Vigile.net - Lawrence Martin

The Bloc paradox

Lawrence Martin - The Globe and Mail — 2009-09-11T11:43:00Z

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news... Quebecois Leader Gilles Duceppe takes questions during a news conference on Sept. 2, 2009, in Bois-des-Filions, Que. *** Apart from the Alberta Progressive Conservatives, the Bloc Québécois has, intriguingly, become the most electorally successful political party in the country. Since its debut (...) - consulter en ligne

Enough of multiculturalism – bring on the melting pot

Lawrence Martin - The Globe and Mail — 2009-03-31T11:07:00Z

Issues don't get much hotter than immigration. It's where political correctness abounds, where allegations of intolerance and racism are but a breath away, where ministers had best show finesse with their pronouncements. Not so Jason Kenney. Our man at the immigration turnstiles has been in a bull-in-a-china shop mode lately. (...) - consulter en ligne

On the world stage, it's the Regressive Conservatives

Lawrence Martin - The Globe and Mail — 2009-03-26T13:17:00Z

Stephen Harper has been taking a lot of flack from his right-wing base. The red-meat eaters say he's a lousy excuse for a conservative. But, on this one, the base is off-base. On fiscal matters, the Prime Minister may have demonstrated a liberal side. In these tottering times, most every leader is doing that. But look at the other (...) - consulter en ligne

The Liberal leader is a man of magnitude. So where is he ?

Lawrence Martin - The Globe and Mail — 2009-01-05T15:23:00Z

Michael Ignatieff has been completing a book over the holidays, the last chapter in a family saga. That's fine and well, but there are Liberals who wish he'd chosen another time - a better moment than the immediate aftermath of becoming party leader. With the departure of Stéphane Dion, it was thought there would be a rush of (...) - consulter en ligne

Will the PM get away with his risky election gambit ? Probably

Lawrence Martin - The Globe and Mail — 2008-08-27T13:55:49Z

To get his way, the Prime Minister made it clear yesterday he will pull the plug on his own government. Even though it involves some dicey dealing, better for him to set the date, he reasoned, than leave it to the antagonists. - consulter en ligne

Cry us a river, Tories, but who wrote the book on chaos ?

Lawrence Martin - Editorial - The Globe and Mail — 2008-08-18T07:02:00Z

Oops. Maybe they forgot. Last year, the governing Conservatives prepared a secret handbook on how to disrupt parliamentary committees and create chaos. No mere pamphlet, the book ran to 200 pages. It instructed committee chairmen to select blatantly biased witnesses and tutor them in advance. It gave the chairmen pointers on how to obstruct (...) - consulter en ligne

A new vision for the country ?

Lawrence Martin - The Globe and Mail — 2008-08-01T13:37:02Z

Harper's federation of fiefdoms will drive Canadian traditionalists nuts - consulter en ligne

In case you haven't noticed, there's a new unity in the land

Lawrence Martin - The Globe and Mail — 2008-07-26T00:35:00Z

In Quebec, a corner has been turned. Separatism ? It's old, it's boring, the debates as shallow as a birdbath. Decades of referendums, constitutional battles, separatist threats drained the national spirit. - consulter en ligne

The shooting star has exited the Harper galaxy

Lawrence Martin - The Globe and Mail — 2008-05-27T11:11:00Z

Maxime Bernier was a minister with rising star written all over him. All the right stuff. He was young, handsome, best dresser in the Commons and he hailed from Quebec. The lady ? Well, she just added to the allure. But there were suspicions from the start. You could hear the empty-suit talk in the corridors, the all-hat no-cattle references. (...) - consulter en ligne

The battle of the books : Mulroney v. Chrétien

Lawrence Martin - The Globe and Mail — 2007-09-10T11:41:16Z

The late Arthur Campeau, who once practised law with Brian Mulroney, said of him : "If I had to do a psychological profile of Brian Mulroney, I would stress his sense of inferiority despite all his achievement ... He never saw himself as part of the establishment, never saw himself being accepted, even as prime minister." At frequent lunches (...) - consulter en ligne

Harper will play down harmony with Bush

Lawrence Martin - The Globe and Mail — 2007-08-20T14:24:08Z

Will Stephen Harper have the guts to take on George W. Bush at the three amigos summit ? Or will he collapse like a multilayered sponge cake ? If President Bush follows script, he will roll in to Montebello, crack that big Texas smile, do the chummy Hey Steve routine, and invite one and all to come Waltzing Matilda. The buddy-buddy shtick is (...) - consulter en ligne

Harper's golden opportunity in the Great White North

Lawrence Martin - The Globe and Mail — 2007-08-09T12:13:00Z

The Prime Minister's trek through the Arctic this week could hardly have been more splendidly timed. The Russians provided the perfect political prelude, planting their flag in the Arctic seabed and posting a direct challenge to Canadian sovereignty. Their act sets the stakes high for the Great White North. Exterior challenges to (...) - consulter en ligne

Harper's angry-man syndrome dominated Parliament

Lawrence Martin - The Globe and Mail — 2007-06-18T14:09:00Z

Members of Parliament head off for a three-month break this week. Animal house mercifully shuts down, not to be reconvened until late September. The consensus around the capital is that this session ranks as one of the more ugly ones, which is saying a lot. Rancour ruled. No one ended up looking better than when the mean-spiritedness and (...) - consulter en ligne

All the makings of this government's first scandal

Lawrence Martin - The Globe and Mail — 2007-04-26T15:35:09Z

It's been said the Harper government will do anything to win. It is prepared go to extremes - information control, shutting down dissent and the like. To be mired in that mindset is to court adversity. And now it has it. Much is still unclear in the Afghan detainee controversy, but it is one that has the makings of this (...) - consulter en ligne

No celebrations, please : The bad guys will be back

Lawrence Martin - The Globe and Mail — 2007-03-29T14:44:02Z

Most every time a political party suffers a stiff setback, someone will draw out the dagger and declare that it is moribund. The astute separatist leader Gilles Duceppe was fielding questions of that nature after the bad day his flock incurred in the Quebec election. "We've been hearing that kind of talk since August of 1976," the Bloc (...) - consulter en ligne

Quebec defines this country

Lawrence Martin - The Globe and Mail — 2007-03-01T16:05:43Z

The Quebec election is about one leader saying the province is a "nation" and another saying that's still not good enough. Only "country" will do. Quebec has come a long way since the vassal days. Of all the provinces in the federation, it's the big winner again this past year, gaining - this from an Alberta-based Prime Minister - (...) - consulter en ligne

Don't count out Stéphane Dion

Lawrence Martin - The Globe and Mail — 2006-11-02T15:52:13Z

Stéphane Dion was underrated and he still is and he is likely to remain so all the way up until the election of the new Liberal leader on Dec. 2. The Montreal academic arrived in Ottawa 10 years ago and quickly rendered the word charisma obsolete. He had the look of a stick of chalk, an altar boy among the bishops, intrinsically mundane. (...) - consulter en ligne

We're on the way to a spooked society

Lawrence Martin - The Globe and Mail — 2006-07-21T23:25:00Z

Is this country on the road to becoming a spooked society ? Are we about to succumb to the terror networks' fear campaign, significantly changing our ways, handing them victory without their even scoring a single hit on our soil ? Public opinion analyst Frank Graves has been tracking perceptions of the safety and security landscape in (...) - consulter en ligne

The beautiful free ride of Gilles Duceppe

Lawrence Martin - The Globe and Mail — 2006-01-12T22:38:00Z

It's fine, maybe better than ever, to be a Quebec separatist these days. In our increasingly tolerant society, those who would fracture the country are hardly treated like the enemy any more. Bloc Québécois Leader Gilles Duceppe must go to bed at night chuckling at what pushovers we've become — so soft on separatism that he (...) - consulter en ligne