May 16 2019 — Don Martin — CTV Power Play — Today was the 13th question period in the House of Commons this month. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has attended just three of them, only one being on a Wednesday when he dances around every opposition query. Mind you, Official Opposition Leader Andrew Scheer hasn’t exactly earned a gold star for House attendance. He’s only made […]
May 9 2019 — Don Martin — CTV Power Play — The vindication of Vice-Admiral Mark Norman comes with a potential casualty. Chief of Defence Staff Jonathan Vance comes out of this mess set up to be a fall guy. It was Vance, acting on the faintest shadow of suspicion, who quickly threw Norman under the proverbial LAV. It was Vance who publicly declared that he […]
May 2 2019 — Don Martin — CTV Power Play — It’s been 26 years since Jason Kenney stepped into the national spotlight just outside the Alberta legislature cafeteria. That’s where the 24-year-old tax-fighter calmly eviscerated the MLA platinum pension plan in verbal sparring with a cranky then-premier Ralph Klein as a gaggle of us watched with jaws dropped and cameras recording every word.
Apr 25 2019 — Don Martin — CTV News — It’s been a dozen years since I was assigned to follow garbage trucks down the 401 and across the U.S. border to watch them dump Toronto waste into Michigan landfills. To furious residents posting protest signs along the quiet streets rattled by thousands of our trucks every year, we were reprehensible Canadian trash. Their understandable […]
Apr 11 2019 — Don Martin — CTV Power Play — Overlooking a Loblaws Superstore in Ottawa this week, Environment Minister Catherine McKenna seemed blissfully unaware she was hosting a communications disaster. She was in happy handout mode, shelling out a $12-million subsidy to induce the extremely profitable supermarket giant to spend $36 million of its own money on carbon-cutting refrigeration upgrades. An equally oblivious pair […]
Apr 4 2019 — Don Martin — CTV News — And so, undoubtedly to the relief of a scandal-fatigued public outside of the parliamentary bubble, the SNC-Lavalin saga approaches the end of its two-month, non-stop news cycle. With the leaks, hearings, firings, aftershock scrums, more leaks and the reflective thoughts of the ousted now complete, the revelations and reverberations are largely a spent force. Unless […]
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 […]