According to a recent poll conducted by Nanos Research, 42% of Canadians think the Prime Minister’s Office has too much power (Campbell Clark, “PMO too powerful, Canadians say,” Globe and Mail, 24 February 2010). Nine percent of Canadians think that the PMO has too little power, while 40% responded that it has the right amount. By comparison, […]
Tag Archives: Stephen Harper
Hard power, fuzzy logic
Prime Minister Stephen Harper used the occasion of a visit to Canada’s aid efforts in Haiti on Tuesday to praise the virtues of his government’s spending on “hard power” items like the C-17 transport aircraft: “This fleet of new aircraft, the C-17 fleet, is a big part of making this response possible. I single out […]
Support treaty banning nuclear weapons: Experts
Prime Minister Harper should actively support new calls for a global treaty to ban all nuclear weapons, experts said today. “The Canadian government needs to step up its efforts to stop the dangerous spread of nuclear weapons” said former Senator Douglas Roche following a two-day conference in Ottawa attended by academics, civil society leaders and […]
Budget "adjustments" miss obvious defence spending waste
As noted in an earlier post, all three branches of the Canadian Forces (Army, Navy, Air Force) are currently conducting budget “adjustments”, amounting to $190 million, that have to be made by the end of March. As part of this process, the Army is “adjusting” its budget by $80 million, and the Reserves are reportedly […]
Harper on Canada's role in Afghanistan post-2011
In an interview with the Canwest News Service a few days ago, Prime Minister Stephen Harper made some of his most definitive statements to date on the future of the Canadian presence in Afghanistan. He pledged that Canada would continue to maintain humanitarian and development missions in the country but stated that “we will not […]
Discontent in the prorogue state
Two public opinion polls released on Thursday show that Canadians are not happy about the Prime Minister’s decision to prorogue Parliament until March 3rd. According to the poll conducted by EKOS Research Associates, 67% of Canadians are aware of the decision to prorogue Parliament (including 52% “clearly aware”), and those who are aware of it […]