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 Don Braid.
The real battle is inside the UCP. Alberta’s separatist drive isn’t really a fight for the future of Canada. It’s a battle for the United Conservative Party. The latest polling from Janet Brown, commissioned by the CBC, shows separatist support is stuck at 27 per cent, while 67 per cent will vote against leaving Canada.
How much more Liberal raiding and spending and winning can Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre survive? Maybe very little. Three byelection losses Monday night are a further humiliation. Prime Minister Mark Carney took quick advantage.
Sarnia Conservative MP Marilyn Gladu backed the trucker blockade in Ottawa, along with a bill that would force floor-crossers to quit and run again. On Wednesday, however, she crossed the floor to become a newly-minted Liberal for Prime Minister Mark Carney — the fifth of her kind. There’s no quit in this politician. A less obvious Liberal than Gladu you...
The federal NDP, now run by cis male Avi Lewis, showed us two kinds of crazy at their leadership convention on the weekend. First, there was social crazy, with arguments over whose victimized identity deserved time at the mic. Delegates who have identified with the same gender assigned at birth — “cis” people — didn’t have much chance. Then came...
The prospect of Alberta leaving Canada is such a hot topic that the other potential “leavers” have been overlooked.
The Conservatives gave 87.4 per cent support to a leader whose popularity lags far behind the party itself.
Prime Minister Mark Carney gave a great campaign speech Thursday. The only thing missing was the election. Might a snap federal vote be coming? Probably not, but it must be tempting for the Liberals. One symptom is obvious. They’re already road-testing their campaign pitch. At the start of a cabinet retreat in Quebec City, Carney gave a long pep talk...
Premier Danielle Smith isn't personally challenged at this UCP convention, but still faces blowback from separatists and recall campaigns. Every United Conservative Party annual convention is odd in its own way, but this one is truly special. Article content Premier Danielle Smith faces pressure from separatists at the gathering in Edmonton this weekend. Recall campaigns are also a challenge for...
CPC Leader Pierre Poilievre’s leadership review will go down on the former site of Stampede Wrestling. That may be appropriate. Article content The storied grappler nights rumbled for decades in the old Stampede Corral. It was demolished in 2020-21 to make way for the new BMO Centre. Thousands of Conservative Party of Canada delegates will pour in there Jan. 29-31...
While preaching calm, Smith gives full legitimacy to a debate that could tear this province apart
That was the craziest election yet, and it wasn’t even over on Day 1 after the voting. The numbers were still changing Tuesday afternoon. The Liberals picked up a Bloc Quebecois-leaning seat, raising their total to 169, three short of a majority.
Surprisingly absent from the debate was major focus on U.S. President Donald Trump. His offences were just one of many themes
If Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives have one goal today, it should be to get Danielle Smith to stay home and shut up. The premier seriously damaged the Conservative campaign right out of the gate, with comments linking leader Pierre Poilievre to Trump’s America.
That’s inevitable when her main political agenda is sovereignty within Canada or (in the suspicious eyes of some) outside Canada. Article content With the tariff fiasco looming and Smith spending so much time in the U.S. — even hobnobbing with President Donald Trump — critics wondered what she was up to. It wasn’t hard to find cries of treason on...
Smith says the Americans think our border and even our financial system are damaging for them in other ways — and she feels they have a point. Politicians across the land keep saying our border isn’t so bad, at least compared to the U.S. frontier with Mexico. Premier Danielle Smith believes that’s a mistake in the ongoing tariff dispute with...
That’s no cabinet. It’s a Palace Guard for a leader on his way to the getaway limo. The ministers appointed Friday are the hard knot of the remaining Justin Trudeau loyalists, but even they looked like they were gagging on expressions of eternal loyalty to the prime minister. The change many Albertans were hoping for — the exit of Environment...
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau could probably slide down every chimney in Canada, tossing gifts to all, without improving his political standing by a single point. In October, when they were starting to half-bake this tax holiday, the party had 22 per cent.
Thank you, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Canada needed a belly laugh and you came through. Axing the GST on Christmas trees is so shameless, so hilariously cheesy, so predictably Trudeau, that one can only hoot at this latest effort to climb out of the political pit he dug for the Liberals.
The Liberal Party of Canada can’t even raise a decent revolt against its wildly unpopular prime minister — another sign of drop-dead decay. Polls show that the only way the Liberals can win another election, or even hope to be the official opposition, is to get rid of Justin Trudeau. But where is the grand old Liberal machine, that ruthless...
Premier Danielle Smith continues to play to the noisiest bleachers on the hard-line side of the United Conservative Party. The latest is her talk about three new amendments to the Alberta Bill of Rights. They would guarantee gun ownership with “safe use,” clarify property ownership protections and enshrine the right to refuse any and all medical treatment, including vaccines.
Canada edged closer to an early election Monday night – two ridings closer. The Liberals showed once again that they can’t win an urban seat. Under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, this party is on the verge of electoral obliteration. The Liberals prove they can lose not just anywhere, but everywhere. Impossible as this might seem for Canada’s so called national...
Chickens with their heads cut off run around in circles. In politics, the federal Liberals are starting to exhibit this post-mortem behaviour. Their electoral chances are as good as dead, and their head, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, seems only tenuously attached to his party. Article content Still, they dash around crazily, patching this and launching that, all while sticking to...
Former Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi is quiet and elusive about a potential run for the provincial NDP leadership. That’s because it’s not easy being orange, especially when you’ve always been purple. Article content We should hear from Nenshi on March 11. He can be expected to run — if the party accepts him, that is. For an NDP outsider, it...
This is the first time Smith has uttered a word of criticism about Parker Well, finally. Premier Danielle Smith tore into Take Back Alberta Leader David Parker Tuesday, urging him to “get some help.” Article content She condemned his “bullying” comments about Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre and his wife Anaida. “I just don’t want to be associated with that kind...
Barely a day after begging forgiveness from his followers, Parker posted the tweet about Poilievre and his wife. It’s long past time for Premier Danielle Smith to disown David Parker, the unrestrained, frequently unhinged leader of Take Back Alberta. But will she? It’s not so easy when Parker praises her to the skies, even as he offensively slags federal Conservative...
A battle of insults on social media shows how far we’ve descended into personal invective as a political weapon. All too often the attacks are based on surface qualities — race, gender, sexuality, weight, age, attractiveness.
One of many effects is to drive moderate progressives into the arms of Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives