President-elect Barack Obama Will Make His First Presidential Visit to Canada

President-elect Barack Obama has announced that his first international trip as the newly elected President of the United States will be to Canada.

The Prime Minister’s office confirms that the president-elect has accepted Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s invitation to visit Canada soon after he is inaugurated on January 20th.

Transition aides for the president-elect say that Obama picked the United States neighbour to north as his first trip within North America as president, but they could not discuss the date for the trip or its itinerary.

The Office of the Prime Minister has also said that it has been in close contact with Obama’s transition team and an official for the transition team says that aides for the president-elect and Harper have been discussing specifics of the trip in recent days.
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In another embarrassing study conducted by the Dominion Institute, Canadians simply don’t know much about Canada or Canadian politics. A national survey has found that approximately 2 in 5 Canadians don’t know who our first prime minister was. For you 40%, it was Sir John A. Macdonald.

I’m not really surprised. Right after the recent fiasco that took place in our government, another study was released that showed a majority of Canadians don’t know we don’t directly elect our Prime Minister, who our head of state is, or how to describe our system of government.  Let me be even more specific for you: 51% of Canadians were unaware that we don’t directly elect our Prime Minister. 51%! No wonder this past federal election recorded the lowest voter turnout in election history, no one cares about Canadian politics! If you’ve ever bothered to exercise your democratic right to vote, you’d notice that nowhere on the voting ballot is the name of any of the Prime Minister’s running for the position.
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Harper and Flaherty are set to end the coalition for good with their new budget.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced on Friday January 9th, that the new budget will be big, it will be comprehensive, and it will be actionable over the next 3 – 5 years. In what is said to be the largest budget Canadians have seen in a long time, it will cover a large scope of economic challenges and opportunities that are forecasted for Canada. With the announcement of over 34,000 jobs lost in December alone, this budget better be a hell of a lot better than their last budget that nearly toppled the Conservative Government.

Now that Harper is no longer wavering on whether or not he thinks the economy is undergoing a crisis, this new budget is expected to not only provide measures that will ease the burden of 2009’s predicted recession but to also determine whether or not he will stay in power. If the budget is seen to not provide the necessary solutions for the citizens of Canada, will the coalition come back to life by the opposition parties voting “no” on the budget?
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Job Losses of 34,400 in December Make for a Grim Outlook in 2009

Statistics Canada announced on Friday that 34,400 jobs were lost in December, following November’s loss of 70,600 jobs. Prime Minister Stephen Harper called these numbers “troubling” but maintains that the situation in the US is a lot worse. Our neighbours down south lost over 1 million jobs in the same time period. Although, with a population that is 10 times our size, their loss of 1 million jobs has virtually the same impact on the unemployment rate. As the unemployment rate down south hit a 16 year high of 7.2%, our rate rose to 6.6% and does not look like it will decline anytime soon. With such interdependent economies, there is no doubt that the situation in the United States will have a negative impact on Canadians. 2008 was the worst year for job loss in the US since World War II and this makes 2009’s outlook even grimmer for Canadians as the crisis continues to make its way north, according to both Harper and Finance Minister Jim Flaherty.
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Prime Minister Stephen Harper had a far less dreary outlook on the state of the Canadian economy in a recent interview with Maclean’s magazine.

Harper believes that Canada is in a strong economic position compared with others and should be able to exit the recession relatively quickly.

Has Harper changed his tune for the benefit of the Canadian people? It’s obvious that this is a move of a political nature. Remember everyone, Parliament isn’t in session currently, and when it does come back, we may be heading back to the voting booths should the idea of a coalition government still be present. Yet, political observers believe that Harper will remain in power. As well, the Liberals have backed off from their attacks, and Harper himself has stated that he doesn’t want to go back to the polls.
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As an English Quebecer via BC and Ontario, I believe I might have a more well rounded view of the Harper Prime Ministership than some regionally biased political junkies. This is not to say that I am fat. Yet.

My recent Christmas visit to the East Coast unearthed an unbridled hate for Mr. Harper who in no particular order is: “taking Canada down the US Republican road,”  “destroying our cultural heritage,” “lacking in vision,” “ EVIL!” “stealing Atlantic Accords from deserving Atlantians” etc. etc. etc. Yet on the other coast, my British Columbia friends are prepared to turf every remaining Liberal west of Winnipeg as a result of coalition agreement signed with the NDP and the BLOC. And yes Jake, Iggy did sign the deal. Meanwhile, my Ontario friends sigh at the long road ahead for the federal Liberal Party. And mes amis en Québec are content to see who will give them the most money in the end.
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There is a word for it.

Canadians who despaired watching the dogfight that was our Leaders Debate now have a term to describe why the pitbull Jack Layton’s pugilism turned them off more than the obtuse self-involvement of Harper that night.

Arnold Schwarzenegger, that pneumatic Teuton we’ve come to know and love, Governor of  “Collyfornia,” declared on Sunday Night’s “60 Minutes” that “the left doesn’t like me . . . and the right doesn’t like me when I tax and spend,” concluding that he “can’t be psyched out” because he is in the service, not of the Republican Party, but of the public.

Arnie is postpartisan, a term we’d have used ourselves—if we’d known of it the night of our Canadian Leaders’ Debate—if merely to simply hurl it at the t.v. screen, along with the popcorn we were throwing at the unpleasant melee before us.  “Why can’t you all just behave like postpartisans,” we’d have shouted.
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From a plummeting economy to the amazing U.S. Presidential Race, to Canada’s lowest voter turnout in history to the Canadian government being thrust into upheaval, 2008 had a little bit of everything.

As 2008 began, much of the world was already in the midst of a financial crisis. Storms swept through the world in the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression, and still show no signs of slowing down. The economy in 2008 was characterized by stock and real estate market meltdowns, unprecedented bank failures, massive layoffs and rising unemployment, disappearing credit and historic government bailouts of the financial and auto sectors.

And unlike Harper’s reassuring words that Canada would remain unaffected, almost every major province was. British Columbia saw U.S. demand for lumber plummet with prices dropping below profitable levels. And their mining industry suffered as demand from China dropped and commodities took a nose dive. Oil-rich Alberta, once one of the richest provinces in the country, saw the price of oil drop 78% from its peak in July when it hit $147 a barrel. Now, oil hovers under the $40 a barrel mark. In Ontario, the auto industry fights for its life after receiving a $4 billion bailout from the Canadian government. Saskatchewan fared better than the rest as a result of its diversity in energy, agriculture and potash, but still declined as a result of lower commodity prices.
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To bring in the new year, Harper decided to break one more promise. In Canada, we have the Senate (“Upper House”) and the House of Commons (“Lower House”). The Senate is composed of individuals who were selected by the Prime Minister, whereas the House of Commons is filled by the MPs who were elected by the few Canadians who decided to show up to the polls. Over the last few years, Harper has been trying to make it so that when seats are vacated (by someone reaching the age of 75, resigning, dying, etc…) in the Senate, future positions will be filled via an election rather than an appointment. Harper even introduced a bill into the House of Commons to achieve this purpose. In the party’s 2006 platform, the Conservatives lashed out at the Liberal Party for abusing the power to appoint people and for appointing “insiders.” They then promised a number of changes that would be made if elected to reform the Senate appointment/election process – none of which have ever occurred. Now, just a few days ago, Harper decided to go against every single thing he stood for with regards to the Senate.
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2008 got off to a very slow start in terms of political news, but certainly picked up steam in the last few months.
So, without further ado, here are Top 5 Political Scandals of 2008:
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