Had it been contested on the same basis as the election that accompanied it, Tuesday’s referendum on electoral reform in Prince Edward Island would have passed handily, winning a solid majority of the province’s 27 ridings. As it was, however, the proposition failed for having the support of only 48.8 per cent of the vote […]

Six months out from an election is usually when an incumbent party at the helm of a first-term majority government is setting the table for its re-election. There is action on all fronts: one or two people-pleasing bills left to pass in the House of Commons and Senate; a raft of policies to finalize for […]

The anger was to be expected; the hurt, less so. A new study of public opinion in Alberta by communications firm Navigator, based on eight post-election focus groups, suggests Albertans want premier-designate Jason Kenney to get very aggressive very quickly when it comes to taking on the federal government, environmentalists, intransigent provinces and anyone else […]

P.E.I. voters have spoken, and it’s more bad news for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Premier-designate Dennis King, elected party leader a scant two months ago, won 12 seats in the Island’s 27-seat legislature, putting him in place to form a minority government. After four terms in office, the incumbent Liberals were reduced to six seats […]

Over-dramatizing is an occupational hazard in my line of work, and you’re right, I’m not immune. A lot of the coverage about Jason Kenney’s election, and the situation it puts Justin Trudeau in, might suggest it’s some kind of unprecedented thing. No, it is amply precedented. Precedented in many ways. At the most general level, […]

While Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is accusing Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer of being a closet supporter of white supremacists, the Conservatives are countering with an election ad accusing Trudeau of lying to Canadians. And it’s still six months away from the Oct. 21 election, suggesting it’s going to be a long and brutal campaign. The […]

On Thursday, the fiscal detectives at the Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO) will publish their assessment of a promise the Trudeau government will be repeating, almost as a matter of self-defence, in this year’s election: that the new carbon tax driving up gasoline and home heating costs will be entirely returned to taxpayers through tax cuts.

Political predictions are generally lucky or wrong. Anyone handicapping the 2015 Canadian election six months out might have given short odds on the Conservatives, who were eight points clear of the Liberals and 12 ahead of the NDP at the end of April. But those poll numbers masked deep unhappiness with the Harper government and […]

Bureaucrats, ministers of Indian affairs and even premiers and prime ministers have promised year after year to address the multiple, overlapping crises in the Cree Nation of Kashechewan, crises that are firmly rooted in past government decisions. But once again the people of Kashechewan find themselves in danger. They are being evacuated and split up […]

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s threatened defamation suit against Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer over the SNC-Lavalin affair is just the latest in a rapidly growing list of Canadian political mud-slinging matches that have taken a litigious turn. Scheer had already employed some overheated rhetoric at earlier stages of the controversy, accusing Trudeau of exerting “frankly illegal […]