Liberals pledge 10 times the money to legalize pot as they do tobacco control
With important elections looming both provincially and federally, it is natural that Canada’s health-care system will a big part of electoral discussions. One in six Canadians is a senior, and that number is expected to be nearly one in four in the next 10 years With an aging population, strategies to address this challenge are […]
Ford’s tight-knit Ontario election campaign team stacked with Harper-era players
Ontario’s provincial parties are in campaign-mode, and new Ontario Progressive Conservative Leader Doug Ford has a tight-knit team in place, stacked with experience at both the federal and provincial levels. “They’ve all spent a ton of time together in the last 10 to 15 years, so even though they were thrown together quickly out of […]
Behind on infrastructure spending, Trudeau Liberals should’ve taken lessons from Harper era, says expert
The Liberal government could have avoided running so behind schedule in distributing billions in promised infrastructure funding had it learned from the missteps of the stimulus program helmed by the Harper Conservatives during the late 2000s recession, according to former Finance Canada senior economist Randall Bartlett. “We knew this was going to happen. We didn’t […]
Top Liberals push big fundraising email campaign in effort to outdo Conservatives in first financial quarter
Lagging behind the Conservatives in fundraising, the Liberals pushed a massive email campaign last month that included messages from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Sophie Grégoire Trudeau, Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland, and more to the party faithful asking for donations to ensure the Conservatives don’t out-fundraise their party again this year. “As revenue chair for […]
Data mining key to winning elections
OTTAWA—Data mining is the key to election wins. The more tools at your disposal, the easier it is to target volunteer efforts in the most efficient manner. The 21st century reality for political parties is that the pool of volunteers, primarily non-working women, is shrinking and the way we reach voters is changing. Any political […]
Trudeau’s starting to act like Harper, and that’s not a good thing
OTTAWA—In some strange ways Justin Trudeau’s government is starting to behave a bit like the old regime of Stephen Harper. Specifically, the Liberals are going on needless, unhelpful political journeys that in the long run serve to irritate current and potential supporters. Earlier this year they, of course, decided to re-engineer the Canada Summer Jobs […]
Populism isn’t new to Canada, and in the internet age it has more appeal
OTTAWA—Many years ago, I was speaking to a friend who, as a longtime Progressive Conservative, was in the dumps. Joe Clark had been defeated by Pierre Elliott Trudeau in the 1980 election, and the Tories appeared to face a bleak future. Neither of us foresaw Brian Mulroney’s overwhelming victory a few years later. “Cheer up,” […]
CIMS seems kind of quaint now
TORONTO—It almost seems kind of quaint, doesn’t it? Back when the Conservative Party was running things, the commentariat were apoplectic about something called CIMS: the constituent information management system (CIMS). “Tory database draws ire of privacy experts,” went one CTV News headline. An “unethical invasion of Canadians’ privacy,” thundered then Conservative-turned-Liberal MP Garth Turner. It was […]
Conservative leader Scheer hires new stakeholder relations aide
Conservative Party leader Andrew Scheer recently bolstered his official opposition staff by one, having hired Stephanie Keron as a special assistant and stakeholder relations adviser. Ms. Keron was previously working as executive assistant to Conservative MP Shannon Stubbs on the Hill since the 2015 federal election, before which she’d been executive assistant to then-Conservative MP Chris […]
Scheer is picking up points by keeping his head down
OTTAWA—Maybe being bland isn’t such a bad thing in politics after all. Who needs flashy socks anyway? Apparently not Conservative leader Andrew Scheer, who seems to be having an easier time of it these days than Prime Minister Justin Trudeau or New Democrat leader Jagmeet Singh. While Trudeau tries to continue to live down the […]
