National Newswatch

How the government accidentally pushed the news industry into the abyss

Jul 5 2023 — Peter Menzies — Even more spectacularly than anticipated, the federal government’s attempts to become world leaders in rescuing journalism have not only collapsed but pushed the nation’s private sector news industry to the edge of an economic abyss. It is difficult to recall a more complete public sector failure than that which Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez has engineered […]

Charles Sousa enters parliament as a different kind of Trudeau Liberal

Jan 26 2023 — Geoff Russ — 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 […]

Refocusing the debate on industrial policy

Jan 12 2023 — Robert Asselin — 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 […]

Poilievre gets his first crack at Trudeau in Mississauga, but it’s no election preview

Dec 9 2022 — Geoff Russ — 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 […]

Has Pierre Poilievre’s social media output made him the first influencer in Canadian politics?

Dec 6 2022 — Geoff Russ — 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 […]

One of the world’s leading populism experts says Pierre Poilievre isn’t quite a populist

Jul 28 2022 — Stuart Thomson — 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 […]

The Alberta Sovereignty Act is nothing but a sideshow scam

Jul 13 2022 — Howard Anglin — 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 […]

The message that will win Pierre Poilievre the next election

Jul 11 2022 — Rahim Mohamed — 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 […]

A lament for conservatism

May 19 2022 — Sean Speer — 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 […]

Poilievre says vaccine mandates are based on ‘political science’ not medical science in conversation with Jordan Peterson

May 18 2022 — — 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 […]

Don’t become complacent about fiscal policy

Nov 26 2021 — Robert Asselin — 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 […]

Who will speak for Canada?

Sep 28 2021 — Robert Asselin — 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 […]

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