Jan 31 2023 — Don Martin — CTV News — He hailed it as dawn of the Liberal “meet the moment” era, an eye-rolling slogan of unclear meaning introduced by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau last week as his party’s challenge for the parliamentary year ahead. While sitting in an overcrowded hospital waiting room Monday waiting for a preventative checkup, I watched the year’s first question […]
Jan 19 2023 — Don Martin — CTV News — When it comes to finding his exit ramp, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has a new retirement roadmap. On the far side of the planet a once-popular feminist prime minister, who battled violent Parliament-obstructing protests over pandemic policy, divided the population over its vaccination status, fought to green up resource industries and struggled with an economy […]
Jan 12 2023 — Don Martin — CTV News — The airlines and airports that threw so many Christmas plans into hard reverse thrust have a simple explanation for the memory-destroying misery they inflicted on so many family holidays: Terribly sorry, but it’s not our fault. The Standing Committee on Transport gathered Thursday with MPs demanding an explanation for how that highly unusual Canadian winter […]
Jan 5 2023 — Don Martin — CTV News — Be it resolved that Pierre Poilievre needs help. When a majority of the respondents with an opinion, even in truest-bluest Alberta, tell pollster Nik Nanos that the Conservative leader should be replaced, this while Poilievre’s still supposedly basking in his political honeymoon period, the alleged prime-minister-in-waiting clearly needs to embrace some New Year’s resolutions for […]
Dec 21 2022 — Don Martin — CTV News — After decades of mostly wrong personal predictions for the year ahead, it’s time to consult the best brains in Canadian politics for their view of Major Events 2023. There’s a handful of former senior staffers, a former party leader, a top business voice and a veteran parliamentary observer in this Very Smart People mix, all […]
Dec 8 2022 — Don Martin — CTV News — It started just 10 days ago when residents placed a few poinsettias at the foot of the washed-away pier where Hurricane Ian had destroyed the holiday-season palm. Within the week that symbolic act blossomed into nine levels of donated potted plants encircling a quickly replanted palm with dozens more surrounding the site. It’s now unofficially […]
Nov 30 2022 — Don Martin — CTV News — Eight years ago, Danielle Smith ended her first political fling by jumping into a dumpster fire. Having botched a merger attempt between two Alberta conservative parties, she was blocked as unworthy of re-election by her new political masters. Just three years ago, Jason Kenney capped a stellar career as a senior federal cabinet minister to […]
Nov 18 2022 — Don Martin — CTV News — They may rate among Ottawa’s most secretive, staid and slow decision-making bodies, but nobody ever pegged the National Capital Commission for an evil genius. That changed Thursday when their secret strategy for bulldozing the prime minister’s residence at 24 Sussex Dr. became clear. By declaring even the kitchen a fire hazard and health risk to […]
Oct 25 2022 — Don Martin — CTV News — It sure looked like I had walked into the wrong operating room in the Ottawa General Hospital a few weeks ago. Jammed with at least a dozen surgeons, doctors, interns and nurses in a frenzy of preparations for the next patient, it seemed the wrong place for my modest day surgery. But the name on […]
Oct 19 2022 — Don Martin — CTV News — He may not have seen the potential threat when truckers rolled toward Ottawa last January, but Prime Minister Justin Trudeau cannot miss the risk of Freedom Convoy fallout he now faces. Under the no-nonsense watch of Justice Paul Rouleau with a lineup of inquisitive lawyers representing all sides of the protest, the Public Order Emergency […]
Oct 6 2022 — Don Martin — CTV News — There’s been a 20-year series of middleweight clashes in the parliamentary fight club – Chretien vs. Day, Martin vs. Harper, Harper vs. Mulcair, Trudeau vs. O’Toole – but nothing comes close to the slugfest now raging between Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. After three grudge-settling matches this fall, which is all […]
Oct 4 2022 — Don Martin — CTV News — The next premier of Alberta could well make Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre look like a right-wing lightweight. Meet Danielle Smith, the disgraced former Wild Rose party leader now poised to become Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s fiercest provincial antagonist as leader of the United Conservative Party. After a campaign born out of vaccine mandate opposition amid […]
Sep 23 2022 — Don Martin — CTV News — Finally and mercifully, ArriveCAN is dead on arrival at airports and border crossings as mandatory vaccination for foreign entry to Canada is lifted by month’s end, according to government sources. The glitch-prone app, which frantic foreigners scrambled to download in customs lineups or while huddled in cars near land points of entry, had its day […]
Sep 11 2022 — Don Martin — CTV News — It’s a daring experiment by the Conservatives – overwhelmingly elect a hard-right fire-breathing leader and expect enough voters to gravitate in his direction to win a federal election. That wasn’t the case with post-Harper leaders Andrew Scheer and Erin O’Toole, who shifted right-wing positions toward the mainstream in what became a futile effort to find […]
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 […]