Feb 18 2019 — Susan Delacourt — Toronto Star — In a past political life, working for a long-ago premier of Ontario, Gerald Butts helped usher in a new provincial holiday called Family Day. Little did Butts know that he’d be marking Family Day in 2019 stepping down from a job at the very top of a government led by his old university friend, Justin […]
Feb 15 2019 — Susan Delacourt — Toronto Star — Elections, at their most basic level, are exchanges of trust: voters choose which politicians get their trust, and politicians trust voters to make an informed choice. A sweeping new report, however, shows that Canada is heading into this election year with a not-insignificant trust problem, even at this most fundamental level.
Feb 14 2019 — Susan Delacourt — Toronto Star — The story of Jody Wilson-Raybould’s departure from cabinet, incomplete as it now stands, is not a #MeToo moment in Canadian politics. The allegations at hand are, of course, not sexual in nature, and the sort of “undue pressure” to which Wilson-Raybould is said to have been subjected is by no means equivalent to the stories […]
Feb 12 2019 — Susan Delacourt — Toronto Star — Justin Trudeau is often accused of being too emotional and talking too much. The prime minister exhibited neither trait publicly in the events that led to Jody Wilson-Raybould’s resignation on Tuesday, and that probably played a large part in this dramatic unravelling at the top levels of Trudeau’s government.
Feb 9 2019 — Susan Delacourt — Toronto Star — The prime minister still has confidence in Veterans Affairs Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould, a senior government source says, despite an explosive series of stories over the past few days appearing to indicate that the relationship has totally blown apart. Justin Trudeau has not spoken personally to Wilson-Raybould since reports emerged of her falling-out with the Prime […]
Feb 7 2019 — Susan Delacourt — Toronto Star — It’s been a burning question for weeks in politics — what did Jody Wilson-Raybould do to get bounced out of her job as justice minister in Justin Trudeau’s cabinet? Well, now we know one theory about her firing offence: an alleged refusal to do a legal favour for SNC-Lavalin, the Quebec firm with long and […]
Feb 5 2019 — Susan Delacourt — Toronto Star — Justin Trudeau dropped a couple of big hints about the coming budget in a video he released on social media this week. It’s a transit-themed video. The prime minister appears at a variety of transit stops — including the GO station he visited in Milton, Ont, just last week — to boast that his federal […]
Feb 1 2019 — Susan Delacourt — Toronto Star — Justin Trudeau became prime minister in 2015 without a foothold in Milton, the sprawling GTA community where he landed on Thursday as part of this winter’s cross-country town hall tour. But if Trudeau wants to stay on as prime minister after this fall’s election, a lot will depend on how his Liberal government is grappling […]
Jan 30 2019 — Susan Delacourt — Toronto Star — All politics is local, as the old saying goes, especially in an election year. So while China and other international tensions are raging in the headlines, and no doubt causing some sleepless nights at the top levels of the federal government, there’s a distinctly local tilt to the concerns of MPs returning to the partisan […]
Jan 26 2019 — Susan Delacourt — Toronto Star — John McCallum had two big jobs in Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government. First, as immigration minister from 2015 to early 2017, he managed the influx of Syrian refugees to this country; then, for the last two years, McCallum was Canada’s man in China. On a day that both of those issues collided spectacularly in the […]
Jan 11 2019 — Susan Delacourt — Toronto Star — Raymond Muise, an 81-year-old retired electronic technician living in Dayton, N.S., was catching up on news online last week when his phone rang and a familiar voice said: “Happy New Year.” It was Justin Trudeau, calling about a letter Muise had written to the prime minister after General Motors announced the shutdown in Oshawa late […]
Jan 11 2019 — Susan Delacourt — Toronto Star — It often takes a death of some sorts to get political rivals speaking civilly to each other in this era of deep political polarization. Karl Rove and David Axelrod are a case in point. Rove, master Republican strategist behind the George W. Bush administration in the 2000s, lost his mother to suicide when he was […]
Jan 9 2019 — Susan Delacourt — Toronto Star — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau appears to be gearing up for this 2019 election year with an early reset of his government — including a possible cabinet shuffle in the days ahead. Shuffle speculation has been heating up over the past couple of days in Ottawa in advance of next week’s cabinet retreat in Sherbrooke, Que.
Jan 1 2019 — Susan Delacourt — Toronto Star — This is the time of year when a lot of people are resolving to live a healthier life in 2019. That wouldn’t be a bad resolution for political life in general, particularly after the glimpses we’ve received in 2018 about how Parliament Hill can take a serious toll on people’s well-being — elected and unelected.
Dec 30 2018 — Susan Delacourt — Toronto Star — Elizabeth May heads into 2019 with hopes of gaining some new, Green Party company in the House of Commons by year’s end. But May is already gaining some extra company in her personal life this year, even before the election. On Earth Day in April, the Green Party leader will marry John Kidder in a […]