Harper’s minimalist strategy raises House temperature, but polls show it’s working

The bottom line is that the Conservative core vote is more solid than that of either of the other two main parties.

Robocalls answers will come from Elections Canada, RCMP and media

Canadians may never know all that they should about what took place in the muddy trenches of the last federal campaign. But if they ever get the beginning of a definitive answer, it will come from Elections Canada or the RCMP or even the media, and not from the warring parties in the Commons.

Signs Quebec may be shifting back to its traditional voting patterns

Conservatives’ ‘jets and jails’ spending finally being heard

The crack in the F-35 fairy tale finally came on Feb. 14 when Defence Minister Peter MacKay was pushed on the number of fighter jets to be purchased by the government.

Conservative monarchist rebranding of country seen as an ill-advised return to Canada’s colonial past

The deteriorating Ottawa-Quebec climate could be the gift of life to both the Parti Québécois and the federal Liberals.

Census numbers show potential for consolidation of power by Harper’s Tories for years to come

The Liberals, having digested the census numbers, appear to be having night terrors, thinking of a perpetual Tory majority.

Budget might eventually set off biggest Cabinet overhaul in years

In the days after the budget, expect ministers to make much of the programs they have preserved whenever they are on the hot seat for those that they cut.

Both sides address deep well of mistrust

But for chiefs with more immediate needs, can they sell trust at home?

Pipeline politics at top of North American agenda for next two years

There could be a day when both the Keystone XL and the Northern Gateway pipelines are built, but not before some political careers are badly bruised, if not killed.

Big week for tinfoil hat crowd in Ottawa

But it turns out that while the legions of Harper opponents were waiting for the hard-right social agenda to be firmly planted in Ottawa, the Conservatives are actually exporting those policies.

Political players to watch in 2012

The least known factor on the 2012 political watch list is also the one with the most potential to alter the Canadian landscape.

Liberals’ choice of president of an historic party at crossroads crucial

The choice Liberals make at their Ottawa convention will go a very long way in determining whether this party can reinvent itself or whether it withers and dies after 2015.

Beauty of Copps: she’s loved, despised, and often for same reasons

But for a party on life support, is Sheila Copps, a lightning rod for controversy, a woman who has roller-derby-style politics in her DNA, a figure as polarizing as any in an often polarized party, really the party president to dig Liberals out of their hole?

Conservative strategy for its Quebec revival: spread false rumours about imminent retirement of Liberal MP. Check.

If you can’t win it, try to steal it by spreading lies, sowing confusion, destabilizing the rightful winner and wallowing in the slime.

NDP leadership campaign more about race for endorsements than a battle of ideas

The NDP leadership campaign is so far not promising to freshen up Canada’s progressive discourse, but it could be the best venue to measure the chilling effect of the bare-knuckled Conservative approach to politics on the country’s political conversation.

Tories call Leslie and Gravelle traitorous duo for telling Washington that not every Canadian was a proponent of Alberta’s tar sands

To hear the noise from the Conservative side of the House of Commons, one would think that the Halifax NDP MP and her colleague from Nickel Belt, Claude Gravelle, were treasonous subversives who should be drawn and quartered at dawn.

PIPSC to take on feds with brains, not brawn, Corbett says

These will be tumultuous times because it is not only austerity that is driving this government in its war with labour. It is being driven by ideology and plain old politics.

Ferguson served up as an anglo piñata to francophone New Democrats

Michael Ferguson has toiled diligently in the service of the New Brunswick government and is now on the brink of becoming Canada’s new auditor general. But he should never get the job.

Harper’s not pulling unfamiliar rabbits out of new majority hat

The government’s penchant for using its reinforced Parliamentary arsenal to curtail debate has been par for the course for a governing party that routinely closed down Parliament in the face of political adversity in its minority days.

Votes that don’t promise change don’t create excitement

This year has been remarkable for the number of federal, provincial and territorial elections, but it will also be recorded as the year of the status quo.