Jun 20 2019 — Andrew MacDougall — Maclean's — The Conservatives have offered up a cynical climate plan—will doing even less than Trudeau be enough? Liberal climate plan that doesn’t do enough, meet the Conservative plan to do even less. Now that Andrew Scheer has finally unveiled his “real plan” on climate change voters will at last have the chance to determine which plate […]
Jun 20 2019 — Paul Wells — Maclean's — Eventually everything in Canadian politics swallows itself whole. When he ran for the Liberal leadership in 2006, Stéphane Dion didn’t like carbon taxes. This was because (a) he had a cap-and-trade plan that would achieve similar results but would be harder to understand, and Dion is a born complicator; (b) his opponent Michael Ignatieff wanted […]
Jun 18 2019 — Paul Wells — Maclean's — Jonathan Wilkinson is the minister of fisheries! Who knew? “Bonjour tout le monde. Hello, everybody,” Wilkinson told reporters on Monday in the cramped foyer of the strange temporary House of Commons. (I wasn’t there. We get transcripts.) “This week, the Conservative Party will bring forward a climate plan that will attempt to mask what Conservative […]
Jun 17 2019 — Maclean's — The House of Commons will soon adjourn for a summer break that will last until the writ is drawn up in late August or early September. Unless some major and unexpected event occurs, Canadians will head to the polls on Oct. 21 to choose the MPs of the 43rd federal legislature. There were six new […]
Jun 11 2019 — Dennis Matthews — Maclean's — The easy answer to explain why the Raptors bandwagon is gaining passengers by the day is to point to the wins. And they’ve played a part, no doubt. But it’s also undeniable that the Raptors—and, indeed, the sport of basketball itself—are having a Canadian moment that’s bigger than an epic playoff journey. Corporations get this. […]
Jun 6 2019 — Paul Wells — Maclean's — Writing stuff down is almost always a bad idea. Justin Trudeau had been a candidate for the federal Liberal leadership for six weeks when he published a column in the Financial Post, in November of 2012, decrying Stephen Harper’s clumsiness on China. “The Conservatives kicked off their stewardship of the relationship with unhelpful sabre-rattling, followed […]
Jun 6 2019 — Maclean's — On Monday, we presented a poll showing that Jody Wilson-Raybould was currently competitive as an Independent candidate in the district of Vancouver Granville. Today, we take a look at fellow Independent Jane Philpott’s district of Markham-Stouffville, a suburb of Toronto located in the all-crucial GTA region of Ontario. In 2015, Philpott won the newly created […]
Jun 3 2019 — Maclean's — An exclusive 338Canada/Mainstreet poll puts the Independent narrowly ahead of the Liberals in her riding, with a shot at re-election. Last Monday, Jody Wilson-Raybould held a press conference in her home district of Vancouver Granville to announce she will be running as an Independent candidate in the next general election this fall. There had been […]
May 31 2019 — Stephen Maher — Maclean's — Andrew Scheer stands a pretty good chance of winning the election in October, but before anyone calls him prime minister he will have to pass through a gauntlet of critics who will try to convince voters that he is too extreme to be trusted. To ward off those attacks, Scheer will have to sound reasonable […]
May 30 2019 — Stephen Maher — Maclean's — If you have never walked across the Alexandra Bridge to Ottawa from Gatineau on a sunny day, with the light sparkling on the Ottawa River below and the wooden boardwalk full of pedestrians and cyclists, you should try to do so. For one thing, if you pay taxes in this country, you have helped pay […]
May 27 2019 — Andrew MacDougall — Maclean's — Will doing politics differently trump a Prime Minister and party who promised to do politics differently and then did them the same damn way everyone else has ever done them? That’s the question on which Jody Wilson-Raybould and Jane Philpott have staked their claim in this fall’s federal election. Can two former cabinet ministers who […]
May 27 2019 — Anne Kingston — Maclean's — In announcements as carefully choreographed as a Busby Berkeley musical, former Liberal cabinet ministers Jody Wilson-Raybould and Jane Philpott cleaved to the “doing politics differently” mantra that initially drew them to the partisan arena. Wilson-Raybould spoke at Marpole Neighbourhood House in the Vancouver Granville riding at 12 EST on Monday, Philpott at Reesor’s Farm Market […]
May 27 2019 — Paul Wells — Maclean's — Jane Philpott stood in white at a food store in her riding of Markham-Stouffville and proclaimed the revolution. “I didn’t lose my voice,” the former minister of health, and then of Indigenous Services, and then President of the Treasury Board, and then of nothing but her will, told a crowd of supporters and journalists. “I […]
May 27 2019 — Maclean's — Polling numbers for the federal New Democrats have not been kind in the past two years. Ever since Tom Mulcair’s ousting in 2016 and the nomination of Jagmeet Singh as leader in the fall of 2017, the NDP has not been able to gain any kind traction in public opinion. In fact, when we look […]
May 24 2019 — Jason Markusoff — Maclean's — A premier spending days campaigning in a different province for an election of a different order of government: in most cases, it would be political catnip for the opposition back in his province. Alberta in 2019, I cannot say enough, is not most cases. Premier Jason Kenney could gain popularity at home if he ditches […]