Stephen Harper: Gun Registry

Wheat Board Dept: Indeed, the date can be fixed with precision. It was Jan. 26, a Thursday. Until that time the government had been preoccupied with leftover items from the minority years: the crime bills, the Wheat Board, the gun registry, and so on. On that day, Stephen Harper gave a speech in which he at last began to sketch out the broader agenda he had been at such pains to disavow until then, according to Montreal Gazette. Even at that, it was pretty vague. A lot of talk about the aging of the population, and the challenges this presented, notably to social programs. We ve already taken steps to limit the growth of our health-care spending, Harper noted, alluding to the previous month s abrupt or abruptly announced decision to curb the growth in federal transfers to the provinces. Now, Harper said, we must do the same for our retirement-income system and calendar years have no particular significance in the political or electoral cycle except when they do. Though the Conservatives won the majority they had been three times denied in May of 2011, they did not begin to govern as a majority until this year. This, it might be said, was the real Speech from the Throne the one from the previous June being remembered mostly for a piece of performance art by an impossibly self-involved page , the occasion for the government to lay out before Canadians and their representatives the unfinished business of the nation. And so, naturally, it took place thousands of miles away, in Davos, Switzerland. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.