Apr 25 2019 — Andrew MacDougall — Ottawa Citizen — Six months out from an election is usually when an incumbent party at the helm of a first-term majority government is setting the table for its re-election. There is action on all fronts: one or two people-pleasing bills left to pass in the House of Commons and Senate; a raft of policies to finalize for […]

Apr 25 2019 — Andrew Coyne — National Post — Had it been contested on the same basis as the election that accompanied it, Tuesday’s referendum on electoral reform in Prince Edward Island would have passed handily, winning a solid majority of the province’s 27 ridings. As it was, however, the proposition failed for having the support of only 48.8 per cent of the vote […]

Apr 24 2019 — Lorrie Goldstein — Sun Media — While Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is accusing Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer of being a closet supporter of white supremacists, the Conservatives are countering with an election ad accusing Trudeau of lying to Canadians. And it’s still six months away from the Oct. 21 election, suggesting it’s going to be a long and brutal campaign. The […]

Apr 24 2019 — John Ivison — National Post — The anger was to be expected; the hurt, less so. A new study of public opinion in Alberta by communications firm Navigator, based on eight post-election focus groups, suggests Albertans want premier-designate Jason Kenney to get very aggressive very quickly when it comes to taking on the federal government, environmentalists, intransigent provinces and anyone else […]

Apr 24 2019 — Tasha Kheiriddin — Global News — P.E.I. voters have spoken, and it’s more bad news for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Premier-designate Dennis King, elected party leader a scant two months ago, won 12 seats in the Island’s 27-seat legislature, putting him in place to form a minority government. After four terms in office, the incumbent Liberals were reduced to six seats […]

Apr 24 2019 — Pamela Palmater — Policy Options — Bureaucrats, ministers of Indian affairs and even premiers and prime ministers have promised year after year to address the multiple, overlapping crises in the Cree Nation of Kashechewan, crises that are firmly rooted in past government decisions. But once again the people of Kashechewan find themselves in danger. They are being evacuated and split up […]

Apr 24 2019 — Paul Wells — Maclean's — Over-dramatizing is an occupational hazard in my line of work, and you’re right, I’m not immune. A lot of the coverage about Jason Kenney’s election, and the situation it puts Justin Trudeau in, might suggest it’s some kind of unprecedented thing. No, it is amply precedented. Precedented in many ways. At the most general level, […]

Apr 24 2019 — Neil Macdonald — CBC — On Thursday, the fiscal detectives at the Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO) will publish their assessment of a promise the Trudeau government will be repeating, almost as a matter of self-defence, in this year’s election: that the new carbon tax driving up gasoline and home heating costs will be entirely returned to taxpayers through tax cuts.

Apr 24 2019 — Dennis Darby — National Newswatch — The Government of Ontario announced recently a $30-billion transit expansion plan for the GTA. This historic investment, the province correctly notes, could have a massive positive impact on families, commuters, and jobs, injecting a breath of fresh air in Toronto’s aging infrastructure. And while the economic impact of this project will be felt by all […]

Apr 23 2019 — John Ivison — National Post — Political predictions are generally lucky or wrong. Anyone handicapping the 2015 Canadian election six months out might have given short odds on the Conservatives, who were eight points clear of the Liberals and 12 ahead of the NDP at the end of April. But those poll numbers masked deep unhappiness with the Harper government and […]

Apr 23 2019 — The Conversation — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s threatened defamation suit against Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer over the SNC-Lavalin affair is just the latest in a rapidly growing list of Canadian political mud-slinging matches that have taken a litigious turn. Scheer had already employed some overheated rhetoric at earlier stages of the controversy, accusing Trudeau of exerting “frankly illegal […]

Apr 23 2019 — Massimo Bergamini — National Newswatch — Responding to recent calls from Canadian air carriers, airports and even a leading Canadian labour union to postpone the July 1 launch of his passenger rights regulations, transport minister Marc Garneau told the CBC “We’ve been working on this for over two years. I am anxious to get them out.” If the minister’s impatience is […]

Apr 23 2019 — Heather Scoffield — Toronto Star — It was bold and controversial at the time, and remains so today. Critics were quick to pounce when the federal Liberals presented their big and expensive tax-and-transfer package of the 2015 election campaign as an experimental remedy to income inequality and the populism it often spawns, They said the tax elements of the package — […]

Apr 23 2019 — Glen Pearson — National Newswatch — It frequently gets agitating listening to someone say that times were so much simpler in the old days.  It’s a kind of naïve way of both dismissing the past and providing excuses for the inactions of the present.  The world has always been on the verge of some calamity or another, but the fragile years […]

Apr 22 2019 — CTV Power Play — The Strategy Session panel discusses the ‘mudslinging’ campaign strategies that may dominate the upcoming federal election campaign.