the big shock has been the inclusion of CTV News commentator Mike Duffy. All of a sudden the release of that bumbling Stéphane Dion video back in October makes so much more sense.

Photo by Tom Podolec from the Torontoist Flickr Pool.

Photo by jcbear2.

One hundred and forty-two minutes: That's how long it took Prime Minister Stephen Harper to emerge from Rideau Hall this morning to announce that Governor General Michaëlle Jean had granted his request to prorogue, or suspend, Parliament until Jan. 26. The first item on the agenda upon the resumption of Parliament will be the presentation of a federal budget. In comments to reporters, the prime minister pledged to try to address the opposition parties' concerns with respect to stimulus for the beleaguered economy. Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion, NDP Leader Jack Layton and Bloc Québécois Leader Gilles Duceppe all say that the possibility of a Liberal-NDP coalition is still in the cards. Click here to discuss Harper's prorogation move and Canada's continuing political drama.

This is the first in a three-part series exploring the effects of the global economic downturn on Toronto. Next week, a community activist explains how the city's most vulnerable residents might fare as the crisis worsens.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper will speak to the nation tonight at 7 p.m. in a televised address that could spell out his plan to stave off defeat at the hands of an unprecedented Liberal-NDP coalition. The address comes in the middle of a public relations blitz from both sides of the political battle, featuring websites, newspaper editorials, and attack ads. Protests are also being organized across the country, including duelling rallies in Toronto planned for Saturday, December 6 at noon, with coalition supporters meeting at Nathan Phillips Square and the anti-coalition side gathering at Queen's Park. Get your placards ready! Click here to discuss the coalition crisis and wildly speculate on Harper's last-ditch plans.

After a weekend of negotiation and conjecture, Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion and New Democratic Party Leader Jack Layton this afternoon signed an accord pledging to work together in a coalition government until June 30, 2011, should the Conservative government be defeated in a vote of non-confidence. Bloc Québécois Leader Gilles Duceppe also signed on, agreeing that his party will support the coalition until at least 2010. Under the accord, Stéphane Dion would be prime minister until the Liberal Party picks its new leader in May 2009; the new cabinet would consist of twenty-four members, including six New Democrats, with a Liberal finance minister. Click here to discuss the coalition deal and the unprecedented political drama engulfing the nation.

680 News and the Canadian Press are reporting that the Liberal Party will introduce a motion to bring down the Harper Conservative government on Monday and will attempt to form a coalition government with the NDP. According to the Canadian Press, Stéphane Dion will become prime minister should the Conservative government fall. Click here to discuss this story and to read Torontoist's round-up of the political events of the past twenty-four hours.

It was barely a month ago that the Harper Conservatives were returned to government with a strengthened minority and politicians of all stripes were pledging to work together to steer Canada through the global financial storm. But after Finance Minister Jim Flaherty delivered an economic update yesterday that promised to end pay-equity programs, suspend federal employees' right to strike, and eliminate the subsidy for political parties (a move that would financially cripple the Liberals, NDP, and Bloc, but not the Conservatives), all three opposition leaders declared that either the Tories would have to blink or the government falls.

Photo by Owen Byrne.

Today was the kind of day that sent financial reporters scrambling for their thesauri to look for synonyms for the word "plummet." In its biggest one-day point loss since the crash of 1987, the TSX fell 764 points, largely on the back of tumbling oil prices and bad news from TD Bank. The 9.02 percent hammering brought Canada's main stock market down to 7,726 points at the closing bell, the first time since 2003 that the exchange ended a day below 8,000. The loonie also faired poorly, falling 2.48 cents to 77.35 cents US. The abysmal market performance was not the day's only troubling financial news: Parliamentary Budget Officer Kevin Page earlier released a report predicting that the federal government is on track for a deficit of up to $13.8 billion next year, despite the Prime Minister's insistence during the election campaign that such an event was outside the realm of possibility. If all that doom and gloom has you feeling a bit down, think of it this way: at least we're better off than Iceland.

Now that the federal government is teetering on the verge of its first budget deficit in a decade, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty is publicly considering the possibility of selling off the CN Tower to help balance the books—and pay for Prime Minister Harper's still-planned tax cuts. The building, until last year the world's tallest freestanding structure, is owned by Canada Lands Company, a crown corporation. Flaherty's musing should not come as a surprise to local residents: as Ontario finance minister, he pushed for the sale of publicly owned assets such as TV Ontario, the LCBO, and Ontario Place. Torontoist's suggestion: sell the iconic concrete hulk to Canadian Tire. At least then the name wouldn't change much.

Photo by Jenna Marie Wakani from the NDP's Flickr photostream.

Photo of Stephen Harper voting today from the AP.

Torontoist would like to apologize for the post we ran yesterday implying Stephen Harper's cuts to the arts were ill-advised or that the Department of Culture was right about anything at all. We've seen the error of our ways and, thanks to our new favourite band Hooded Fang, have grown to understand that arts funding is for rich and beautiful people to buy the shoes to wear to and the drugs to take at parties we will never be invited to because we aren't elite enough. Let's go burn some books!

Torontoist is officially in election mode. In the run-up to the big day, we'll be profiling some of the most closely contested ridings in the GTA, looking for the bellwethers and offering snapshots of electoral districts in transition.

The artists hate Stephen Harper. And it's not hard to understand why. His recent cuts to important arts funding have shocked and frightened the arts community (if you were fooled by his claims made at the Leadership Debate and elsewhere that his government actually spent more on the arts than the Liberals, check out former Torontoist Arts and Culture editor Karen Whaley's excellent explanation of how that is a big lie).