Dec 5 2019 — Susan Delacourt — Toronto Star — The education of Justin Trudeau as prime minister is a tale that can now be told in two speeches from the throne — one in 2015, one in 2019. Other prime ministers have used the pomp and ceremony of throne speeches more frequently in their mandates for resets of their governments, halfway through their terms […]
Dec 4 2019 — Susan Delacourt — Welland Tribune — Did you hear the one about the world leader behaving badly at the NATO summit? In what truly is a sign of just how much Donald Trump has disrupted the rules of political diplomacy in three tumultuous years in office, the punchline to that joke is not Donald Trump. Instead, the bad diplomatic behaviour award […]
Dec 3 2019 — Susan Delacourt — Toronto Star — Every morning in Ottawa, thousands of public servants crowd into a new light-rail system that may or may not work, headed to jobs for which they may or may not be correctly paid. Between a shaky start for light rail this fall and the still-not-fixed Phoenix payroll debacle, the nation’s capital isn’t exactly a model […]
Nov 24 2019 — Susan Delacourt — Toronto Star — Justin Trudeau probably didn’t need Barack Obama’s help to win the Oct. 21 election. But long before the former U.S. president issued his endorsement of his friend and progressive ally last month, Obama was hovering as a presence behind the campaign that Liberals waged for re-election this fall.
Nov 21 2019 — Susan Delacourt — Toronto Star — A little more than a month ago, Justin Trudeau’s Liberals dropped $14,000 on a Twitter ad campaign in Ontario, warning voters in roughly two dozen of the province’s ridings not to elect another Doug Ford. On Friday, Trudeau and Ford will be having what’s widely expected to be a cordial meeting in Ottawa, to talk […]
Nov 20 2019 — Susan Delacourt — Toronto Star — New cabinets are closely analyzed for what governments intend to do next. They are also filled with revelations about what governments won’t do again. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, like George Bailey in “It’s a Wonderful Life,” has been given a second chance to appreciate his good fortune and all the people he has around him. […]
Nov 17 2019 — Susan Delacourt — Toronto Star — A small, eclectic crowd of journalists and political types was on hand this week at a Sparks Street bar in Ottawa to see the debut performance of the “Lowertown Riffraff,” an East Coast party-music band, also made up of journalists and politicos. At one of the big tables sat two women who have come to […]
Nov 12 2019 — Susan Delacourt — Toronto Star — Justin Trudeau has not said anything publicly about the firing of Don Cherry. Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer did not call Trudeau a “phoney” or a “fraud” when he sat down with the Prime Minister on Tuesday. These displays of restraint, in the aftermath of the recent election, can be seen as progress.
Nov 8 2019 — Susan Delacourt — Toronto Star — Two weeks after the votes were counted, the point of the 2019 election is finally coming into focus: it was ultimately a humbling exercise for Canada’s political leaders. In just one week, three of the major party leaders have been forced to reckon with humility at their first post-election caucus meetings in Ottawa. The Greens’ […]
Nov 5 2019 — Susan Delacourt — Toronto Star — Elizabeth May is a remarkably cheerful ex-leader of the Green Party of Canada. Walking down the Sparks St. mall in Ottawa on Monday after announcing her resignation, effective immediately, May didn’t have to think for a second when asked what she will miss about the job she’s leaving.
Nov 1 2019 — Susan Delacourt — Toronto Star — Political advertising, sorry to report, is not the worst thing on social media. While many people were celebrating Twitter’s announcement this week that it will ban political ads, it would be a mistake to see this as bold blow against political toxicity on that platform. As any casual user knows, the real culprits behind the […]
Oct 30 2019 — Susan Delacourt — Toronto Star — Halloween is expected to go ahead as usual in Ottawa on Thursday, despite calls for a one-day weather postponement. You read that correctly: in what some described as the most Ottawa story ever, there was talk of postponing trick-or-treating for a day this year because torrential rain is expected on Halloween. Besides, we’ve just endured […]
Oct 28 2019 — Susan Delacourt — Toronto Star — One advantage of the new slimmed-down Liberal caucus is that Justin Trudeau has fewer people to disappoint when he chooses his next cabinet. The Nov. 20 swearing-in of Trudeau’s next ministry is still several weeks away, but cabinet speculation is already rampant in Ottawa. The big question so far has revolved around how Trudeau will […]
Oct 26 2019 — Susan Delacourt — Toronto Star — It’s often dispensed as good career advice: keep your emotions in check in the workplace. So as Canadians sift through the rubble of what everyone seems to have seen as a nasty election campaign, could this be a simple antidote for the political workplace as well? Dial down the emotions? Less feeling, more thinking? Politics […]
Oct 23 2019 — Susan Delacourt — Toronto Star — Justin Trudeau gave a news conference on Wednesday that already cries out for a sequel. The prime minister said — several times — that he has some thinking to do about how things got so ugly and divisive during the election campaign that reduced his majority to a minority. “Canadians gave me a lot to […]