Mark Bonokoski

LATEST STORIES BY MARK BONOKOSKI

BONOKOSKI: Bernie Sanders and Justin Trudeau, aren’t they a comparable pair?

Justin Trudeau, our starry-eyed progressive prime minister, gave a nice warm send-off when his old friend Fidel Castro checked out in 2016, talking niceties rather than about Castro’s thousands of murders and outright executions, his imprisonment of hundreds upon hundreds of dissidents, and his revolutionary creation of Cuba as his own communist island.

February 29, 2020 Columnists

Justin Trudeau hugs Cuba's Fidel Castro in October, 2000. Trudeau has been criticized for his praise of the now-dead communist dictator. (Montreal Gazzette/Pierre Obendrauf)

BONOKOSKI: They were prime ministers but certainly not shipbuilders

The expression “whatever floats your boat” was allegedly born in the 1980s and associated with Reaganomics, although there exists an argument that it began gaining popularity after President John F. Kennedy used the expression, “A rising tide lifts all boats.”

February 26, 2020 Columnists

A Canadian soldier stands on board of the HMCS Fredericton ship docked at Constanta harbor in Constanta, Romania, on March 13, 2015. (AFP via Getty Images)

BONOKOSKI: Licence plates and the hate-on for Doug Ford

The most recent hate-on for the Progressive Conservative government of Premier Doug Ford —forget the teachers for a moment because they’ve made an artform of striking — was his audacity to change Ontario licence plates to Tory blue.

February 25, 2020 Columnists

Ontario Premier Doug Ford is seen after a meeting with Canada's provincial premiers in Toronto on Dec. 2, 2019. (Reuters)

BONOKOSKI: Prison guards must protect even the worst criminals

The annual report of the federal Correctional Investigator rarely gets any major news play, and is often seen as the same-old, same-old loop tape of abused inmates, lousy food and prison guards behaving badly.

February 22, 2020 Columnists

CCTV images show inmates at Edmonton Institution throwing food at "protected status" inmates, which Canada's correctional investigator alleges was done with staff collusion.

BONOKOSKI: Trump and a brief break from barricades and dysfunction

Expecting gratitude from the faithful, Barack Obama took a Twitter bow earlier this week for being the creator of America’s economic boom.

February 20, 2020 Columnists

US President Donald Trump speaks about the United States - Mexico - Canada agreement, known as USMCA, during a visit to Dana Incorporated, an auto supplier manufacturer, in Warren, Michigan, January 30, 2020.

BONOKOSKI: PM talks ‘rule of law’ while blockade protesters give it the finger

The temperature was around 28C in Barbados on Wednesday while, in our nation’s capital, people had to contend with a wind-chilled -17C.

with Video

February 19, 2020 Columnists

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau attends a news conference in Ottawa on Jan. 9 where he addressed the crash in Iran of a Ukrainian jet carrying many Canadians. (Reuters)

BONOKOSKI: Huawei? Rail blockages tanking economy? Not on PM’s agenda

The latest indictments filed in a New York federal court last week which include racketeering and theft of secrets should stop the Trudeau Liberals from awarding any government contract involving Canada’s intelligence and security grids to the Chinese megacompany Huawei.

February 15, 2020 Columnists