Sep 23 2020 — Susan Delacourt — Welland Tribune — At some point this week, someone is going to say that members of Parliament are “back at work” — the idea being that when your elected representatives aren’t in Ottawa, they’re slacking off somewhere. But the truth is that the most meaningful work that ordinary MPs do is when they’re back in their home ridings, […]
Sep 20 2020 — Susan Delacourt — Niagara Falls Review — In the olden days, before the pandemic, the four men sitting behind a long table in an Ottawa hotel on Friday represented Justin Trudeau’s biggest problem — the “real” opposition. Ontario Premier Doug Ford, Alberta Premier Jason Kenney, Quebec Premier François Legault and Manitoba Premier Brian Pallister were in Canada’s capital to remind the prime […]
Sep 16 2020 — Susan Delacourt — Welland Tribune — Justin Trudeau apparently views the prospect of a fall election in the same way he views COVID-19 — as something to be avoided at all costs, but not feared. For a moment on Wednesday, the prime minister got carried away with his own enthusiasm for democracy, giving a spirited defence of Canada’s ability to juggle […]
Sep 15 2020 — Susan Delacourt — Toronto Star — Around the same time that Donald Trump was heralding the dawn of peace in the Middle East on Tuesday, the U.S. backed away from its threat of tariffs on Canadian aluminum. Clearly, Canada caught Trump on a good day. While it isn’t exactly peace breaking out in the Middle East or even a cure for […]
Sep 12 2020 — Susan Delacourt — St. Catharines Standard — Justin Trudeau’s critics like to dismiss him as an actor. But this prime minister’s time in power has seen him doing more reacting than acting, mainly to large global events out of his control. Trudeau’s “build back better” plan — the focus of the coming huddle with his cabinet ministers this week — will be […]
Sep 10 2020 — Susan Delacourt — St. Catharines Standard — In its heyday, the WE Charity probably prodded countless young people to pursue lives in global activism. Thanks to recent events, WE Charity has probably done the opposite for politics. No matter who ultimately gets the blame for the demise of WE Charity’s Canadian operations, announced sorrowfully this week, there is nothing in the whole […]
Sep 8 2020 — Susan Delacourt — Toronto Star — Steven Guilbeault was an environmental activist before he landed less than a year ago as heritage minister in Justin Trudeau’s government. Oddly enough, Guilbeault is finding background that to be good preparation for his looming battle with tech giants such as Facebook and Google, and the resistance they’re showing to having their power reined in […]
Sep 6 2020 — Susan Delacourt — Welland Tribune — Early in the pandemic, Ontario Premier Doug Ford talked about how the crisis was forcing politicians to draw on skills they learned before they got elected. His new best friend in the federal Liberal government, Chrystia Freeland, was putting her old journalism skills to work into networking with the premiers on COVID-relief plans. Meanwhile, Ford […]
Sep 1 2020 — Susan Delacourt — Toronto Star — Picking a fight on social media is now just another day at the office for political partisans. Picking a fight with social media, however, is a more perilous exercise, as Australia learned this week when Facebook announced it was ready to pull the plug on all that country’s news content on its platform. Justin Trudeau’s […]
Aug 30 2020 — Susan Delacourt — Toronto Star — Can you catch election fever during a pandemic? In the next few weeks, Canada’s federal politics will serve as the laboratory for that question. While most Canadians are more focused right now on how COVID-19 will affect schools, jobs and public health this fall, the prospect of a federal election has suddenly crept onto the […]
Aug 25 2020 — Susan Delacourt — Toronto Star — Erin O’Toole’s first news conference as Conservative leader was a brief encounter, just 15 minutes of questions and answers. It was too brief, in fact, to gauge what kind of relationship O’Toole will have with the media over the long term, and particularly, whether this new Conservative leader will be as ill-disposed toward the Ottawa […]
Aug 23 2020 — Susan Delacourt — Associated Press, National Post, Toronto Star — Several Canadian cabinet ministers tweeted their approval earlier this month when Kamala Harris was picked to be Joe Biden’s running mate in the U.S. presidential election. Nothing like that is going to happen again before November. Justin Trudeau’s government has adjusted its rules of engagement with the United States for two big reasons. First is […]
Aug 18 2020 — Susan Delacourt — St. Catharines Standard — Six years ago, Chrystia Freeland was a rookie political celebrity on stage in Montreal, part of a cast of other “star recruits” to Justin Trudeau’s Liberal party, when everything seemed possible. She is now Canada’s first female finance minister and arguably the most powerful woman in politics in this country. But inside Trudeau’s Liberal government, […]
Aug 10 2020 — Susan Delacourt — St. Catharines Standard — Victory has a thousand fathers, the late president John F. Kennedy famously said, but defeat is an orphan. While this is an apt description of the loneliness at the bottom of the political heap, it is also true that loss, scandal and controversy can be team sports too. For Justin Trudeau, the SNC-Lavalin saga of […]
Aug 9 2020 — Susan Delacourt — St. Catharines Standard — In the olden days, before a global pandemic, a Canada-U.S. trade war would set off all-points alarms all over the federal government. But unlike a pandemic, Donald Trump’s bully gambit with tariffs is something Justin Trudeau’s government has handled before — over and over, again and again. You could say that Trudeau and his team […]