A snippet from next week’s column:

Conservative leadership candidate Kellie Leitch has been talking a lot about “values.” She sent out a questionnaire to Conservative partisans about it. Here’s what it said: “Should the Canadian government screen potential immigrants for anti-Canadian values as part of its normal screening for refugees and landed immigrants?”

Leitch’s question enraged the Left side of the spectrum – and her party’s acting leader, and several Conservative caucus members, and a leadership rival. (Newspaper columnists and editorial boards, too.) They were all super outraged.

That’s what Leitch wanted, of course: attention. Your average Canadian voter couldn’t pick her out of a two-person police line-up. So she and her smart circle of advisors did something to get noticed, and to get pointy-headed progressive intellectuals – who the conservative base deeply detest – to commence the gnashing of teeth and rending of garments. It worked, big time.

While everyone was running around being outraged, however, no one bothered to ask any practical questions. Here’s one: how would Prime Minister Leitch’s policy actually work, in the real world? At some future border crossing, would a courteous CBSA officer lean across the counter and say: “Welcome to Canada. Are your values Canadian, or Islamic State-ish? Planning on blowing anything up? Got an tobacco or alcohol to declare? No? Well, have a good day and welcome!”

Leitch’s stunt was just that: a stunt. She’s a doctor, and she’s not particularly stupid. She knows that CBSA – and CSIS, and the RCMP, and (as we have recently learned, after the confrontation with that ISIS fanboy in London) the FBI and Homeland Security in the U.S. – already screen potential immigrants and refugees to Canada for their affinity for terror and extremism. So, knowing that, what was Kellie Leitch – she of the mid-election barbaric practices hotline stunt – hoping to achieve with her latest stunt, about “values?”

To get noticed, as noted. And to appeal, naturally, to the Conservative Party’s still-formidable red-necked, knuckle-dragging mouth-breather demographic.

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New York Times, here I come!

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.@Apple just got rid of the headphone jack for #iPhone7 at their #AppleEvent. I will get the #iPhone7:

— Warren Kinsella (@kinsellawarren) September 7, 2016

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By now, everyone has seen the infamous Obama-Putin hate stare photo from the G20.  It has produced a wealth of photoshopping fun, as seen here.

So, how about a caption contest?  Vote now, vote often!

[polldaddy poll=9515343] 

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Great newsreader. Hard to believe he won’t be there anymore.

But – and it’s a big but – I don’t know many folks who actually watch TV news programs anymore, whether they be on CBC or something else on the dial. Instead, we watch particular news clips on the Internet, we use Twitter as a news feed, and we scan Google News (or its equivalents) in the way that we used to scan newspapers. Oh, and a web site like this one – which is free, accepts comments, and is quite open about its biases – attracts 3.5+ million visitors every year.  Which is more readers than most newspaper columnists get, I’m told.

I don’t know who Mansbridge’s successor will be. I’m not sure it matters, either.

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Change? No thanks.

It’s the end of Summer, at least politically. Legislatures will soon back in session. How are the major players doing?

Out in British Columbia, Christy Clark owns the strongest economy in the federation. However much the BC NDP try to lay a glove on her, they can’t. She’s got the biggest smile in Canadian politics, and for good reason. She’s winning.

In my Alberta home, I don’t think Rachel Notley is doing nearly as badly as pundits and politicos claim. Her main opposition remains divided, she is impossible to dislike on a personal level, and there isn’t much (apart from an in-recession carbon tax) that you couldn’t picture her opponents also doing. Jason Kenney who?

In Saskatchewan, Brad Wall remains a political phenomenon. His cabinet may have experienced a few bumps along the road this Summer, but Wall’s amalgam of provincial conservatives and liberals remain hugely popular – because of Wall. He’s tough, he’s strategic, and he’s one of the best political communicators around.

In Manitoba, credit where credit is due: Premier Brian Pallister has been a lot more impressive than MP Brian Pallister. Back in his Ottawa days, Pallister was known for being in multiple political parties at once – and for occasionally intemperate remarks about women and others. In power, he’s calmed down. It looks good on him.

In Ontario, Kathleen Wynne – like Notley, who gets written off for a lot of the same reasons – is impossible to dislike. She’s like everyone’s favourite aunt. That said, polls suggest she and her party are in big trouble. The good news for Wynne: she’s got a balanced budget coming in the next fiscal, the next election is almost two years away, and her main opponents are in witness protection. Don’t write her off yet.

In Quebec, Canada benefits from the most pro-Canada Quebec Premier in generations – Philippe Couillard. Don’t underestimate his influence at the federal level, either: when Couillard said that Justin Trudeau was wrong on engaging ISIS, the youthful Liberal leader executed a whiplash-inducing flip flop immediately thereafter. As long as the PQ remain where they are – leaderless, witless and clueless – this guy will be Premier as long as he wants.

In New Brunswick, Brian Gallant’s Liberals remain about 30 points above his Tory opponents – despite a string of cabinet-level controversies. He’s the reason: New Brunswickers like him, a lot.

In Nova Scotia, Stephen McNeil has balanced the budget, and is broadly hinting that he may call an early – really early – election, this Fall. David Peterson did that, and regretted it. Jean Chretien did it twice, and it worked both times. My hunch: McNeil will win again.

In PEI, Wade MacLauchlan’s popularity may have slipped, somewhat – but his party maintains a massive 40-point lead over the Island Tories. MacLauchlan sleeps well every night.

In Newfoundland and Labador, the pro-Liberal trend in the Atlantic region is upended: Dwight Ball and his Grits are very unpopular. The reason: he did what he said he wouldn’t ever do – impose a budget full of tax hikes and austerity measures.

Federally? Well, federally, that Trudeau guy continues to dominate: his honeymoon, like someone said, has turned into a durable marriage with voters. He’s still pretty likeable, and his two main opponents are leaderless. Not bad.

His vulnerabilities: ministerial expense account-itis, a tendency to raise expectations that can’t be satisfied, and a solipsism that – sooner or later – will rankle voters.

Surveying the Canadian political landscape, then, the tweet-sized summary is this: incumbency is good.

If you hold power now, chances are you will continue to do so.

Change? Who needs it.

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It may not be what you think. Abacus Data’s absolutely fascinating chart on what we want in leaders, below. Abandon your assumptions, all ye who enter here. 

And see if you can match up the most popular (40+) attributes with any leader you can think of. I couldn’t. 

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September 4, 1984, and my prediction of a massive #lpc win in 2015. Here.

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Given fact #PCPO have never won #SRR, given their sex ed volte-face, given their % of vote, tonight arguably pretty big. #onpoli

— Warren Kinsella (@kinsellawarren) September 2, 2016

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