Jun 14 2022 — Don Martin — CTV News — The Justin Trudeau brand is in trouble. The 2015 fresh prince of politics with the celebrity hair and rock star aura is heading into a 2022 summer of inflation-driven Canadian discontent as a faded force of personality in need of an exit strategy. You know there’s a reputation hit happening when Trudeau becomes the unnamed […]
Jun 9 2022 — Don Martin — CTV News — Incredibly, the current Pearson passenger chaos could be a calm before the perfect storm whacks Canada’s most important airport in just three weeks. The Toronto Pearson International Airport crush is about to face the year’s worst passenger crunch, the dreaded Canada Day jumpstart of the summer rush when an army of families with strollers and […]
Jun 2 2022 — Don Martin — CTV News — There’s a cautionary lesson in Doug Ford’s victory for Canadian politicians generally, Conservatives specifically and leadership hopeful Pierre Poilievre in particular: Boring politics is back, coloured in many shades of grey. To an electorate fed up with heavy-handed government interventions into their pandemic-lockdown lives and wincing at increasingly stark political polarizations about nothing, noisy drama, […]
May 19 2022 — Don Martin — CTV News — There’s a lesson for Canada’s political leaders in the short life and quick death of Jason Kenney as premier of Alberta. It’s one-strike-you’re-out politics now after Kenney got the weakest vote of confidence possible with a 51 per cent thumbs-up to his leadership from the United Conservative Party base. It’s an almost-unfathomable act of internecine […]
May 17 2022 — Don Martin — CTV News — It’s becoming a make-or-break week for two Conservative premiers as their futures pivot on a pair of defining moments. One looks set to win a provincial election on June 2. The other appears doomed to suffering considerable personal grief, if not a stunning defeat, from the party he created. For Ontario’s Doug Ford, the leaders’ […]
May 12 2022 — Don Martin — CTV News — The abortion question was dealt with in less time than the revelations about the candidate’s favorite music and the book they are currently reading. We also learned their most binge-worthy television series, their personal hero and which historical figure those vying to become a future Conservative prime minister would want to join them for dinner. […]
Apr 27 2022 — Don Martin — CTV News — There’s panic in Ottawa that thinks it’s hearing the distant rumble of an angry rerun of the Freedom Convoy heading toward the national capital. The Public Safety Minister is vowing federal help to block Friday’s Rolling Thunder biker rally from becoming another Ottawa occupation. Public health officials caution about the mental stress so many baritone-belching […]
Apr 20 2022 — Don Martin — CTV News — Campaign crowds can sometimes be fake news. Organizers can falsify the frenzy by booking a room they know is too small and fill it to capacity to create the impression of a delirious crush of support. Or you can pick a geographical location where your candidate’s support is deepest to showcase a disproportionately large audience […]
Apr 12 2022 — Don Martin — CTV News — While waiting to enter the television studio, MPs or strategists representing their parties on political shows are almost always a congenial bunch. They sit in the green room and small talk about everyday matters like normal humans. From my hosting experience, there are rarely signs of partisan tension or personal animosity. Only when the camera […]
Mar 29 2022 — Don Martin — CTV News — Sometimes, you just have to shake your head. Justin Trudeau, the prime minister until 2025 and possibly beyond, runs a government that excels at being predictably inconsistent, transparently delusional, occasionally devious and excessively obsessed with the latest shiny object. Think not? Let me count the ways leading to Tuesday’s latest grand delusion.
Mar 22 2022 — Don Martin — CTV News — Just six months after voters gave them a disappointing second minority mandate, the Liberals have suddenly emerged with what amounts to a four-year majority government. They must be pinching themselves. In a surprising, nay shocking, turn of events, the Liberals and NDP have put 1,677 words to paper to create a hybrid parliamentary creature unlike […]
Mar 15 2022 — Don Martin — CTV News — This wasn’t exactly a ‘Dear Justin’ love letter filled with pledges of eternal friendship and gratitude for support already provided. Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky wrapped a big ask inside the emotional wallop he delivered Tuesday, an address unlike any other visiting dignitary’s speech to the House of Commons. These celebrity speeches are usually humorous, self-deprecating, […]
Mar 8 2022 — Don Martin — Two political polar opposites are on a collision course for the Conservative leadership – and the winner could be the leader of the Liberal party. Moderate, extremely experienced, dignified but largely forgotten four decades after entering the federal fray, former party leader and Quebec premier Jean Charest will officially enter the race in Calgary on […]
Feb 22 2022 — Don Martin — CTV News — Pressed hard for an Emergencies Act justification with the protests gone, border blockades down and convoy leaders in custody, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau reached deep into his leadership vacuum for rationalizations. The emergency demanding the unprecedented use of the Act was . . . hesitant tow truck drivers, the prime minister declared. Without a broad […]
Feb 14 2022 — Don Martin — CTV News — That’s the rub as Canada moves into uncharted territory with the federal Emergencies Act being invoked alongside provincial orders and court injunctions aimed at pushing the Freedom Convoy out of Ottawa’s core and away from border crossings. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has an odd sense of timing for his heavy-handed stand against what was a […]