Revenge of the Harperites
OTTAWA—By now, it’s easy to have forgotten that day in 2011 when Stephen Harper, fresh from winning a majority Conservative government, showed up as the surprise guest at a 700-person barbecue in the backyard of the Ford family home in Toronto. “He’s my new fishing partner,” the late Rob Ford told the enthusiastic crowd at […]
If gender equality is so important, why don’t Canadians give female premiers a second term?
If gender equality is so important to Canadians, why do we not allow female premiers a second term? Many argue that, historically, parties in decline and doomed to electoral defeat elect a female leader to clean up their mess. When the mess gets tidied enough for a possible electoral win, they replace the female with […]
Brand control, ‘beefed-up’ war rooms more important in era of digital campaigns
Campaign war rooms are more important than ever, turning into “content shops” churning out material with the potential to go viral as the fight for attention turns away from conventional approaches to get the message out, say campaign veterans and experts. But even though incoming Progressive Conservative Ontario Premier Doug Ford shot to power earlier this […]
How the party leaders stack up, as campaign machines rev up for 2019
OTTAWA—Summer is upon us. Members of Parliament have returned to their ridings to kiss babies and shake hands wherever they can. Ottawa will feel a bit like a ghost town between now and mid-September until the elected officials return when they will begin the big push to the 2019 election. Through this session of Parliament […]
Liberal seats flipped in Ontario election
In the 2018 Ontario elections, the Liberals saw their numbers of seats shrink from 58 to to seven, falling one seat shy of securing official party status, while the Conservatives captured 76 seats and the New Democrats locked in 40. The Hill Times took a closer look at which seats the Liberals lost in 2018 […]
Clock is ticking on government’s relationship with Indigenous communities
Kayla Bernard grew up with no doctors in her community. Her school lacked qualified teachers. Drinking water was a luxury. The 22-year-old First Nations woman from Halifax told senators earlier this month what reconciliation means to her. “Reconciliation is a word that is thrown around a lot in Canada, especially by Canadian leaders,” she said. […]
Ford’s right-wing populism: the gift that keeps on giving, for the rich
OTTAWA—Nothing says “for the people” like “buck-a-beer.” Ontarians put Doug Ford in office and slammed the Liberals in an election that confirmed the anti-progressive, me-first attitude that has become a prominent force in Western democracies as voters take out their unfocused anger over a changing world. Leaving aside immigration scare-mongering, Ford followed the Donald Trump […]
Ford Nation and the demise of the campaign playbook
OTTAWA—Last week, Scott Reid, formerly Paul Martin’s communications director and currently a political analyst and speechwriter who “was pitching in” for Kathleen Wynne’s team, wrote one of the more sobering post-mortems on the Ontario campaign. The piece, published in the Globe and Mail, posed the question as to whether campaigns even matter anymore: “In an […]
Quebec Liberals won’t suffer Wynne’s fate
As the last national assembly sitting before the Oct. 1 provincial vote was winding down last week, a brief encounter with Quebec Premier Philippe Couillard yielded an unsolicited prediction. “I have a secret for you,” he told me on his way out of a Radio-Canada studio. “I will win the election.” Perhaps that was his way of […]
New federal languages legislation must address unique linguistic needs of Inuit
Inuit are pleased that the Government of Canada has prioritized the co-development of national First Nations, Inuit, and Métis languages legislation during the current legislative session. This co-development exercise has the potential to advance reconciliation between Inuit and the Crown, and to positively change the way we work together on shared legislative priorities. Perhaps most […]
