Stories by Abbas Rana
Senior Conservatives seething over Conservative Fund’s refusal to share Scheer’s $700,000 over-budget expense details with national council
'If you're a donor, why would you want to give money if you can't get straight answers on what the hell's going on?’ says veteran Conservative political insider Tim Powers.
Conservative MP Stephanie Kusie wants the national council to protect all caucus members from nomination challenges until the next election so they can focus on their parliamentary work in Ottawa.
'I think that kind of transparency would certainly help people believe that the money is properly dispensed and properly governed,' says Conservative MP and leadership candidate Marilyn Gladu.
The Liberal House leadership is training new MPs to prepare them to navigate the tricky situations that can arise in a minority Parliament, say Liberal sources.
Former foreign affairs minister Peter MacKay has been officially approved to enter the leadership contest, while Conservative MP Erin O’Toole, Conservative MP MarilynRick Peterson are still undergoing the review process.
Seasoned Liberal MP Kevin Lamoureux says, based on conversations he had in the last Parliament, most MPs want to change some of the rules on the Hill and breathe new life into how Ottawa works. 
Liberal MPs have been asked to hold consultations about the government’s priorities in their ridings, and report back to cabinet.
The 'huge overstep by the Conservative Fund’ to fire executive director Dustin van Vugt has created ‘bad blood’ between the national council and the fund, says Yaroslav Baran, a former senior Conservative Hill staffer.Author
Some Conservatives say Stephen Harper is certainly entitled to his opinion, but others say he should stay out of this critical leadership race.
‘It's almost like we're seeing a new prime minister,’ says Jennifer Stewart, CEO Of Syntax Strategies.
Being able to raise funds is a key prerequisite to be an effective leader, says veteran Conservative political insider Tim Powers.
The Trudeau Liberals are holding their winter national caucus meeting in Ottawa Jan. 22-24; however, it's unclear if the party’s electoral performance will be dissected at the meeting. 
‘It's a race to get the best people to work on the campaign,’ says a Conservative source, while caucus members hedge support until the full field of candidates is revealed.
Dustin van Vugt, executive director of the Conservative Party at the time, who wrote the cheque ‘is gone,' but Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer, who 'cashed' the cheque ‘is still around.'
Senior PMO staffer George Young moves to Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan’s office as his chief of staff.
John Reynolds, a former Conservative MP and a fundraiser for one of the groups that pushed Andrew Scheer to resign as leader of the party, says Michael Fortier spoke to him recently about running for the party's top job.
Cabinet ministers will have to directly lobby all MPs on House committees to get their legislation through, say government and opposition MPs.
Andrew Scheer ‘needs to demonstrate very quickly that he can garner the overwhelming backing of the party to move forward, or for the good of the party, he should step down,’ a Conservative MP told The Hill Times. 
The Prime Minister's Office selected new chiefs of staff from CVs sent to PMO chief of staff Katie Telford; PMO director of administration Brett Thalmann; and cabinet ministers directly, a senior Liberal source told The Hill Times.
The Liberal Research Bureau is seeking applications from interested staffers to fill posts in the Prime Minister's Office and the offices of MPs and ministers.
In his first term, Justin Trudeau adopted the high-risk, leader-centric model and built the party’s brand around his leadership instead of focusing on the team. But he's changing his tune in this minority Parliament.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will appoint six parliamentary secretaries to oversee each of the six federal economic development agencies across the country.
Wexit was one of the ‘top of mind’ issues at the Alberta Conservative caucus’ special meeting on Parliament Hill on Nov. 6.
The Liberals are considering assigning responsibility for the six regional development agencies to several ministers this time around, say Liberal sources.
The seven-hour Conservative caucus meeting on Nov. 6 was ‘intense,’ with ‘blunt’ criticism of the party’s campaign performance, say Conservative sources
John English, Pierre Trudeau's biographer, says the elder Trudeau was 'humbled, shocked and surprised' following the 1972 election, and that ministers and MPs will matter more in Justin Trudeau's second mandate.
If Maxime Bernier was still in the Conservative Party, and the Ford PCs had not been pushed to the sidelines, Andrew Scheer would have most likely won the Oct. 21 election, says Conservative Party’s elder statesman John Reynolds.
‘The trap that PM Trudeau has to avoid is the narrative that he’s hostage to Ontario and this is an Ontario-driven government,’ says pollster Nik Nanos.
‘If version 1.0 was Sunny Trudeau, version 2.0, to be successful, will have to be a Pragmatic Prime Minister,’ says pollster Nik Nanos. 
'If anybody should've won a majority, it should've been Trudeau. He didn't, and it's his to wear,' says CBC columnist Neil Macdonald of the Oct. 21 election results. 
Green Party Leader Elizabeth May says she has never seen an election where mudslinging overwhelmingly dominated the campaign, leaving little or no time for policy discussion.
As many as nine per cent of progressive voters could vote strategically in this close election potentially affecting the outcome in more than 100 ridings, says Innovative Research president Greg Lyle.Politics This Morning
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