Stories by Abbas Rana
MacKay’s victory could be a ‘threat to the party unity,’ says Conservative MP Kusie
'Peter MacKay has a proven track record of uniting Conservatives, and that's precisely what he's doing in the leadership campaign. And that's what he'll do if he's elected as leader,' says Conservative MP Michael Cooper.
The deeper the impacts of COVID-19, the more likely that major changes will occur in our society, says EKOS president Frank Graves.
'It might be sensible to consider a more intermittent or ad hoc process’ for making COVID-19-related announcements in the coming weeks and months, says pollster Frank Graves.
'As long as Donald Trump is around I think that everyone's going to have what I call the 21 second pause that Trudeau took yesterday, before opening your mouth on it,’ says former Conservative Senator Don Oliver.
Liberal MPs have recently held discussions in caucus meetings about nomination rules for incumbent MPs for the next election, Liberal MP Ken Hardie confirmed to The Hill Times last week.
‘The Radical Left Lamestream Media, together with their partner, the Do Nothing Democrats, are trying to spread a new narrative that President Trump was slow in reacting to Covid 19,’ says U.S. President Donald Trump in a tweet.
'I find it very frustrating, to be honest. If we’re going to win an election, we need to win as a team with our focus being on the Liberals' record instead of infighting amongst ourselves,’ says MP Michael Kram.
This could be 'the forgotten Parliament’ if the in-person House sittings don’t return before the next election, says Conservative MP Cooper.Author
‘We're probably going to see retail politics take a page out of the book of delivery services, UPS and Amazon: it's knock and drop,’ says pollster Nik Nanos.
Former Conservative MP Brad Trost describes new MPs critical of Derek Sloan as ‘immature,' and ‘a bunch of the rookies who are behaving like chickens with their heads cut off.' 
Liberal MPs want the party to bring back the same nomination rules that it put in place before the last election.
The Conservative Party will mail the first wave of leadership-election ballots to members on June 30, while the second wave will be sent July 13. 
'We would really like to know what’s out there in terms of the general population... those who are potentially asymptomatic and could spread it around,’ says epidemiology professor George Wells.
MPs and political parties have either suspended fundraising or have scaled it back significantly because of COVID-19 and they say they don't know when regular fundraising will restart.
While Elizabeth May finds daily technical briefings on the coronavirus very helpful, other opposition MPs say technical briefings are for information gathering only, and have limited value. 
'The party has looked at this and seems to have come up with a reasonable approach,' says Conservative MP Bruce Stanton.
Veteran pollster Frank Graves says the COVID-19 pandemic has brought the world to the 'cusp of another great transformation’ but it’s unknown what changes it will create when the crisis is over.
Elections Canada is assessing its capacity to handle a greater number of votes by mail system for the next election, according to a media statement by Elections Canada 
Liberals are using a regular daily conference call for their caucus meetings. The Conservatives are using Zoom and the New Democrats are using GoToMeeting.
The Sarnia-Lambton Conservative electoral district association is lobbying all 338 EDAs to push the party to suspend the leadership convention retroactively to March 1, or cancel it and restart after the COVID-19 crisis 
The Conservative Fund Canada provided a confidential briefing to the national council on March 21 to explain where the OLO spent $925,000 in the first 10 months of last year.
The evolution and the ultimate outcome of the COVID-19 pandemic will eventually decide if Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's and the premiers' rising approval ratings will last, say pollsters.
The COVID-19 pandemic is the 'defining moment of Justin Trudeau's prime ministership' and this is a crisis where the government has a central role to play in its management. 
A senior spokesman for the Conservative Party flatly denied that the national council has any plans to disband the committee and take over the leadership election process.
'The party is faced with a situation where they can decide to be flexible, or they can be inflexible,' says leadership candidate Rick Peterson, who asked the party to extend the candidates' deadline.
The COVID-19 pandemic makes 9/11 look like a ‘hiccup’ says EKOS president Frank Graves.
In the March 15 meeting, the 18-member Leadership Election Organization Committee declined requests from leadership election candidates to revise the timetable for the leadership convention
Stakes are ‘very high’ and any missteps to handle this ‘daunting inventory of challenges’ could potentially derail the government, says pollster Frank Graves
To become officially verified, candidates have to submit $300,000 and 3,000 signatures by March 25, and some are concerned the current market meltdown could add to that challenge. 
'I thought we were pretty good, but we're no better than the scheming, goddamned NDP and the Liberals,’ says Oakville Conservative riding association president Brian Cargill.
Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada has been centralizing its application processing 'to improve client service,’ says Kevin Lemkay, press secretary to Immigration Minister Marco Mendicino.
The Conservative Party’s 20-member national council decided that if the next federal election is called by June 2021, all 121 incumbent MPs will automatically be nominated.Politics This Morning
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