Pat's Posts

SOURCE: The National Post, Tobi Cohen

OTTAWA - With the Queen now in her mid-80s, outspoken NDP MP Pat Martin says it's time for Canadato consider severing ties with the British monarchy and suggests his private member's motion to strike her out of the citizenship oath is a small first step.

The Winnipeg MP resurrected Wednesday a motion he first tabled two Parliaments ago that seeks to "amend the citizenship ceremony" so that new Canadians swear an oath of allegiance to Canadarather than "the Queen and her heirs and successors."

Source: The Hill Times, Bea Vongdouangchanh

Five years ago when Kevin Page was being recruited to become Canada's first Parliamentary budget officer, he didn't foresee the transparency issues he would have to deal with and never expected the federal Conservative government, which created the position under the Federal Accountability Act, would accuse him of exceeding his mandate. Even then, he originally didn't want to leave his position as the assistant secretary for macroeconomic policy in the Privy Council Office.

SOURCE: Winnipeg Free Press, Mia Rabson

If the asbestos industry in Canada was on life-support, last week's federal budget finally pulled the plug. It was hidden midway through the budget papers, amid the more flashy and noticeable cuts to the cost of baby clothes and the "largest long-term federal commitment to Canadian infrastructure in our nation's history."

"Supporting the Economic Transition of Communities Economically Linked to the Chrysotile Asbestos Industry," said the headline on page 241.

I was proud to be asked to be the keynote speaker at last weeks' Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development event.. Here is my speech from the night.

Sunlight is a powerful disinfectant, and Freedom of information is the oxygen democracy breathes. These are two of my favorite cliché’s and they find their way into a lot of my speeches so I might as well get them out of the way right off the top.

Natalie Stechyson, Postmedia News

Making cents made no sense, but getting rid of the penny is only the beginning, says NDP MP Pat Martin.

As the Royal CanadianMint stops distributing pennies Monday, Martin's eye is turning to the nickel and, eventually, the quarter.

The MP for Winnipeg Centre plans to launch a private member's motion by the end of the week to eliminate the five-cent coin and re-jig the rest of Canada's currency. His "master plan" is to have a coin currency in multiples of 10 - 10, 20 and 50-cent coins, and $1, $2 and $5 coins.