While National Newswatch does not keep an archive of external articles for longer than 6 months, we do keep all articles written by contributors who post directly to our site. Here you will find all of the contributed and linked external articles from Michael Harris.
The plight of the Conservative Party of Canada, and its beleaguered leader, took another turn for the worse with the defection to the Liberals of Nova Scotia MP Chris d’Entremont on Nov. 4 and the resignation of Conservative MP Matt Jeneroux on Nov. 6. It is one thing for Pierre Poilievre to have lost a federal election that for months...
It may be true that Stephen Harper still supports the current Conservative leader. But his denials to one side, if Harper is having doubts about the current leader’s stewardship of the party, Pierre Poilievre’s days as leader are numbered. Calgary will tell the tale.
It is pretty much a political platitude these days to say that Canada must diversify its trading partners, rather than continue with a dangerous economic reliance on the United States. It is no surprise that Prime Minister Mark Carney and Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand are travelling the world to cultivate new and reliable trading relationships.
Canada’s federal politics have boiled down to a pair of intense competitions. One of them pits the Liberal and Conservative parties against each other. In that contest, the Conservatives have moved within striking distance of the governing Liberals. According to a recent Nanos poll, only four percentage points separate the two parties. In the other contest, Prime Minister Mark Carney...
Bad faith from politicians has always been a feature of democracy. What politician hasn’t made a promise while running for office, only to break it when elected? Scandal is as much a part of everyday governance as talking points and taxes. From Brian Mulroney’s pasta payoff to Jean Chrétien’s ad sponsorship rip-off, leaders of all parties stray from the straight...
Prime Minister Mark Carney made the right call on July 30 when he added Canada’s name to the list of countries around the world who have formally recognized the state of Palestine. A total of 147 countries out of the United Nations’ 193-member states have all arrived at the same conclusion: something has to be done about the slaughterhouse that...
Just because Canada is a kinder and gentler place than the U.S., and just because we mediate our differences with civil words not civil wars, it doesn’t mean we don’t know how to stand up for ourselves. For a 158-year-old, Canada is looking pretty good. We have come through world wars, depressions, recessions, natural and unnatural disasters, and the special...
The only question that remains about the Trump presidency is how much damage it can do to the United States and the world before it is over. A lot will depend on how other world leaders treat America’s first rogue president. Butt-kissing—the preferred option so far of those attempting to deal with Donald Trump—has been a humiliating failure...
If any political party in the country needs to do some serious soul-searching, it is the Conservative Party of Canada. For starters, the party managed to lose an election it was widely expected to win, and win in a rout of the hapless Trudeau Liberals.
Mark Carney has had a dream lift-off as a rookie prime minister taking charge of a country the size of Canada. Consider the recent past. A royal visit that engaged Canadians, and reminded the Orange One that Canada is very much a real country, a fully sovereign nation under a constitutional monarchy.
Former United States president John F. Kennedy once famously said that if we don’t get rid of war, war will get rid of us. His dire prediction is coming true. As the world turns and burns, war is everywhere. After three agonizing years of conflict in Ukraine, there is no end in sight, despite U.S. President Donald Trump’s idle boast...
In Carney’s world, two plus two always equals four. In banking and finance, facts matter. In the navel-gazing nightmare of intuitive Trumpism, two plus two equals whatever the president says it does.
Liberals like their leaders coming out of caucus, not left field. Carney bucked that preference. He not only captured the top job, he raised the Liberals Lazarus-like from the dead. But he has made the task tougher because he has created such great expectations in Canadians. And there won’t be much time to prepare for the biggest item on his...
With a brand new leader at the Liberal Party helm and with the distinct chance of new leadership in all the main federal parties, the old order of national politics could change faster than Newfoundland and Labrador weather.
Liberal candidate Bruce Fanjoy is running against Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre who has a national profile as both party leader and a potential prime minister. Fanjoy’s answer has been old-fashioned hard work, based on the notion that all politics is local.
The dramatic collapse in the once insurmountable lead Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre held over the Liberals is the most astonishing reversal of political fortunes I have ever seen. For one thing, it happened in a matter of a few weeks. For the two years before that, the Liberals could barely see Poilievre’s tail lights. He was on cruise control to...
Even if Trump is using tariffs to negotiate better deals with trading partners, that process could take up the rest of his presidency. After all, he has levied punitive tariffs against scores of countries. If these countries want to negotiate an exemption or a carveout, they will have to stand in a very long line to get to the president.
Historian and journalist Mark Bourrie writes, “This book is about how Canada made its own version of Donald Trump, albeit with fewer guns and less rioting, but with lots of trucks and lies.” Around the world extreme right-wing leaders are coming to power, authoritarians who offer “easy and simple answers to complicated questions.” Aggressive people see an opportunity, and COVID...
A few months ago, only people who were smoking the drapes would have thought a Liberal majority possible. Now, who knows? Driving into my hometown, there is a sign at the Four Corners in a farmer’s field. It reads “Mr. Trump. Don’t poke the Goose.” It’s the Canada Goose, of course. The words are directed at U.S. President Donald Trump...
Fading Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre should read a little T.S. Eliot. April could indeed be the cruelest month for the man who so badly wants to be prime minister. Canadians will be going to the polls soon. Should newly minted Liberal Leader Mark Carney win that election, as some polls say he could, Poilievre would have presided over the biggest...
Both leaders of the mainstream parties need to demonstrate their credentials for the top job, and their plan to rebuff Donald Trump. An election is the best way for that to happen. Despite the economic crisis triggered by U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade war, Canada needs to hold a federal election as soon as possible. It may be inconvenient, but...
I have just two words for U.S. President Donald Trump: Tariff off. How bad is his crazed trade war? Just a day after imposing illegal and punishing tariffs on Canada and Mexico, Captain Chaos has had to revisit the issue. In just one day. That’s because his belligerent and unscrupulous policy aimed at America’s biggest trading partners and most faithful...
King Donald and his band of enabling Banana Republicans have hit a new low. With the ceasefire in Gaza hanging by a thread, U.S. President Donald Trump posted a glitzy video on “Truth” Social complete with a catchy song. The AI-generated video depicted the war-torn region after a makeover—a kind of Las Vegas on the Mediterranean. There was even a...
Can anyone stop Mark Carney in his bid to become Liberal leader? Not likely and here’s why.
It is usually the other way around, given that America styles itself as the leader of the Free World. Instead, we have a convicted felon and an accused war criminal joining forces against a democracy.
Mark Carney has helped two countries navigate through some serious white water. While Pierre Poilievre’s monetary experience is a babble about Bitcoin, Carney has been on the font line of how economies really work in real crises.
Henry Kissinger once reportedly quipped that, “It may be dangerous to be America’s enemy; but to be America’s friend is fatal.” South Vietnam was a friend, and now it no longer exists. The previous government of Afghanistan was a friend, but has been replaced by the Taliban. The Shah of Iran was a friend, until he was overthrown in the...
It has been 14 years since Justin Trudeau called then-Conservative MP Peter Kent “a piece of shit” in the House of Commons. Since then, politics has steadily become a potty-mouthed street-fight between rival gangs.
With Donald Trump’s accession to power, a fact-free zone paralyzed by ego and propaganda, the U.S. has entered liar’s heaven and democracy’s hell.
Is it possible for the beleaguered Liberal Party of Canada to make a comeback?
So, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has decided not to play for Team Canada. It doesn’t get tackier than that. U.S. president-elect Donald Trump’s 10-thumbed meddling in Canadian affairs has led to exactly what he wants: a house divided. America First meets Alberta First is the perfect Trumpian tango.
When U.S. president-elect Donald Trump threatened a 25 per cent tariff on all goods coming into the United States from Canada, Ontario Premier Doug Ford said it was “like a family member stabbing you right in the heart.” At the time, more than a few commentators thought that Ontario’s premier was over-reacting. It was just Trump being Trump.
So America’s felon-in-chief thinks Canada would be a dandy addition to the United States? Donald Trump even referred to Justin Trudeau as the governor of the great state of Canada. I know. Puerile at one level, disgusting at another, and totally predictable. Veteran Liberal Allan Rock had it right: The guy who may well deconstruct his own country in his...
Joe Biden pardoned two turkeys in advance of Thanksgiving: good for “Peach” and “Blossom.” The president went from pardoning turkeys to pardoning his son, ahead of his sentencing on gun and tax convictions. This is bad for Hunter Biden, toxic to the rule of law in the United States, and catastrophic for the president in the dying days of his...
Justin Trudeau hasn’t been getting much praise lately, but he deserves more than a little for doing something few politicians have the guts to do these days: stand up for the rule of law, no matter who is involved.
As Canada’s parliamentary system sputters into dysfunction, Justin Trudeau’s ability to hit the reset button for his unpopular government has suffered another major setback. Just when the prime minister would like to focus the public’s attention on the government’s upcoming fall economic statement—which is likely to show that both inflation and the cost of living are coming down—the Liberals lose...
And so, two months before the White House officially changes hands, the nightmare on Pennsylvania Avenue begins. If anyone thought that Donald Trump’s iconoclastic and outrageous promises on the campaign trail were mere rhetoric to give woodies to his frothing base, his staffing appointments reveal the worst case.
It didn’t take long for the unsettling reality of a second term for Donald Trump to show up. As everyone knows, special counsel Jack Smith has pursued criminal charges against Trump on two fronts: unlawfully taking classified documents when he left the White House, and obstructing justice to keep them; and for triggering a coup attempt on Jan. 6, 2021...
Tomorrow’s American presidential election may reveal if the clock strikes 13, the way it does in the opening line of George Orwell’s dystopian masterpiece, 1984. Things have moved well beyond bizarre in the lunatic villa of U.S. politics. Americans may well elect a convicted felon who wants to suspend the Constitution, round up millions of people for deportation, and unleash...
The cardinal rule of politics and governance is presenting a united front to the public. Rubbing their noses in the party’s dirty laundry is the death march of being out of touch. Bottom line here? From the Liberal Party's point of view, the only thing worse than Trudeau remaining as prime minister is his leaving.
No sense mincing words. For the last year, and with each passing day, it is getting clearer that Donald Trump is off his rocker, and GOP politics is off the rails. You can’t make up the stuff that is coming out of Trump’s mouth with zero pushback from the gaggle of sycophants trying to ride his crazy coattails to power...
Justin Trudeau is a coach in danger of losing control of the locker room. After losing one Liberal stronghold in Toronto in June, the party has just lost another on the island of Montreal. Toronto St. Paul’s, Ont., and LaSalle-Émard-Verdun, Que., are bookends of a brutal battering. The Grits once seemed to hold the deeds to these political properties. So...
For a party trailing by a country kilometre in the polls for over a year, the recent Liberal cabinet retreat was a pretty self-satisfied affair. True, there was a laundry list of announcements: tariffs on EVs from China, a tweak of the temporary foreign workers program, a task force here, and more studies there. Not unimportant, to be sure.
Watching the Democratic convention in Chicago, some numbers came to mind that are telling. The United States has been a Republic for 248 years. During that time, 45 people have been president—all male. Of those, 44 were white, and one Black. What is strange about that is that there are roughly 170 million women in the U.S. That represents approximately...
It is easy to see why Volodymyr Zelenskyy has become an international political superstar. When Russia invaded his country, observers in the West gave the embattled president of Ukraine virtually no chance of stopping the aggressors. The conventional wisdom at the time was that Russia would overrun the country in a matter of weeks.
No matter what happens three months from now, Americans will make electoral history. Either the country will elect a Black, female president, which would be a first, or it will choose a convicted felon, which would also be unprecedented.
Once again, the world is holding its breath over events unfolding in the Middle East. With the assassination of the political leader of Hamas in Tehran, Iran is vowing revenge against Israel. No one knows what that will look like. Another missile and drone attack on Israel itself like the one last April, an assault on Israeli shipping, or an...
There was a ride at the Canadian National Exhibition that made the roller coaster feel like an outing in a stroller: the Wild Mouse. It featured small seats, breakneck speed, hairpin turns, zippy ups and downs that played hell on the stomach, and of course, screaming patrons holding on for dear life. U.S. politics has boarded the Wild Mouse for...
Politics has always had its share of self-interested fakers masquerading as public servants. But never before has a band of criminals, miscreants, and industrial-strength hypocrites captured a mainstream party, let alone one in the self-styled greatest democracy on earth. This is how the Republican Party—the so-called party of law-and-order—now looks. For starters, it has selected a convicted felon awaiting sentencing...
If the Liberal Party and the Prime Minister’s Office aren’t watching the political train-wreck playing out south of the border, they should be. In both countries, the progressive parties are in a crisis of leadership. For very different reasons, the parties themselves are deeply conflicted about their incumbents: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau here, and President Joe Biden in the United...
Former U.S. president Richard Nixon once said, 'Well, if the president does it, that means that it is not illegal.' Two weeks ago, in a decision split along ideological lines, six of the nine U.S. justices ruled that a president does have immunity when he is acting in his official capacity. In other words, he is indeed above the law...
Federal politics has entered a “none-of-the-above” phase. And that means that predicting how people will vote a year from now is not as simple as voting intention polls suggest. The same polls that show Justin Trudeau taking his party over the electoral cliff if he remains leader also show something else of importance. Canadians are deeply unimpressed with the current...
The more secretive a society gets, the less democratic it becomes. As The Washington Post’s motto puts it, “Democracy dies in darkness.” Canadian democracy has been weakened this past week by a signal failure of transparency, a dire error of priorities. On an issue of monumental importance, the public was informationally dealt out.
How did gross incivility take over so much of the public square in both Canada and the United States? There is probably a good PhD thesis in the answer to that question. But the disintegration of the political middle begins and perhaps ends with something we all share: the language. Language is the basis of how societies mediate differences of...
Can an adult-film actress save the republic from King Donald? Given what is happening in the U.S. justice system these days, Stormy Daniels and her hush-money case may be the country’s best chance to deal out a dictator. When former U.S. president Donald Trump was slapped with multiple indictments and scores of felony charges, a lot of commentators crowed. They...
It wasn’t the biggest story coming out of Ottawa last week, but make no mistake about it, Pam Damoff’s decision to leave politics is a canary in the mine. The call to public service is losing its lustre.
There is a limit to how far Conservative politicians can carry the demonization of Justin Trudeau. Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe has reached it. Moe’s stand on the “carbon tax,” a fawning imitation of his party’s national leader, is indefensible. He says not collecting or remitting federal carbon pricing for natural gas and electricity is about “fairness.”
The staggering death toll of Israel’s war of rage and vengeance demands an answer before the region is knee-deep in innocent blood. Netanyahu’s six months of slaughter in Gaza has been his response to the atrocity of Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas butchered 1,200 innocent Israelis.
Even the most pumped-for-Trump MAGA-fool must have had a queasy moment when they saw the king of grifters on TV hawking his latest product. It wasn’t cologne. It wasn’t those $399 Never Surrender gold high-top running shoes. It wasn’t a T-shirt featuring Teflon Don’s mugshot.
On the face of it, altering a photograph—even if you are a princess—is small potatoes. With two major wars raging, Donald Trump offering Americans a fascist buffet in the U.S. presidential election, and the planet running a deadly fever while world leaders dither on climate change; manipulating a family photograph does not seem to be the stuff of a viral...