After MRIA’s demise, new polling industry group aims to set ‘high bar’
A month after a national polling association shut its doors, a new one has popped up. The who’s who of Canadian polling joined forces to open the currently nameless new polling association on Aug. 30. “We have a rare opportunity here to start fresh as an emerging industry association and to set a really high […]
Roma community campaigns for feds’ official recognition of genocide during Holocaust
Gina Csanyi-Robah was around 13 years old when her grandmother first told her that her relatives were genocide survivors during the Holocaust. But unlike the Jewish community, the Roma community has a different name for the atrocities they faced under the Nazis: “the devouring.” The word Holocaust, which translates to “completely burnt offering to God,” applies […]
Pipeline politics won’t help Scheer in Quebec
OTTAWA—It is not a Maxime Bernier-led breakaway party that stands to most damage Conservative prospects in Quebec in next year’s federal election, but rather some of leader Andrew Scheer’s own promises. In a keynote speech to his party’s national convention on Friday, Scheer laid out part of his 2019 battle plan. As expected, it borrows heavily […]
Candidate nominations for 2019 to ramp up this fall, Conservatives have big head start
After a summer of door-knocking and laying groundwork for the next federal election, the Conservative Party now has 128 official candidates for the 2019 election, while the Liberals have 21 and the NDP none. While there’s still a little over a year until the 2019 vote, strategists say the more work done now, the better. […]
Bernier may not be most lingering challenge for Conservatives after Halifax
OTTAWA—Despite Maxime Bernier’s efforts at setting a different agenda, the Conservatives managed to pull off what appeared to be a reasonably successful convention in Halifax on the weekend. While at this point it is unknown what Bernier’s walk away will do to party fortunes in 2019, it is fair to say at least on the […]
Convention supply-management tumult ‘opened the floodgates’ for Bernier supporters, says organizer
A Conservative Party member and proponent of ending Canada’s supply management system said he’s received plenty of interest from current and former MPs and businesspeople in support of maverick MP Maxime Bernier’s future party. This follows a tense scene at the party convention that saw a policy resolution on phasing out the system dropped before reaching a vote. […]
Scheer tries out his Ford-Trump routine
OTTAWA—If you’re tired of the mendacious, anger-spewing modus operandi that now passes for political discourse in the United States, you may want to find something to do outside Canada next year. Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer, who is so uninspiring that rival Maxime Bernier finally quit the party over what he said was moral and intellectual […]
Drawing from a new well: Tories look to party outsiders to quench voters’ thirst for change
Looking to replicate their success in the recent Chicoutimi-Le Fjord, Que., byelection on a national scale, the Conservatives’ 2019 campaign chief is encouraging party faithful to think outside the box and recruit outside traditional party circles. “Especially in seats we haven’t won for a long time, going back to the same well again and again […]
‘This was his plan all along,’ Conservative politicos slam Bernier for leaving party
Current and former Conservatives were none too pleased last week with MP Maxime Bernier‘s decision to leave the Conservative Party—and excoriate it in a press conference on his way out—and many took to Twitter to hit back at the one-time party leadership favourite. Conservative MP Todd Doherty said in a series of Tweets that Mr. […]
‘Old stock’ politics is past its expiry date
OTTAWA—Maxime Bernier’s surprise resignation last week will not put an end to a raucous Tory debate on identity politics. Instead of buying peace in advance of the writ, the Conservative announcement of a Canada-wide immigration tour will serve to magnify internal differences of viewpoint. As for Bernier’s plan to start a new party, his reach […]
