Apr 22 2019 — Susan Delacourt — Toronto Star — Elizabeth May’s marriage on Monday may be the start of an extended political honeymoon for her Green Party — starting in Prince Edward Island on Tuesday and quite possibly in Canada at large later this year. All signs currently point to this being a very good week for May and the Greens, part of a […]
Apr 18 2019 — Susan Delacourt — Toronto Star — It was a joke that only his father’s old friends would really get. Popping in for a surprise visit with veterans of Pierre Trudeau’s government at a lunch this week in Ottawa, Justin Trudeau said he had come up with the campaign slogan for the election later this year.
Apr 16 2019 — Susan Delacourt — Toronto Star — Justin Trudeau isn’t looking for a new Gerald Butts. It’s been two months this week since the SNC-Lavalin controversy claimed Trudeau’s right-hand man, and the Prime Minister’s Office is confirming that no new principal secretary will be coming in soon to replace Butts.
Apr 10 2019 — Susan Delacourt — Toronto Star — Foreign hackers have figured out that political parties are the weak link in Canada’s democratic chain. You wonder how they stumbled on to that vulnerability.
Apr 3 2019 — Susan Delacourt — Toronto Star — It has become an antidote to the toxic atmosphere that normally prevails in the House of Commons. For one morning every other year, all 338 seats in the Commons are occupied by young women aged 18 to 23 — “Daughters of the Vote,” as they are called — who get a chance to speak about […]
Apr 2 2019 — Susan Delacourt — Toronto Star — Jody Wilson-Raybould appears to have written a whole new manual on how to lose your job in politics. Maybe there have been other politicians who turned a cabinet demotion into a three-month-long crisis for their governments, though none spring to mind. Perhaps there are other ministers who have spent days warning their bosses not to […]
Mar 29 2019 — Susan Delacourt — Toronto Star — Seven years ago this weekend, Justin Trudeau walked into a boxing ring and changed a lot of people’s minds about him. With his knockout victory over Sen. Patrick Brazeau on March 31, 2012, Trudeau defied all the critics who said that this then shaggy-haired, backbench MP wasn’t tough enough to be a political contender.
Mar 26 2019 — Susan Delacourt — Toronto Star — Everyone in politics is a communications expert, it’s said. The exception, as demonstrated throughout the past seven weeks of the SNC-Lavalin saga, appears to be almost everyone in Justin Trudeau’s government. The issues at stake in the SNC-Lavalin affair go well beyond good or bad communication strategy, obviously.
Mar 19 2019 — Susan Delacourt — Toronto Star — Conservatives and New Democrats were less than impressed when Justin Trudeau rolled out three big steps on Monday to address the damage of the SNC-Lavalin affair. But the opposition wasn’t the intended target of the measures — which included the resignation of Canada’s top bureaucrat, a mini-shuffle of the cabinet and the appointment of former […]
Mar 14 2019 — Susan Delacourt — Toronto Star — Up until six weeks ago, it looked like Justin Trudeau had fine-tuned his operation into election readiness for 2019. The SNC-Lavalin affair has blown those best-laid plans to smithereens, to say the least. Now, with a budget on the immediate horizon and an election just seven months away, Trudeau has some immediate repair work to […]
Mar 12 2019 — Susan Delacourt — Toronto Star — Members of Parliament face a lot of hard decisions, but an easy one is sitting right now before Liberals on the Commons justice committee. On Wednesday, MPs on the committee will be asked to vote on whether to hear again from former minister Jody Wilson-Raybould, on what is now known as the SNC-Lavalin scandal.
Mar 8 2019 — Susan Delacourt — Toronto Star — International Women’s Day came and went in Canada on Friday without much fanfare by Justin Trudeau, who normally uses the occasion to burnish his feminist brand. That brand, like everything else around Trudeau this past month, has been tarnished by the ongoing SNC-Lavalin saga, which has cost the prime minister two strong women ministers and […]
Mar 6 2019 — Susan Delacourt — Toronto Star — Last week, the SNC-Lavalin affair was a legal thriller. This week, it’s also looking like a family drama, complete with tales of broken trust and frayed relationships at the highest level of the Canadian government. This new layer was added to the SNC-Lavalin controversy on Wednesday when Gerald Butts, former principal secretary to Prime Minister […]
Mar 5 2019 — Susan Delacourt — Toronto Star — In a rollicking couple of months filled with surprise developments for Justin Trudeau, one enduring question lingers — why does the prime minister keep being surprised? His newest surprise this week was the departure of another cabinet minister, Jane Philpott, who resigned on Monday in solidarity with Jody Wilson-Raybould, whose explosive exit also caught Trudeau […]
Mar 4 2019 — Susan Delacourt — Toronto Star — Jane Philpott was known as a fixer in Justin Trudeau’s government. Well, the newest former member of the cabinet has definitely fixed things now, but not in any way that works for Trudeau and his chances of being a two-term prime minister. More to the point, Philpott’s departure proves that women have indeed done politics […]