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 […]
Nov 15 2018 — Don Martin — CTV Power Play — The Lords of the Rings gazing down from their Mount Olympus headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland may have cause to furrow their collective brow at the goings-on in Calgary this week. On the ballot of a civic plebiscite was permission to pursue a $5-billion government-backed bid for the 2026 Winter Olympics. And for the first time […]
Nov 8 2018 — Don Martin — CTV Power Play — Craig Oliver is usually among the first to show up in the Ottawa bureau in the morning. Legally blind for decades, CTV’s political commentator straps on headphones to get an audio rundown of the day’s top stories while peering into his heavily magnified computer screen to scan the news feed. An hour later, Craig will […]
Nov 1 2018 — Don Martin — CTV Power Play — Being Governor General means living the dream of super elite status in Canada. It comes with the biggest house in Ottawa, so big the prime minister is currently a tenant on the estate grounds. There’s a salary of $270,000, even though the taxpayer covers all expenses mere mortals have to pay themselves.
Oct 25 2018 — Don Martin — CTV News — Canada, brace yourself. Both the prime minister and the Official Opposition leader warn this year-long fight for your election vote is going to be particularly “nasty.” What a hoot.
Oct 18 2018 — Don Martin — CTV Power Play — Amid euphoric media coverage of the first Canadian to buy legal pot, the more interesting and ignored angle would be the last person charged with possession of cannabis in this country. It was probably some lippy kid living on a city street who was busted in tandem with another minor offence. But the record for […]
Oct 11 2018 — Don Martin — CTV Power Play — She was a breath of fresh air into a stale job. Incredibly bright and charismatic with an instant connection to average Canadians, Michaelle Jean checked every box on a list to shake up the staid image of a Canadian Governor General. Her vice-regal performance, despite a few hiccups, lived up to the hype – particularly […]
Oct 4 2018 — Don Martin — CTV Power Play — It’s not often both major federal parties are right and wrong at the same time. But as the rehashing of the tragic 2009 murder of eight-year-old Tori Stafford echoes through the House of Commons, the Liberals and the Conservatives have accomplished this rare feat. There’s a monster living in Saskatchewan’s Okimaw Ohci Healing Lodge. Her […]
Sep 27 2018 — Don Martin — CTV News — You see them driving up and down streets in beat-up pickups on garbage day, rummaging along the curb for items with flea market sales potential. With reports of Canada negotiating for a used surveillance drone, one stripped of its hi-tech navigating equipment and considered scrap-worthy by German defense officials, we are at risk of becoming […]
Sep 20 2018 — Don Martin — CTV Power Play — When a Liberal MP marched across the House of Commons aisle to sit as a Conservative this week, reaction in the national press gallery was almost unanimous. Who’s that? Reporters blitzed Google for details on this unfamiliar face and debated how to pronounce Leona Alleslev’s last name.