Aug 20 2019 — Susan Delacourt — Toronto Star — The People’s Party of Canada is really big on freedom of expression. A whole section of its platform, laid out over the party website, is devoted to the rights of people to say whatever the heck they want. “What some people find politically incorrect, offensive or even hateful cannot serve as the legal basis for […]
Aug 5 2019 — Susan Delacourt — Toronto Star — A prime minister’s career is built, loosely, on two types of duties: acting and reacting; dealing with the planned and the unplanned. Skills for both are usually acquired on the job, and in public. Justin Trudeau has been through four years of training in the top political job in Canada and the first book-length chronicle […]
Aug 3 2019 — Susan Delacourt — Toronto Star — Along the road to Ottawa’s international airport sits a simple SNC-Lavalin construction sign. Everyone looking to fly out of the capital — including the 200 or so Liberal candidates who dropped into Ottawa this week for a pre-election “boot camp” — gets to see that reminder of a very bad winter and spring for Justin […]
Jul 30 2019 — Susan Delacourt — Toronto Star — Green Party Leader Elizabeth May has wound down a controversial working relationship with former Liberal strategist Warren Kinsella, saying, “He’s finished whatever work he was doing with us.” The limited-run arrangement, which seems to have involved Kinsella setting up a quick-response unit for the Greens, had drawn huge criticism inside and outside Green Party ranks. […]
Jul 26 2019 — Susan Delacourt — Toronto Star — With Boris Johnson’s elevation to the U.K. prime minister’s job this week, Canada’s two closest allies, Britain and the United States, are now led by politicians who are looking to change the face of conservatism worldwide. So how long can Canada stand apart from the forces that have put renegade conservatives Donald Trump and Johnson […]
Jul 24 2019 — Susan Delacourt — Toronto Star — If Andrew Scheer is serious about becoming prime minister this fall, he might want to spend the summer ditching his friends. It’s been a theme of this year in politics, for Liberal and Conservative leaders. Justin Trudeau has been attacked this week for failing to permanently jettison his longtime friend and adviser Gerald Butts. Ontario […]
Jul 12 2019 — Susan Delacourt — Toronto Star — Voters should not be surprised to find Liberals landing on their doorsteps this weekend, toting a deadline and a cheque. The deadline is theirs — this weekend marks the beginning of the 100-day countdown to the October election. The cheque, or at least the promise of one, goes to Canadian parents — Liberals are heading […]
Jul 11 2019 — Susan Delacourt — Toronto Star — Canada is helping to set up a rapid-response team of international diplomats to step in when media freedom is urgently trampled, such as in last year’s murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. The measure is one of several steps coming out of this week’s big Canada-U.K. conference on press freedom, co-chaired in London by Global […]
Jul 4 2019 — Susan Delacourt — Toronto Star — The Fourth of July celebrations will be marked in a not-so-usual way in Canada’s capital this year, in keeping with the unusual twists and turns that have defined Canada-U.S. relations since Donald Trump came to power.
Jul 2 2019 — Susan Delacourt — Toronto Star — Stephen Harper, true to form, ducked out of the spotlight quickly last weekend, less than two hours after his name hit the international headlines. The former prime minister was named as a possible Brexit negotiator should Jeremy Hunt win the U.K. Conservative leadership race this month. Hunt’s team told The Sunday Times that Harper, along […]
Jun 28 2019 — Susan Delacourt — Toronto Star — You don’t need to know a thing about Canadian politics to cast a ballot this fall. This is, depending on your point of view, the bonus or drawback of democracy. But what if you are one of those rare voters who wants to walk informed into the voting booth for the October federal election in […]
Jun 25 2019 — Susan Delacourt — Toronto Star — First, the bad news: the big social media companies are not going to be able to keep stupid stuff and fake facts out of the fall election. The good news, however, is that voters already have a mechanism to sort between real and ridiculous reports in the heat of the campaign. It’s called the brain, […]
Jun 19 2019 — Susan Delacourt — Toronto Star — Joyce Murray and Jody Wilson-Raybould have now completely traded places in Justin Trudeau’s government. When this year began, one of these Vancouver MPs was in cabinet; one was not. One was on board with the government’s support for the Trans Mountain pipeline; the other, well, not so much. It says an awful lot about politics […]
Jun 12 2019 — Susan Delacourt — Toronto Star — If you liked Justin Trudeau’s promises to make pot legal in the 2015 election, wait until you see the free-drugs pledge in the 2019 campaign. Eric Hoskins, Ontario’s former health minister, has handed Trudeau and his Liberal team an unexpected flourish of ambition to insert into this fall’s election platform — a national, universal pharmacare […]
Jun 7 2019 — Susan Delacourt — Toronto Star — Bill Nye, The Science Guy, as he’s known from his popular children’s TV show in the 1990s, has gone right over the top in his warnings about climate change over the past month. First it was a little video segment on Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, in which Nye explained the urgency of climate […]