Dear Canada:
Everything changes tomorrow. It’ll be bad.
Sincerely,
Etc.
The best thing about being a writer is being somewhere and someone quietly comes up to you, and they say something you wrote affected them and stayed with them. Happy, sad, anger, remembering: whatever.
That’s the payoff.
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In politics, the job is always hiding a lot of the unattractive things about the candidate – usually anger and impatience. Poilievre is fascinating because he doesn’t do that. He just is what he is.
That’s a big gamble.
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For the last few years, when I hear “never a dull moment,” I say to myself “I could really go for some dull moments”
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The thing about the carbon tax is that everyone was in favor of taxing polluters until they found out they were included in the list of polluters and then they were against it
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Carney’s problem is that he’s never been a politician and it shows. Freeland’s problem is that she’s been a politician and it shows.
Poilievre’s problem is Trump.
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The politics of this era is the politics of cruelty.
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Fans of CBC need to reflect on the fact that Poilievre has said he’ll defund the CBC about a million times, and he’s gone up in polling. If fans of CBC want to save CBC, they needed to do more than they’ve done.
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Carney: fail to launch.
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Carney and Freeland abandoning the carbon tax. Quoth the Bard: “God has given you one face, and you make yourself another.”
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Gladiator II: you be glad if you never watch it.
#WarrenMovieReviews
**
This feels like the last regular weekday before everything gets way worse.
As is well-known: Ottawa and Washington, D.C. are Hollywood for ugly people. Less-known: using good-looking celebrities to win votes doesn’t always work.
Sometimes it even backfires.
Case in point: Kamala Harris, who is days away from watching her opponent take the oath of office at the U.S. Capitol building. Throughout the Democrat’s 100-day presidential campaign – for which this writer volunteered, full disclosure – Harris was notable for one thing above all: celebrity endorsements.
One minute after the debate between Harris and the Republican’s Donald Trump concluded, in fact, the most powerful person in show business posted a statement on X, endorsing Harris.
“Like many of you, I watched the debate tonight,” wrote music superstar Taylor Swift. “I will be casting my vote for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz in the 2024 Presidential Election. I’m voting for @kamalaharris (https://www.instagram.com/kamalaharris/?hl=en) because she fights for the rights and causes I believe need a warrior to champion them. I think she is a steady-handed, gifted leader and I believe we can accomplish so much more in this country if we are led by calm and not chaos.”
Swift accompanied her post on X with a fetching shot of Herself holding one of her cats. It was an unsubtle shot at the dumb remarks earlier made by Trump’s running mate, J.D. Vance, about Democratic “childless cat ladies.” Swift even signed off her post as “Taylor Swift, Childless Cat Lady.”
Swift’s post “caused a major stir,” wrote Billboard. “A tremendous shot of adrenaline to [Harris’] campaign,” the New York Times declared in a three-byline story (not opinion column). Swift’s endorsement “could mobilize first-time and younger voters given her intense fandom,” enthused CBC News. MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell declared it “the most important celebrity endorsement I’ve ever seen.”
Well, no, actually. Harris went on to decisively lose to Trump, who himself could only scrounge up endorsements from losers like Kid Rock, Mel Gibson and Joe Exotic. You know: the guy from Tiger King, who offered his support from a jail cell.
Like newspaper editorial endorsements, celebrity endorsements simply don’t have the cachet they once did. In fact – like newspaper endorsements – there is some data to suggest they actually have the opposite effect. An earlier survey by the Beacon Center found 81 per cent of Americans said Swift’s endorsement would not affect the way they voted. Five per cent even said it would make them less likely to take Swift’s advice.
Swift wasn’t the only one who pushed for Harris. Bruce Springsteen did, too, in multiple cities. Beyoncé did, as well, in a final-week star-studded gala. Others who stumped for the Democrats: Oprah Winfrey, George Clooney, Leonardo DioCaprio, and loads more. Effect on the ground: zero, or close to it.
Which brings, this week, to the Michael Ignatieff with a pocket calculator, erstwhile Liberal leadership candidate Mark Carney. The former Governor of both the Bank of England and the Bank of Canada popped by Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show. Which is filmed in New York City, and not Timmins.
Carney was convivial and engaging, and demonstrated that he can put two sentences together without drooling. “I am an outsider,” said Carney, the outsider who has been giving Justin Trudeau financial advice for about two years, and whose leadership campaign is being run by Trudeau’s inner circle.
Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre is the “type of politician who tends to be a lifelong politician,” Carney told Stewart, adding that Poilievre sees “opportunity in tragedy.” Coming from the guy who has now seen opportunity in the tragicomedy that is the Liberal Party leadership, that was bit rich. But we digress.
Carney got what he came for. Stewart, who meets the dictionary definition of lifelong curmudgeon, declared that Carney had “charm and debonair wit, yet strong financial backbone!”
For the few remaining card-carrying Liberal Party members – feeling lovelorn, lonely and lost – that’s practically enough to run an entire 36-day campaign on. “Mark Carney: he’s charming, debonair, and he can balance a chequebook! Vote Liberal!”
Will it be enough? Go ask Kamala, Mark. She’ll tell you:
The only endorsement that counts is the one you get from the voters.
I asked them to show it on air. They did, because it’s legendary.
Harper on Trump:
• “I must admit to being shocked by some of the things he said. They’re just not so.”
• “When we talk about subsidizing Canadian defense, I don’t know what he’s talking about.”
• “I have a real problem with some of the things Donald Trump is saying…it doesn’t sound to me like the pronouncements of somebody who’s a friend, a partner and an ally, which is what I’ve always thought the United States is for our country.”
• “Whether or not we have Mr. Trudeau as our prime minister is our choice as Canadians. We don’t tell you who to elect as president of the United States. And so as much as I’m glad to see Mr. Trudeau leaving, this is not Mr. Trump’s decision.”
• “I know Donald Trump would like to believe that he’s pushed Mr. Trudeau out of office, but let me assure you it was a Canadian public opinion and ultimately Mr. Trudeau’s own party that pushed him out of office.”
Not every Canadian Conservative is a Trump fan. But every Canadian Trump fan is a Conservative.
That’s Poilievre’s dilemma, and it’s why he’s been quiet: how does he rebut Trump – as Stephen Harper did so well – without losing the MAGA North jerks who make up 25% of his base?
I’m just a simple County lawyer, but I’m kind of wondering why the Heritage Department would be funding a self-governing First Nation with an annual budget of $30 million – when the government already has two ministries that are supposed to be dealing with First Nations instead: Indigenous Services Canada and Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada. Must be a coincidence.
In completely unrelated news, I will sleep really well tonight.
“Former federal heritage minister Pablo Rodriguez, who is running for the leadership of the Quebec Liberal Party, is facing questions about his decision to hold a meeting with an Ottawa lobbyist and friend about one of her clients that received funding from his department.
NDP ethics critic Matthew Green said Mr. Rodriguez should not have attended the meeting with Lisa Kirbie, founder and chief executive of the consultancy Blackbird Strategies, when he was heritage minister because it created the appearance of a conflict of interest.
The meeting in November, 2022, on behalf of Ms. Kirbie’s client, Kluane First Nation, was declared in the lobbying register by Ms. Kirbie…But Mr. Green said Mr. Rodriguez should have erred on the side of caution and recused himself from the meeting with Ms. Kirbie. Ministers should step aside from official meetings with friends, he said, as they could pose a potential conflict of interest under ethics rules.
“Meeting with a lobbyist who is a close friend and an active advocate for a client receiving government funds creates the appearance of a conflict of interest, whether the funding was in the pipeline or not. This is really problematic all around,” Mr. Green said.
“We have lots of questions to ask. There is no way he [Mr. Rodriguez] should have attended the meeting. You should not meet close friends who have a financial interest in your relationship whether you perceive it or not.”
“Minister Rodriguez’s resignation in order to run for the Quebec Liberal leadership while narrowly avoiding opposition accountability because of the prorogation, still leaves the stench of insider dealings for well-connected friends of the Liberal Party,” he added.
Conservative ethics critic Michael Barrett, responding to questions about Mr. Rodriguez, accused Liberals of “helping their Liberal insiders and friends while Canadians suffer.”
…The subject matters discussed at the Nov. 21 meeting, according to the lobbying register, were aboriginal affairs and arts and culture. Ms. Kirbie also registered a meeting the same day with two senior heritage department officials: Mala Khanna, associate deputy minister at Canadian Heritage, and Paul Pelletier, director general for Indigenous languages.”
