In 1911, when Richard Bedford Bennett first arrived in Ottawa as the bachelor MP for Calgary West, his choice of accommodation was the Rideau Club. No finer meal could be had. Bennett loved food. “He believed if he put on weight he would present a more impressive appearance,” a friend recalled. In the end Bennett ate his way to diabetes and heart disease and the Rideau Club burned to the ground. But once both were in their glory. READ MORE
In 1919 an Arctic promoter devised a scheme to convert Baffin Island to a vast reindeer ranch, bigger and more spectacular than anything in Texas or Argentina. More than 100,000 square kilometres of tundra were leased as ranchlands. The scheme collapsed by 1923 – the reindeer died – but the promoter, Manitoba-born explorer Vilhjalmur Stefansson, proved the venture was at least nutritionally sound by sticking to an all-meat diet for an entire year. Stefansson lived to 87. The Baffin ranches and other believe-it-or-not episodes are detailed in A Historical and Legal Study of Sovereignty in the Canadian North, an encyclopedic work rich in compelling anecdotes. It documents decades of schemes – some tragic, some comic – to plant the flag north of the 60th parallel and make the Arctic pay. READ MORE
Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree yesterday declined comment when asked if China was a country of laws. “I’m not here as a foreign policy expert,” he told MPs when questioned over the scope of an RCMP cooperation agreement with Chinese police: "There is a need for Canada to expand its trading partners." READ MORE
MPs yesterday were driven to anger after Veterans Affairs Minister Jill McKnight refused to describe the impact of spending cuts on programs. “I am absolutely furious right now,” said one member of the Commons veterans affairs committee as McKnight appeared confused and distracted: "My 14-year old would have understood my question by now." READ MORE
Meeting Prime Minister Mark Carney’s NATO commitments would require a $124 billion increase in annual defence spending, the Budget Office said yesterday. “It is our core responsibility,” Carney said last June 25 in promising to spend 5 percent of GDP on national defence by 2035: "I wished we didn’t have to but we do have to." READ MORE
Cabinet yesterday killed its Trudeau-era electric car mandate eight months after voting to uphold sales quotas on consumers. “Thank you for finally listening,” said one Conservative MP. READ MORE
Housing Minister Gregor Robertson yesterday introduced a bill he called the “next step in addressing Canada’s housing crisis” with creation of a new Crown corporation. Robertson declined to specify how many housing starts would result: "This is just a start." READ MORE
A government agent said, “We’re taking you to Ottawa for a little experiment, wouldn’t you like that? Isn’t that great?” My parents were never asked if they thought all of this was a good idea. I did not know then how much I would grow to miss my family, and how lonely I would be. Here we had running water and store-bought clothes, bigger schools and libraries, supermarkets and suburbs. Why did the government do it? I think they honestly believed their values as a middle-class, southern, industrial society were best for Inuit. It was as simple as that.
