Sep 17 2021 — Chris Selley — National Post — Erin O’Toole may regret lavishing as much praise as he did on Alberta Premier Jason Kenney 11 months ago for his government’s pandemic-management skills. Especially since O’Toole seemed mostly unwilling to explain, modify or contextualize that praise to reporters at a Thursday morning press conference in Saint John, N.B.

Sep 17 2021 — Eric Blais — Toronto Star — It’s a refrain heard during every election: polls have too much influence and should be banned as some disinform more than inform. The debate about the impact of scientific polls and their interpretation have on voters won’t soon be resolved. But one thing is clear in this campaign in search of a ballot question: a […]

Sep 17 2021 — Perrin Beatty — National Newswatch — With the Leaders’ Debates behind us and just a short time until Canadians go to the ballot box, it’s more important than ever that all parties address an issue that has thus far been relegated to the sidelines when it should be the star of the show: how to grow the economy. James Carville’s “It’s […]

Sep 17 2021 — David Morley and Peter Dinsdale — National Newswatch — As a society, the problems we are trying to solve today reflect choices and actions we made in the past. Never in our collective memory has there been an election where this fact has been so true. And rarely are the warning signs of imminent problems so clear as they are when it comes to […]

Sep 16 2021 — Althia Raj — St. Catharines Standard — Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole must be wishing Alberta Premier Jason Kenney could have held off a few extra days before announcing sweeping public health changes and a mea culpa to the province over his handling of COVID-19. Wednesday evening, Kenney acknowledged the fourth wave of the pandemic is ripping through his province at an alarming […]

Sep 16 2021 — John Ivison — National Post — Another day, another gross invasion of privacy as a political candidate (and the travelling media circus) expropriated someone’s lawn for a photo op. Jagmeet Singh was in the Davenport riding, just west of Toronto’s downtown, to hammer home his party’s affordable housing plan. “Families can’t afford Justin Trudeau’s housing crisis and billionaire handouts any longer” […]

Sep 16 2021 — Don Martin — CTV News — The thrill is clearly gone in having Justin Trudeau as Canada’s 23rd prime minister. Now, at best, there is passive enthusiasm for Trudeau to remain in power and that is tainted by widespread fury-driven loathing of the Liberal leader on this campaign, which is hard to fathom given his two difficult years in the pandemic […]

Sep 16 2021 — L. Ian MacDonald — Montreal Gazette — Too close to call. For once, it’s not a cliché or cop-out by pollsters, pols and pundits. The fact of the matter is that with only a few days to go in Campaign 2021, nobody has a good sense of how it’s going to end. If there’s a consensus in the daily tracking polls, it’s […]

Sep 16 2021 — Max Fawcett — National Observer — You could tell that Jason Kenney didn’t want to be there. Just five days before a federal election in which he has a clear rooting interest, the Premier of Alberta was forced to announce a raft of new restrictions aimed at preventing his province’s healthcare system from collapsing under the weight of COVID-19 — all […]

Sep 16 2021 — Don Braid — Calgary Herald — Once again Premier Jason Kenney is late to the crisis and blames everyone and everything else for making it happen. There seems to be no situation – not even the impending collapse of the health care system – that will mute this man’s impulse to deflect.

Sep 16 2021 — Arthur Milnes — National Newswatch — Andrew Bonar Law, a future British prime minister, was born on this date in 1858 in the village of Rexton, in what later became the Canadian province of New Brunswick.  Bonar Law was the only British PM up to today’s Boris Johnson to have been born outside the United Kingdom.  His father was a church […]

Sep 16 2021 — Jen Gerson — Substack — We all hoped it would work. I did, certainly. Only a sadist would want Alberta’s Open for Summer plan to fail. In this I will offer some defence of premier Jason Kenney and, by extension, myself — it wasn’t crazy to announce the lifting COVID-19 restrictions back in May, back when all of the comparative […]

Sep 16 2021 — Jean-Guy Soulière — National Newswatch — Elections should be about more than just candidates. They should also be about issues that matter to Canadians. There are plenty of issues in this election vying for attention. Like the candidates, some will be winners, others will lose. Unfortunately, the urgent need for national standards in long-term care — a matter of life and […]

Sep 16 2021 — Renée Filiatrault — OpenCanada.org — Like many Canadians I remember where I was on the morning of September 11, 2001. I was working as the press secretary for Defence Minister Art Eggleton and took the morning off to get a root canal. It didn’t happen. The departmental liaison to the minister’s office came into the dentist’s office and pulled me […]

Sep 16 2021 — Sandy Garossino — National Observer — It’s no surprise that Canadians aren’t swooning over Justin Trudeau anymore, if they ever did. That over-worked trope was always annoyingly sexist anyway. Nobody needs this election, and we’re tired. From the confirmation of Indigenous children’s unmarked graves, to terrifying fires, to a catastrophic evacuation from Kabul, to protesters blocking ambulances at hospitals, it’s been […]