Nov 21 2019 — David Akin — Global News — If it wishes to be successful, Trudeau 2.0 will have to move move much faster than Trudeau 1.0. To accomplish the ambitious agenda encapsulated in the Liberal election platform — an agenda its parliamentary partners, the NDP and the Bloc Quebecois, will push it on — Prime Minister Justin’s Trudeau’s new cabinet must slough off […]
Nov 7 2019 — David Akin — Global News — Conservatives have long complained that journalists put questions to small-c conservative politicians that they would never put to politicians of other stripes. Their latest complaint in that regard came on Wednesday night, when a reporter asked Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer this question: “On issues around social conservatism, around issues like same-sex marriage, you are still […]
Nov 1 2019 — David Akin — Global News — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has many important decisions to make as he prepares to unveil his new cabinet on Nov. 20, but none may be more important for Canada’s standing in the world than his decision about the foreign affairs minister. The incumbent is Chrystia Freeland, whose most notable file during Trudeau’s first year was […]
Oct 30 2019 — David Akin — Global News — Nova Scotia’s Peter MacKay was in front of a Washington, D.C. crowd Wednesday afternoon when he was asked about his reaction to the failure of Andrew Scheer and the Conservative party to knock off Justin Trudeau and the Liberals. “It was like a having a breakaway on an open net — and missing the net,” […]
Oct 15 2019 — David Akin — Global News — As the votes were counted in the riding of Victoria during the byelection on Nov. 26, 2012, things were looking grim for the NDP candidate Murray Rankin. As poll after poll reported, the Green Party’s Donald Galloway was in the lead and it seemed as though Rankin was on his way to losing the seat […]
Oct 2 2019 — David Akin — Global News — As it does in so many ways in the federation, Quebec stands alone among all provinces for the dynamism of its federal politics. It can fall madly and completely in love with a politician and a party, as it did in 2011 with ‘Le Bon Jack’ and the NDP, and just as quickly lose interest […]
Sep 30 2019 — David Akin — Global News — It’s hard to understate the electoral value of the Greater Toronto Area. There are 55 seats densely packed together from Oshawa in the east, to Burlington in the west, to Newmarket in the north. You can drive from end to end in a few hours. It’s home to the country’s busiest airport and the assignment […]
Sep 29 2019 — David Akin — Global News — Of course we’re in an electric vehicle. Would Green Party Leader Elizabeth May travel any other way? For her tour of the Maritimes earlier this week, May travelled in a two-Tesla convoy, the leader in a cherry red model in front while aides and a Global News journalist rode in a silver model behind.
Sep 10 2019 — David Akin — Global News — A four-way race on Vancouver Island. Fierce two-way races in suburban Toronto. Hardly a race at all in Alberta, Saskatchewan or Montreal. Welcome to Canada’s 43rd general election, which, perhaps more than ever, will actually be a collection of as many as a dozen regional races, each with its own dynamics, its own set of […]
Sep 3 2019 — David Akin — Global News — Liberal MPs and ministers finished their summer with a flourish of spending announcements that, in many cases, focused on regions of the country where the governing party will be most active seeking votes in the coming election.
Aug 30 2019 — David Akin — Global News — It is not exactly a mystery when the 43rd general election will be held. For four years now, we’ve all known — thanks to the fixed-date election law brought in by the Harper government — that Canadians will go to the polls on Oct. 21.
Aug 26 2019 — David Akin — Federal Liberal ministers and MPs continued their cross-country spending announcement tour last week, making 277 spending commitments on everything from fixing up bus stops in London, Ont., to building new dressing rooms at a hockey rink in western P.E.I., to funding a youth exchange program to be run by Tides Canada. Those 277 spending commitments […]
Aug 20 2019 — David Akin — Global News — The numbers hardly budged. Polling firm Ipsos jumped into the field last week immediately after Parliament’s ethics commissioner Mario Dion found that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had violated the Conflict of Interest Act (again) by trying to influence former attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould to intervene in favour of Montreal construction giant SNC-Lavalin.
Aug 19 2019 — David Akin — Global News — Politicians in any government at any time will spend their summers doing the barbeque circuit, often with federal cheques in hand to fund any number of local projects. But this summer, days away from the beginning of what looks to be a very tight federal election contest, the Liberals are pouring it on with spending […]
Jul 9 2019 — David Akin — Global News — On Monday, the minister of tourism, Melanie Joly, travelled from her riding in Montreal to Salmon River, N.B., in the riding of Fundy Royal, where she and the local MP, Liberal Alaina Lockhart, announced $1.7 million in federal funding for tourism projects, some of which were in Lockhart’s riding but most of which were not.