Free Republic

OTTAWA -- Manitoba MP Candice Bergen is waking up with a new job today: unifying the Conservative caucus. The party's former deputy leader was elected by her colleagues to serve as interim leader after a majority of MPs ousted Erin O'Toole from the top job. Bergen faces a caucus that has spent weeks divided and angry over O'Toole's leadership since last year's election loss. The party must also start preparing to pick a permanent leader. It will be the third such race in the past five years. Party president Rob Batherson told members that its national council will be appointing...

Liberal Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told the nation’s House of Commons Tuesday that he has attended lavish fundraisers for his family’s foundation to “create economic growth for the middle class.” His defense of his participation in fundraisers thrown by the Pierre Trudeau Foundation – which he renounced his official position in upon becoming the leader of the Liberal Party – follows an admission that he allowed attendees to lobby him at these fundraisers, a clear violation of Liberal Party bylaws. The metastasizing cash-for-access scandal follows a calamitous month for Canada’s Liberals in which, partly triggered by Trudeau’s effusive praise...

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was put on the spot Tuesday by Interim Opposition head Rona Ambrose over reports that he plans to give UNRWA $15 million, despite its well-documented ties to the Hamas terrorist organization in Gaza. [...] Ambrose, an MP of the Conservative Party, noted how UNRWA was documented storing Hamas rockets and weapons "designed to kill Israeli citizens" - as even the UNRWA chief admitted last June - and likewise has actively taken part in inciting anti-Semitic violence. In his complete dodge of the serious question, Trudeau noted that he welcomed UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon to Ottawa...

Environment Minister Rona Ambrose is jetting to Bonn this weekend to prepare for talks on extending the Kyoto Protocol, and will soon unveil an ambitious new plan for cutting Canada's greenhouse emissions. Although the Conservatives opposed ratification of the climate treaty while in opposition, they appear to have undergone a conversion, promising to do a better job of cutting emissions than the Liberals ever did. "There's an action plan that we are going to move on very quickly," Ambrose said in an interview with The Canadian Press on Friday. "I'm very committed. The prime minister has given me a very...