The transformation of Pierre Karl Péladeau

About four years ago, from a podium flanked by Canadian flags, Pierre Karl Péladeau stood in front of a roomful of journalists and proclaimed his concern for the state of his country’s democracy. The president and CEO of Quebecor, one of the country’s largest media corporations, said Canadians were almost dangerously ill-served by the country’s existing television news channels. “Far too many Canadians are tuning out completely or changing their dials to American all-news channels. They’re opting out or switching over. That’s not good for Canadian television. It’s not good for Canadian democracy. And it’s not good for Canada itself,” Péladeau said.

Tories, Bloc teamed up to kill NDP air passenger bill of rights - twice

So it seems that National Post columnist John Ivison -- who, it's fair to note, is right more often than not when it comes to these things -- is predicting, based on the usual unnamed source(s), that the Conservatives are poised to recast their party in a distinctly pro-consumer light by bringing forward legislation to address various and sundry universal gripes, including bank fees, wireless rates and airline travel.

If that's the case, New Democrat MPs could be forgiven for coordinating caucus-wide pointed coughs to coincide with the precise moment in the Throne Speech when the governor general gets to the last item on that list.

French endures on Parliament Hill thanks to the Bloc Québécois

MONTREAL—When Lucien Bouchard and his Bloc Québécois cohort stormed Parliament Hill in the mid-1990s, they certainly did not see themselves as the agents of former prime minister Pierre Trudeau’s goal of a Parliament that reflects Canada’s linguistic duality.

Ironically, the Bloc — which came to the federal capital to lead Quebec out of Parliament — may come to be best remembered for turning the House of Commons into a francophone-friendly environment.

New data about the use of French in the Commons suggests that over its two decades on the Hill, the Bloc presided over the equivalent of a cultural revolution. It endures to this day.
For the purposes of the study, Scott Piroth — a lecturer at Ohio’s Bowling Green State University — sampled five question periods selected at random in every Parliament since 1958 for a total of 5,532 questions and answers.