While National Newswatch does not keep an archive of external articles for longer than 6 months, we do keep all articles written by contributors who post directly to our site. Here you will find all of the contributed and linked external articles from David Moscrop.
MARK CARNEY is enjoying quite the honeymoon. In early June, Abacus Data found that 38 percent of Canadian respondents believe the country is headed in the right direction. In today’s climate of polarization, institutional mistrust, and ambient dread, that’s extraordinary. Even more so when paired with Carney’s approval rating (51 percent) and the government’s job performance (53 percent).
SPEAKING TO REPORTERS in Rome on Sunday, where he was attending the inaugural mass for Pope Leo XIV, Prime Minister Mark Carney was asked about housing prices. The question from reporter Mackenzie Gray was simple: “Do you want house prices to go down in Canada?” The answer was less simple.
Being left for dead is a bit of a hobby for the federal NDP. In the 1993 election, the party was crushed by the rising Liberals. It was left with 9 seats and 6.88 per cent of the vote. It was their worst showing since 1958, when the precursor to the party, the Co-Operative Commonwealth Federation won a mere 9....
On Tuesday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau warned that Donald Trump was softening up Canada by attacking our economy ahead of an attempt to annex the country. Let that sit for a moment. Because it’s easy to miss the significance of the statement. We live in an era of exaggeration, and a moment of frenetic happenings. But the prime minister of...
The Ontario election could have been an email. It had all the makings of one, short, irritating, and unnecessary — a missive that, once completed, was already set to be forgotten. Because politics is politics, as cynical as predictable, each party and leader will claim victory after last night, but this was an election that everybody lost, not least of...
Donald Trump may be ruining Pierre Poilievre’s plans to become prime minister. It’s a remarkable thing. For months and months, the Conservative Party of Canada looked to be a shoo-in for forming government. They clamoured for an early election, looking to make good on that promise. They wanted a “carbon-tax” election that would at once be a referendum on Justin...
Three weeks from election day, Doug Ford and his Progressive Conservatives are well ahead of their opponents in the polls. That ought to give any sensible person pause. The province is home to 16 million people. It creates roughly 40 per cent of the country’s gross domestic product. It houses major industries, including automobile manufacturing, mining, real estate, and finance...
By mid-March, Justin Trudeau will be out as Liberal leader and prime minister of Canada. By May, the country could quite likely have a Conservative government, bringing an end to a decade of progressive centrist rule. The right, in Canada and around much of the Western world, is ascendant — at least for now. Trudeau’s departure is significant for Canada...
On Monday, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced his resignation to avoid a revolt from his Liberal lawmakers amid over a year of disastrous polling. Parliament is now suspended until March and Trudeau will stay on until the Liberals pick a new leader. But while the country is entering a brief period of limbo, one thing is all but certain.
Prime ministers in Canada tend to overstay their welcome. That’s a problem. With an iron hold over their party, government, and caucus, there are few ways to ditch a leader who doesn’t realize it’s time to go. The same can be true of opposition leaders, but prime ministers also have the particular power of government – and the implied threat...
Next year, Ontarians are set to spend roughly one out of every five days in an election. The federal writs are due by the fall, and Ontario premier Doug Ford is expected to call an early election to get ahead of a police investigation into the Greenbelt scandal and to campaign against the federal Liberals, instead of the Conservatives, who...
Ontario Premier Doug Ford is putting Mexico on notice. Earlier this week, in the wake of Donald Trump’s election win, Ford complained that Mexico was a “backdoor” for cheap Chinese imports, including state-subsidised vehicles. He floated the idea of booting the country from the US-Canada-Mexico free trade agreement and returning to a bilateral free trade arrangement between Canada and the...
If you’re a resident of Ontario, the Ford government is sending you a cheque for $200. The move was announced in the Progressive Conservatives’ fall economic statement and amid speculation that the Tories will send voters to the polls early, before the next federal election.
Last week, Doug Ford added two new parliamentary assistants to his already bulky roster in the Ontario legislature. The Progressive Conservative Party holds 79 seats, and 34 of those members enjoy an assistantship, which comes with a raise of roughly $16,000 a year. This is in addition to the largest Cabinet in Ontario history at 37 members – including ministers...
That politics is about power ought to go without saying, but we who write about those who govern us must occasionally say so nonetheless. When the New Democratic Party ended their supply and confidence agreement with the governing Liberal Party, it soon became obvious that the Bloc Quebecois would try to fill the void and extract as much as they...
The traditional wisdom in Canadian politics is that byelections don’t really matter. Perhaps, they are of some note to the local constituents who’ll find themselves with this or that representative. The general election is the big show; the rest is, for national purposes, a distraction. But politicians and their partisan hangers-on never miss an opportunity to use a political moment...
The news that former Bank of Canada and Bank of England governor Mark Carney is heading a Liberal Party economic growth task force has ushered in another round of speculation about what the man’s intentions are. Will he run for Parliament? Does he want to be Liberal leader?
Last week, Conservative Party Leader Pierre Poilievre claimed he’d never heard of the “potentially dangerous” Diagolon during an interview with a reporter from Sudbury.com. After the reporter explained what the group was, Poilievre blamed “NDP Liberal extremists” for “trying to convince the people that they’re wrong,” whatever that means. Poilievre then went off-topic, railing against Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. After...
WHEN JAGMEET SINGH was elected leader of the New Democratic Party in 2017, he was hailed as the left’s answer to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Accomplished, fashionable, energetic, young, Singh carried the promise of a renewed party focused on its social democratic roots and ready to make inroads with voters. Singh was meant to mark a new era for the...
Canadian politics has long been thoroughly reduced to sloganeering and sound bites. The decline of whatever capacity we had to sort through issues with an interest in substance has been hastened by turns to microtargeting, deliverology, hyperbole, extremely-online partisans boosting mis- and disinformation, and politicians revelling in all of the above. All parties are guilty of it, but the Conservatives...
It didn’t take long for the American and Canadian right to weaponize the assassination attempt on Donald Trump against the left. In the United States, Republicans and their supporters immediately pointed their fingers at progressives as the cause of the violence, including Ohio senator JD Vance, who blamed President Joe Biden for the attack. “The central premise of the Biden...
IT’S PIERRE POILIEVRE’S Canada now. That’s what the pundits say. That’s what the numbers say. It’s a brave, perhaps deluded, outlier who will take odds on the Liberal government remaining in power after the next election. Between February 15 and 21, Abacus Data found 41 percent of surveyed Canadians intended to vote Conservative, well ahead of the Liberals, who sit...
IF YOU LIVE in Canada, you’re probably part of the Loblaw ecosystem, whether you like it or not. The chains the company operates include Provigo, Zehrs, Fortinos, Independent, Real Canadian Superstore, No Frills, Maxi, T&T, Shoppers Drug Mart, and, of course, its own eponymous supermarkets. Its brands are household names: President’s Choice, No Name, Joe Fresh, Life. You almost surely...
Last week, Conservative Party of Canada Leader Pierre Poilievre captured the attention of a segment of the internet when he released a campaign video in which he says, “The electrician who captures lightning from the sky and runs it through a copper wire to illuminate this room and light up the world is not ordinary.” That got some chattering types...