Jan 26 2023 — Geoff Russ — The Hub — This week, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his Cabinet met for a three-day retreat in Hamilton to plan for the government’s legislative and policy agenda for the upcoming parliamentary session. One voice who wasn’t around the Cabinet table but may be in the near future is Charles Sousa. The former Ontario finance minister will officially […]
Jan 12 2023 — Robert Asselin — The Hub — Noah Smith, an economist whose commentary I always find original and insightful, wrote a great commentary earlier this week on why China’s industrial policy has been mostly a flop. His main argument—which I very much agree with—is that throwing a lot of public money at firms is the wrong and ineffective way to do industrial […]
Dec 14 2022 — Sean Speer — The Hub — As someone who has been in and around Canadian Conservative politics for more than twenty years, a common critique that I’ve regularly confronted is that conservatism is fundamentally concerned with the interests of the wealthy and well-connected. It can conjure up images of bankers and oilmen in the minds of many. Even though the modern […]
Dec 9 2022 — Geoff Russ — The Hub — Monday’s federal byelection in Mississauga-Lakeshore, located in the Peel Region of Ontario, will be the first ballot box skirmish between the Pierre Poilievre-led Conservatives and Justin Trudeau’s governing Liberals, but will it be a preview of the next full federal election? Charles Sousa, the former Ontario Minister of Finance, is running for the Liberals, while […]
Dec 6 2022 — Geoff Russ — The Hub — Is Pierre Poilievre Canada’s first “influencer” politician? Influencers are online celebrities with large social media followings that promote anything from sneakers to lip gloss to hunting products, with the intent of convincing their audiences to buy them. The products that influencers promote are often niche and appeal to a specific audience. Poilievre does not promote […]
Aug 3 2022 — Jeremy Roberts — The Hub — It’s over. The feeling of relief was intense as I finally clicked the button that would deactivate my public-facing social media accounts. It had only been a week since I was defeated in my bid for re-election to the provincial parliament. And despite a whirlwind of different emotions—high and lows—one thing was very clear to […]
Jul 28 2022 — Stuart Thomson — The Hub — The Conservative Party’s leadership race has been conventionally seen as a battle between the moderate establishment candidate Jean Charest and the rowdy populist Pierre Poilievre. But one academic who studies populism and its cultural causes says Poilievre’s campaign has been fairly traditional, especially when compared to the global populist movement that has swept the Western […]
Jul 13 2022 — Howard Anglin — The Hub — The Alberta Sovereignty Act is a scam. It’s baloney, bunk, balderdash, and bunkum. Hooey, hogwash, and hokum. Flim-flam, tommyrot, poppycock, and fiddle. It’s the political equivalent of a sideshow tent painted with lurid images of wonders never before beheld by human eyes. And, like any successful carnival curio, it depends on the willingness of the […]
Jul 11 2022 — Rahim Mohamed — The Hub — In two months’ time, Pierre Poilievre will take the reins of the Conservative Party of Canada. With the party releasing its preliminary list of approximately 675,000 eligible leadership electors late last month,1 we have now entered “foregone conclusion” territory. The Poilievre campaign has signed up over 55 percent of all members who have joined the […]
May 19 2022 — Sean Speer — The Hub — Jason Kenney’s swift resignation as United Conservative Party leader is a lamentable outcome for Canadian conservatism. It reflects the rise of an oppositional mindset on the Right that is bad for Conservative politics and the country as a whole to the extent that it marginalizes centre-right ideas and policies and enables progressives to govern essentially […]
May 18 2022 — The Hub — Conservative Party of Canada leadership frontrunner1 Pierre Poilievre joined Dr. Jordan Peterson2 on the Jordan B. Peterson Podcast, released Monday, to discuss his candidacy and a number of issues animating the campaign, including housing and inflation, defunding the CBC, and the Freedom Convoy protests that paralyzed Ottawa for several weeks this past winter. Poilievre reiterated […]
Nov 26 2021 — Robert Asselin — The Hub — If this week’s speech from the throne was a chance for the Trudeau government to reaffirm its priorities, the upcoming fall economic statement will serve as a test for some of the core economic and fiscal assumptions from April’s budget that underlay those priorities. First, expect some changes to the bottom line for the current […]
Sep 28 2021 — Robert Asselin — The Hub — Every now and then, in moments when as a country we try to engage in some form of national conversation such as a federal election, we are reminded it is easy to replay the last refrain of our collective misunderstandings and fault lines. In a sobering article published last week in the Hub, Howard Anglin […]
Aug 24 2021 — Zach Paikin — The Hub — The U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan marks the definitive end of a three-decade-long historical parenthesis, bringing major implications for how Canadians should conceive of their country’s role in the world. As our political parties campaign across the country, it’s a perfect time to ask some hard questions about Canada’s foreign policy ambitions. The post-Cold War era […]
Jul 14 2021 — Robert Asselin — The Hub — We may soon have a federal election campaign before us. It comes at a time when Canada is facing a number of significant challenges — including an aging population, slow economic growth, climate change and an increasingly complex geopolitical context. It’s crucial that the different political parties grapple with these big, fundamental questions. It’s my […]