National Newswatch

Stellantis considering Ottawa’s enriched subsidy offer as Windsor EV plant hangs in the balance

Jun 6 2023 — — Officials from Stellantis and LG Energy Solution are poring over an enhanced subsidy deal from Ottawa designed to save a 2,500-worker Windsor electric-vehicle factory from being moved to the U.S. “Stellantis and LGES are in receipt of a written offer that is currently under financial and legal review,” Stellantis Canada communications head LouAnn Gosselin told […]

Character trumps credentials when looking for Toronto’s next mayor

Jun 5 2023 — Robin V. Sears — If you have interviewed many candidates in recruitment or in politics you probably came anyway with this insight: character should always outweigh credentials. Character is usually strengthened over time and has meant showing great courage against long odds. In politics character is often revealed by supple coalition-building skills and the ability to maintain a sharp […]

A former Conservative candidate has suspicions about why his Chinese-Canadian volunteers quit. So does the Liberal who beat him

Jun 3 2023 — — Longtime B.C. politician Dave Hayer knew his campaign people. And his people included Chinese Canadians. They volunteered for him. They voted for him. And then in his 2021 campaign to become a federal Conservative MP, they vanished. The former MLA was running to represent the riding of Fleetwood-Port Kells, drawing on the same base of […]

Pierre Poilievre is wasting his chance to become prime minister

Jun 3 2023 — Chantal Hébert — Justin Trudeau’s government has been on the defensive in the House of Commons for months. By now, fewer than one in three Canadians approves its handling of the China electoral interference file, a topic that has monopolized the federal political conversation throughout the first half of the year. To listen to the furor in the […]

David Johnston isn’t the only casualty of opposition attacks

Jun 1 2023 — Martin Regg Cohn — We are warned daily that Canada is a nest of spies, a den of Chinese espionage undermining our democracy. But who is the enemy, exactly? And who is the casualty, precisely? First, we were cautioned that certain Chinese-Canadian politicians were the villains ― with supposed spies or collaborators named and shamed in the media. Later, […]

Is the foreign election-meddling scandal really worth the airtime?

Jun 1 2023 — Linda McQuaig — There’s sure a lot of sound and fury going on, but is the Chinese-meddling-in-our-elections scandal really worth all the airtime it’s devouring? Going out on a limb, I’d argue that we have plenty of channels for spotlighting any wrongdoing (including public hearings, already announced) and for punishing any wrongdoers, including expelling foreign diplomats (already done). […]

Here’s why Danielle Smith couldn’t afford to campaign from the hard right — and why it’s a warning for Canada’s other politicians

May 31 2023 — Susan Delacourt — The latest Alberta election has rendered the map of that province into a highly polarized territory, riven between Danielle Smith’s re-elected, but weaker United Conservatives and the strongest opposition ever with Rachel Notley’s New Democrats. The obvious conclusion is that the centre has disappeared in Alberta and the next four years will be a tug […]

Inside the Danielle Smith win in Alberta that almost slipped away

May 31 2023 — — Halfway through an at times rocky campaign, insiders describe the “nightmare” moments where it seemed to be a lost cause — and how the party pulled it out. From their headquarters at a nondescript building at the Calgary airport, the brain trust behind Danielle Smith’s election bid would watch the flights taking off and landing […]

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