Aug 4 2020 — Susan Delacourt — St. Catharines Standard — The first few months of the COVID crisis turned everyone into instant epidemiologists. But it’s looking like the long haul of the pandemic will be a crash course in sociology. Whether it’s contact tracing or the eventual development of a vaccine, future success in the fight against this coronavirus increasingly depends on how well we […]
Jul 30 2020 — Susan Delacourt — Our Windsor — One of the mysteries around the whole WE Charity controversy has revolved around this question: where were Justin Trudeau’s political instincts? For a prime minister who has been a master of image and perception, Trudeau would be expected to immediately recognize the perils of pairing his government with a charity so closely tied to his […]
Jul 29 2020 — Susan Delacourt — St. Catharines Standard — Justin Trudeau is not likely to make any new friends on Thursday during his one-hour grilling at the House of Commons finance committee. But that’s just as well. After a month of controversy over whether this prime minister and his government were too friendly to WE Charity, the only kind of relationships Trudeau should be […]
Jul 27 2020 — Susan Delacourt — Welland Tribune — Justin Trudeau is having a bad summer, but it’s not his first brush with uncomfortable political heat in July. In fact, there’s a lot about the summer of 2020 that boomerangs back to the long hot days of 2017, when Finance Minister Bill Morneau and Governor-General Julie Payette — each in their own ways — […]
Jul 13 2020 — Susan Delacourt — Toronto Star — Justin Trudeau made a bold bid to break up with the ethics controversy consuming his government on Monday with a new twist on an old classic: “It’s not WE. It’s me.” There was nothing vague about the prime minister’s apology for how he and WE Charity have become tangled in an ethics storm over pandemic […]
Jul 10 2020 — Susan Delacourt — Niagara Falls Review — “We” is once again a touchy subject in Justin Trudeau’s Liberal party. While the hits just keep on coming about Trudeau’s connections to the WE charity, the controversy has touched off grumbling in Liberal circles about the lowercase “we” — as in, how exactly did we get into this mess, and who is “we” anyway […]
Jul 9 2020 — Susan Delacourt — Toronto Star — Sometime in the next few days, Justin Trudeau will promise to consult the ethics commissioner about any future plans to let charities hand out government money. This is not a leak of the prime minister’s intentions; it is a prediction, based on how he has handled ethics transgressions of the past. The newest one is […]
Jul 6 2020 — Susan Delacourt — Toronto Star — Bob Rae, Canada’s next ambassador to the United Nations, had much to say about defeat when he spoke to the media on Monday. It isn’t everyone who would be reflecting on loss when gaining an important new job on the world stage. But this is Rae’s fortune and forte. The former premier of Ontario, also […]
Jul 6 2020 — Susan Delacourt — Toronto Star — Justin Trudeau won’t be getting together with Donald Trump this week to celebrate North American free trade — or anything, really. The Prime Minister’s Office formally notified the White House on Sunday that Trudeau would be sitting out a get-together on Wednesday between Trump and Mexican president Manuel Lopez Obrador. Scheduling conflicts were offered as […]
Jul 4 2020 — Susan Delacourt — Toronto Star — Residents of my neighbourhood in Ottawa, which sits right next door to Rideau Hall, are pretty casual about the RCMP and conspiracy theories. It’s not unusual to see members of the prime minister’s family passing through New Edinburgh, conspicuous only because of their constant RCMP accompaniment. Conspiracy theorists have been telling us for nearly 15 […]
Jun 30 2020 — Susan Delacourt — Toronto Star — Canadian identity has long been carved out of two fundamental ideas: we’re not American and our health-care system is better. What a banner year that 2020 is shaping up to be then, for celebrating Canada’s birthday this July 1. A global pandemic is demonstrating every day how much it matters to have Canadian-style health care […]
Jun 29 2020 — Susan Delacourt — Toronto Star — It’s not the end of the COVID-19 crisis in Canada, but it is the end of frenzied crisis management in Ottawa — or at least an important corner turned. Justin Trudeau and the country’s chief public health officers made it official on Monday: they no longer feel it’s necessary to give Canadians daily updates on […]
Jun 27 2020 — Susan Delacourt — Globe and Mail, Toronto Star — If China was setting out to sow political divisions in Canada in the case of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou, it must have been frustrated by the political unity it has encountered in this 18-month saga — until this week. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is getting a remarkable degree of cross-partisan support for his firm decision […]
Jun 24 2020 — Susan Delacourt — Toronto Star — Do Canadian conservatives watch more TV than other partisans? One would have to assume that is the case, given what the federal political parties have revealed about their spending patterns during last year’s election. Election-spending reports are always interesting as exercises in accountability, but they also tell some fascinating stories of political culture and where […]
Jun 22 2020 — Susan Delacourt — Toronto Star — Donald Trump may be angry over secrets revealed in John Bolton’s new book, which officially hits the shelves on Tuesday. But he can’t be annoyed with the book’s revelations about his relationship with Justin Trudeau. The animosity described in “The Room Where it Happened” has been very public — the opposite of secret, in fact.