May 11 2019 — Susan Delacourt — Toronto Star — Justin Trudeau will not be announcing a sweeping handgun ban when he appears next month at the big Women Deliver conference in Vancouver. The Prime Minister’s Office dispelled any such speculation after the prospect of such an announcement was floated in the Commons this week by Tony Clement, the former Conservative and now independent MP.
May 8 2019 — Susan Delacourt — Toronto Star — So much for the Trudeau government’s plans to get past the SNC-Lavalin saga. Just in case anyone failed to make the connection between that long-running story and the strange case of Vice-Admiral Mark Norman, superstar defence lawyer Marie Henein was only too happy to draw some clear lines on Wednesday.
May 7 2019 — Susan Delacourt — Toronto Star — It takes a certain amount of nerve to rail against elites and privilege when your minimum salary hovers around $180,000 a year. Yet this is now the daily spectacle in Canada’s House of Commons, with MPs on all sides shaking their fists against millionaires, large corporations and pretty much anything that takes a few more […]
May 2 2019 — Susan Delacourt — Toronto Star — Conservatives gave Justin Trudeau a demotion this week — a nominal one, at least. On Wednesday, one Conservative critic after another stood up and addressed their questions to the “Liberal leader” — not the prime minister, as is conventional practice in the House.
Apr 30 2019 — Susan Delacourt — Toronto Star — The SNC-Lavalin saga appears to have been a real money-maker for the Conservatives. Fundraising totals released Tuesday by the federal political parties show the Conservatives pulled in about $8 million in the first three months of 2019 — more than double the $3.8 million raised by the governing Liberals.
Apr 26 2019 — Susan Delacourt — Toronto Star — Justin Trudeau used to tell crowds that one of his goals as prime minister would be to reconnect Canadians with politics and government. That mission remains unaccomplished, judging from a large look into the state of Canadian trust released this week. This “CanTrust Index,” as it’s called, has been released annually in each of the […]
Apr 25 2019 — Susan Delacourt — Toronto Star — Facebook and Canada’s political parties have three things in common in 2019. First, they are going to be vital parts of the federal election coming this fall. Second, they don’t seem all that fussed about privacy laws. And third, perhaps related to that second thing, they are suffering from a serious trust deficit.
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.