Mar 21 2019 — Don Martin — CTV Power Play — To know Jane Philpott is to understand the devastating impact her condemnation of the government’s SNC-Lavalin behavior registers on the prime minister and his foot soldiers. This medical doctor turned Liberal rookie MP is not a coattail-clinging, talking-point-reciting lightweight in the caucus. She was extremely popular and has consistently displayed lofty principle and public service […]
Mar 14 2019 — Don Martin — CTV Power Play — It’s no longer about the truth, if it ever was. It’s about ameliorating or amplifying the consequences of a political poop that defies polishing. The crystallization of that reality came Wednesday at an emergency justice committee meeting. MPs were supposed to deal with former attorney general Jody Wilson Raybould’s willingness to re-appear and continue tormenting […]
Mar 7 2019 — Don Martin — CTV Power Play — The entire SNC-Lavalin mess, according to former Trudeau top aide Gerry Butts, was just the normal operations of government. If so, one image sticks in the mind from this week’s testimony to the justice committee. While attending a gala last October, Justin Trudeau’s powerful deputy minister took a phone call to his unlisted number.
Feb 28 2019 — Don Martin — CTV Power Play — So we now have two different truths on the SNC-Lavalin scandal — one altruistic, one inconvenient. The heroic version, rolled out by the prime minister and parroted by his ministers, is that political interference was all about saving jobs at the Montreal engineering giant. If spared a criminal conviction through a deferred prosecution deal, SNC-Lavalin […]
Feb 22 2019 — Don Martin — CTV Power Play — This is the strangest story I’ve seen in 40 years of covering politics. By way of review, consider the pileup of inexplicables. The prime minister’s BFF and closest adviser Gerry Butts quit his dream job this week, insisting he did nothing wrong to warrant his resignation.
Feb 14 2019 — Don Martin — CTV Power Play — Here’s proof that a week can be a lifetime in politics. One week ago today, Jody Wilson-Raybould was the veterans affairs minister and prime ministerial interference meant limiting debate on a piece of priority legislation. Now Wilson-Raybould is gone from cabinet and seeking legal advice while Justin Trudeau reels under mounting pressure that his office […]
Feb 7 2019 — Don Martin — CTV News — If you believe there’s no such thing as bad news, the NDP had a banner day earlier this week. On the popular Nationalnewswatch.com aggregator website, the party commanded four of the five banner stories. But the reality is that this rare single-party feat of newsworthiness reflected a devastating state of affairs for the once-mighty Orange […]
Jan 31 2019 — Don Martin — CTV Power Play — While there’s a new sunny way in the relocated House of Commons, thanks to that nifty glass ceiling overhead, it’s the same old fog on the floor. Election year dawned this week between the two main antagonists – Prime Minister Justin Trudeau verses Official Opposite Leader Andrew Scheer – and campaign narratives were being floor-tested.
Jan 17 2019 — Don Martin — CTV Power Play — Rarely do you glimpse the mindset of a prime minister’s inner circle when they punish a cabinet minister who is no longer to their liking. But this week’s mini shuffle was a transparent hit job on one key cabinet minister who appears to have forgotten her place as an obedient team player merely assigned to […]
Jan 10 2019 — Don Martin — CTV Power Play — This was the week international investment in Canadian energy transportation went palliative following multiple bouts of protracted suffering. The industry obit will detail how a few chiefs, bestowed with the ceremonial title by their ancestors, finally proved there’s no way to move oil, bitumen or natural gas from the ground to the ocean. TransCanada had […]
Jan 3 2019 — Don Martin — CTV Power Play — In a Canadian political realm hardening into partisan divides dominated by promise-breaking, polling-directed and scripted-to-the-comma political leaders, a welcome change is musing about entering a leadership race. He’s not going to change the Canadian landscape immediately, but this candidacy would be a heartening sign that better and dramatically different personalities can still be enticed to […]
Dec 21 2018 — Don Martin — CTV Power Play — ‘Tis the season to peer into a hazy political crystal ball to decipher the year ahead, despite my history of many wrong predictions. The oncoming year is going to be an epic one for Canadian politics with a general election, a key provincial election, a pivotal byelection and plenty of economic jitters here and around […]
Dec 13 2018 — Don Martin — CTV Power Play — The imminent rollout of Canadian news stories of the year will be predictable. The puff that was pot legalization; the dairy industry tweak that was the new NAFTA deal; the carbon tax resistance by premiers and perhaps the escalating Chinese retaliation for the Huawei CFO arrest. All important. All nation-defining. All second rate considerations to […]
Nov 29 2018 — Don Martin — CTV Power Play — Consider the parliamentary emergency which rushed a handful of federal political party leaders, including the prime minister, into a huddle of five-alarm concern this week. Obviously it was General Motors abandoning its Oshawa base after 100 continuous years of car production, leaving 3,000 jobs in the departing dust, right? Nope.
Nov 22 2018 — Don Martin — CTV Power Play — Squirrels came to mind when reading this week’s fiscal update. Those industrious rodents spent recent months in a frenzy of gathering and burying nuts because they know winter is coming which, unfortunately, has blitzed Central Canada a month before winter actually starts. But in terms of reflecting current federal fiscal policy, the squirrel has become […]