Aug 6 2020 — Don Martin — CTV News — There’s a very faint pulse to the Conservative leadership race, which will be decided in just over two weeks. And yet, these are heady days for an Official Opposition watching a Liberal government trying its best to hand them the next election. By any realistic political calculation, the Conservatives should be sleepwalking with terminal dread […]
Jul 30 2020 — Don Martin — CTV News — Clearly, we’ve had this WE scandal all wrong. Justin Trudeau, we were told Thursday by the prime minister himself, was a skeptic, not a conflicted advocate, for WE Charity being the key delivery vehicle for a $912-million student volunteer program. News the Kielburger brothers were the only organization capable of launching the handout program was […]
Jun 29 2020 — Don Martin — CTV News — In normal times, a summer-starting report card on federal and select provincial leaders would grade their fiscal, environmental, economic and political performances. But with this 2020 hindsight, the first half of this year from hell’s assessment is severely abnormal, warped by pandemic aftershocks, anti-racism protests, Indigenous blockades and the deadliest mass murder in Canadian history. […]
Jun 25 2020 — Don Martin — CTV News — He’s rarely, if ever, been this forceful on a foreign file. Somehow overnight Prime Minister Justin Trudeau decided to give up on China, endure the diplomatic deep freeze and face the inevitable economic backlash by soundly rejecting the Meng-for-Michaels proposal. Gone were the usual ‘ums’ and ‘uhs’ he mutters while trying to remember talking points.
Jun 19 2020 — Don Martin — CTV News — OK, he’s ready. Finally. Peter MacKay has been itching to lead the Conservative party since he co-founded it with Stephen Harper 17 years ago. After last night’s one-and-only English leadership debate, it’s clear that, while MacKay might not ooze royal jelly, he’s the only decent shot the Conservatives have left to dethrone Justin Trudeau in […]
Jun 10 2020 — Don Martin — CTV News — There’s a school of thought out there which believes MPs should take a hefty pay cut because many of them only reported for House of Commons seat duty 40 times in the last year. But the nonsense on painful Commons display Wednesday proved MPs being physically distanced from Ottawa is a vote for pandemic productivity […]
Jun 2 2020 — Don Martin — CTV News — Watching Justin Trudeau’s daily COVID-19 briefings lately is to believe the time has come to shelve the ritual as being well beyond its best-before date. When billions in emergency program spending were rolling out and course corrections were a regular feature of these media encounters, it made sense for the prime minister to personally face […]
May 28 2020 — Don Martin — CTV News — The time for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s years-long footdrag is over. Ban. Huawei. Now. The proof that the company’s controversial integration into our 5G network development comes with an unacceptable security risk was oh-so-clearly unmasked in a B.C. courtroom on Wednesday.
May 21 2020 — Don Martin — CTV News — When it comes to pandoptics, in real words being displays of shared symbolic pain during this COVID-19 crisis, Justin Trudeau is without equal in Canadian and perhaps global politics. The prime minister has excelled at taking steps to showcase his life in a pandemic as being just like the rest of us mere voting mortals. […]
May 13 2020 — Don Martin — CTV News — There’s something rather big being overlooked in the move to reopen Canada. Specifically, four provinces. While the European Union is set to reopen most of its borders next month and Americans remain free to drive across state lines, Canadians will likely confront a “closed for the summer” sign on Atlantic Canada.
May 5 2020 — Don Martin — CTV News — Consider the unfathomable: We’re now in a country where Conservatives like premiers Doug Ford, Scott Moe and Brian Pallister look statesman-like while the federal lame-duck leader and his wannabes appear increasingly pathetic. While those premiers work constructively and co-operatively to reopen their provinces, federal Conservative political priorities are a mixture of coronavirus China-bashing, lazy-worker-alleging and […]
Apr 30 2020 — Don Martin — CTV News — Strange twists in perspective are developing as we collectively tumble down the rabbit hole of this COVID-19 pandemic. Normal fixations have been displaced by a hungering for the sights and sounds of routine experiences that, just four months ago, might’ve been irritating, irrational or unworthy of a second thought. Consider this list of things I […]
Apr 23 2020 — Don Martin — CTV News — The true test of my lingering Alberta DNA is fretting at the lowest gas pump prices in a generation. Those 70-cent litres are the hemorrhaging lifeblood of an Alberta tumbling into an economic abyss. This week, the unfathomable struck as world oil prices crashed below zero on May deliveries that nobody wants delivered because there’s […]
Apr 16 2020 — Don Martin — CTV News — It took less than 24 hours for Ottawa public health officials to realize they’d gone too far. A senior officer took to the airwaves this week to denounce social-distancing “loopholes,” one being that residents should stop using their driveway to chat with neighbours despite sitting a legislated safe distance away. A day later, the city’s […]
Apr 9 2020 — Don Martin — CTV News — In normal times, amid the usual ebb and flow of bad news, they call it ‘bundling’ or ‘taking out the trash’. When government seeks to blunt a large rollout of negative news, they crunch it all together and shove it out the door as one steaming, smelly pile of …. well … stuff. Communications theory […]