Sep 18 2019 — Susan Delacourt — Toronto Star — The current election is being fought under some of the toughest laws that Canada has ever seen against lying in politics. But it’s far from clear that the toughened-up laws are having a deterrent effect. Canada’s 43rd federal election campaign is just over a week old and the battleground is already littered with lies, accusations […]
Sep 11 2019 — Susan Delacourt — Toronto Star — It’s arrived. That future Canadian election is now about to unfold in present tense. For the next 40 days until voting day on Oct. 21, think of the children — not the childish sorts filling social media with partisan taunts, or even the real children we will want to shield from the nasty, personal politics […]
Sep 9 2019 — Susan Delacourt — Toronto Star — Once you’ve watched Brexit: The Uncivil War, starring Benedict Cumberbatch, you may never enter a Facebook ad contest again. In the movie, based loosely on real events around Brexit, Facebook ads are an important tool in the hands of the dark artists who helped cyber-engineer the referendum victory for the Leave side in Britain’s 2016 […]
Sep 4 2019 — Susan Delacourt — Toronto Star — An ugly confrontation over Islamophobia; the prime minister forced out of a parade by heckling protesters; a party leader denouncing an activist with autism as “mentally unstable” and calling for her to be “attacked.” All this happened in one weekend in Canada — and the election hasn’t yet started. Is it any wonder that many […]
Sep 1 2019 — Susan Delacourt — Toronto Star — The school year is only just beginning and report cards are a long way off — unless you are a Canadian voter, currently being graded according to your likely political leaning as the election looms. Most Canadians assume that elections are an opportunity to assign pass-or-fail marks to the politicians. What voters may not know […]
Aug 28 2019 — Susan Delacourt — Toronto Star — One of the most successful slogans in the history of modern political marketing was the one that Margaret Thatcher pitched to U.K. voters in 1979: “Labour Isn’t Working.” The ad man behind that slogan, Tim Bell, died this week — the same week that one of Thatcher’s successors, Prime Minister Boris Johnson, decided that Parliament […]
Aug 26 2019 — Susan Delacourt — Toronto Star — Every party is on the move in this fall’s election campaign, to judge by the emerging ad slogans — ahead, forward, even sideways. “Choose Forward” will be the catchphrase for Justin Trudeau’s team, the governing Liberals have announced, while “It’s Time For You to Get Ahead” is what Conservatives will be telling the voters. The […]
Aug 25 2019 — Susan Delacourt — Toronto Star — Canadian politicos of all stripes have been in love with high-tech campaign gadgetry for a couple of decades now — big data, sophisticated vote tracking and social-media metrics. But Campaign 2019, due to roll out across Canada in a few weeks, has a decidedly, maybe even surprisingly, low-tech feel. Sure, the parties still love all […]
Aug 22 2019 — Susan Delacourt — Justin Trudeau and Jody Wilson-Raybould were working on a joint statement of truce during the height of the SNC-Lavalin saga last winter, according to a new book out this week. The negotiations ultimately foundered over whether Trudeau would admit to wrongdoing, according to “Promise and Peril” by the CBC’s Aaron Wherry, who confirmed the truce […]
Aug 20 2019 — Susan Delacourt — Toronto Star — The People’s Party of Canada is really big on freedom of expression. A whole section of its platform, laid out over the party website, is devoted to the rights of people to say whatever the heck they want. “What some people find politically incorrect, offensive or even hateful cannot serve as the legal basis for […]
Aug 5 2019 — Susan Delacourt — Toronto Star — A prime minister’s career is built, loosely, on two types of duties: acting and reacting; dealing with the planned and the unplanned. Skills for both are usually acquired on the job, and in public. Justin Trudeau has been through four years of training in the top political job in Canada and the first book-length chronicle […]
Aug 3 2019 — Susan Delacourt — Toronto Star — Along the road to Ottawa’s international airport sits a simple SNC-Lavalin construction sign. Everyone looking to fly out of the capital — including the 200 or so Liberal candidates who dropped into Ottawa this week for a pre-election “boot camp” — gets to see that reminder of a very bad winter and spring for Justin […]
Jul 30 2019 — Susan Delacourt — Toronto Star — Green Party Leader Elizabeth May has wound down a controversial working relationship with former Liberal strategist Warren Kinsella, saying, “He’s finished whatever work he was doing with us.” The limited-run arrangement, which seems to have involved Kinsella setting up a quick-response unit for the Greens, had drawn huge criticism inside and outside Green Party ranks. […]
Jul 26 2019 — Susan Delacourt — Toronto Star — With Boris Johnson’s elevation to the U.K. prime minister’s job this week, Canada’s two closest allies, Britain and the United States, are now led by politicians who are looking to change the face of conservatism worldwide. So how long can Canada stand apart from the forces that have put renegade conservatives Donald Trump and Johnson […]
Jul 24 2019 — Susan Delacourt — Toronto Star — If Andrew Scheer is serious about becoming prime minister this fall, he might want to spend the summer ditching his friends. It’s been a theme of this year in politics, for Liberal and Conservative leaders. Justin Trudeau has been attacked this week for failing to permanently jettison his longtime friend and adviser Gerald Butts. Ontario […]