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 Jaime Watt.
Partisanship may have finally peaked. It’s about time. It can be hard to hear anything over U.S. President Donald Trump’s bluster. But look closer. A fascinating trend is emerging ahead of the U.S. midterm elections, with wider implications. A handful of candidates are galvanizing voters by ditching their party’s jersey altogether.
Parliament is back with a substantive legislative agenda that reminds us: Democracy is nothing without accountability. For shame, then, that His Majesty’s Loyal Opposition is distracted by internal schisms and online echo chambers. This fall, Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives must gain a foothold. The party’s own MPs know it. Conservative deputy leader Melissa Lantsman told reporters, “This is not the position...
Don’t blink this fall. It’s going to be a critical — and unpredictable — few months for our country. That’s why I’m watching three categories of events: cheers, jeers, and peers. First up is a phenomenon called cheering theory, where people root for a proposition or person or institution. This is Canada’s secret weapon in the trade war against the...
Prime Minister Mark Carney’s careful march to a majority has reached the coda. With three by-elections set for Aug. 31, the Liberals can put to rest the rumblings about their majority status and earn the halo of legitimacy. These by-elections are about both seats and symbolism because of the unprecedented way Carney came to have a majority in the first...
Let’s thank U.S. President Donald Trump for one thing. As Ottawa launches a national competition to restore 24 Sussex Drive, the White House renovations are a lesson in what not to do. A master class, really. Trump is building to glorify himself. The “goldening” of the Oval Office, the transformation of the Rose Garden into a Mar-a-Lago-style patio designed to...
There is nothing small about Alberta. It is a towering place, of mountain peaks and prairie sky. It is a powerhouse of energy and agriculture and business. Just for good measure, it also throws the country’s most famous party every July. So why, in such a bold place, is a Captain Canada MIA? I refer, of course, to how quiet...
Let me be clear: on the underlying question, Doug Ford was right.
By the time this column appears in print, the Liberal party will have wrapped up its convention in Montreal.
By now, it’s clear that no matter what kind of resolution U.S. President Donald Trump attempts to impose on his latest misadventure in Iran, this conflict and its global repercussions will be far from over. More likely, it will resemble George W. Bush’s infamous “mission accomplished” moment aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln in 2003: a premature declaration of victory that...
Silence is a decision. And this is, effectively, where Pierre Poilievre now finds himself on the issue of U.S. President Donald Trump.
In politics, you can rarely put your faith in absolutes. Especially maxims coined by Wall Street traders. But this one has merit. After an extensive analysis, Bloomberg Economics recently showed that U.S. President Donald Trump only follows through on his tariff threats a mere quarter of the time. So. Make that almost always chickens out.
U.S. President Donald Trump’s Venezuelan adventure has generated a great deal of ink about the so-called Donroe doctrine. Commentators are eager to impose some form of coherence on a wide-ranging and often contradictory series of foreign-policy actions. But the subject resists.
The year-in-review phase is over. It’s time to look ahead. In Canadian politics, 2025 will be remembered as the year of Trump. In 2026, I regret to predict, very little will change. In my last column, I argued that the U.S. midterms — and President Donald Trump’s rhetoric in the lead-up — will turn Canada into an increasingly convenient political...
Let’s start with a few assumptions. U.S. President Donald Trump has reached his political ceiling.
Let me give you a scenario. See if it sounds familiar. After years of Liberal rule, a Conservative party is swept into office on the strength of a campaign promising to cut waste and invest more strategically.
Being leader of the opposition is a little like being stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic on the 401. You’re boxed in. Options are limited. And any “creative” manoeuvres usually lead to pileups.
As a young boy, I reserved a special place in hell for whichever ad executive decided it was time to launch the “back to school” marketing blitz in the midst of my carefree late summer. The reminder was, in a word, unwelcome.
Donald Trump is reportedly in the Epstein files. To anyone paying attention, it’s less a revelation than a grim confirmation. And now — the big question: is this the beginning of the end of Donald Trump’s political career?
It wasn’t so long ago that Canada perennially cashed in on its so-called “peace dividend.” The logic went like this: while our tanks might rust, the salaries of our Armed Forces members stagnate, and our ammunition stockpiles dwindle, the government could reallocate military spending toward areas of more immediate concern — entitlement programs, infrastructure and other “flavours of the day.”
Earlier this month, after the tragic crash of flight AI171 in Ahmedabad, India, en route to London, Gatwick, Air India CEO Campbell Wilson said what needed to be said. He “first and most importantly” expressed “deep sorrow,” stated that the airline would be “focused entirely on the needs of our passengers, crew members, their families and loved ones,” and calmly...
When Mark Carney assumed the Prime Minister’s Office, the question on everyone’s lips was: can he translate his international business gravitas into public sector functionality? We’re beginning to get an answer. And it’s not just a refreshing new start — on some levels, it’s a complete gear shift. The Carney government is clearly intent on breaking from the past, starting...
When the boss promotes you, trusts you with a new, important file, it’s a good idea to stay on message. Reinforce the mandate. Show people why you deserved the nod. Those are the dictates of received wisdom.
“The past is a nice place to visit. You just wouldn’t want to live there.” In the wake of a gruelling campaign, the problem is, too many political parties unpack their bags and take up residence.
It doesn’t matter your political persuasion. Tuesday morning, Canada did not get the headline it very much needed. That headline would have trumpeted an expression of firm resolve and electoral clarity. It would have been supported by the usual language of triumph: “decisive victory,” “clear mandate,” “stable majority.”
It’s the morning after election night and it is the tale of two profoundly different worlds. For one, no day more glorious. Power. A flurry of transition memos. Endless congratulatory phone calls.
A few weeks ago, I argued that the strongest political opposition to Donald Trump resided right here in Canada. Turns out, that’s an increasingly dangerous place to be.
The NDP’s flashy new ads, portraying Jagmeet Singh as a fighter, seem to be borne of an alternate universe. The latest polls aren’t just flashing red — they’re signalling a collapse that could cost the party its official status — Ipsos? 10 per cent. Angus Reid? nine per cent. Leger? 11 per cent. It doesn’t matter which poll you look...
If there’s anything to be said beyond vindictiveness, caprice and outright insanity about the first 30 days of the Trump presidency, it’s the appalling lack of a coherent opposition from the Democratic party. A crisis of confidence and nerve could not have been more painfully on display than the party’s pathetically weak response to U.S. President Donald Trump’s address to...
A few assumptions to start. Mark Carney will handily win the federal Liberal party’s nomination, become Prime Minister, and march — more or less straightaway — into Rideau Hall to ask the Governor General to call an election.
Liberal party leadership candidate Karina Gould may well lose this battle. But she’s playing a much longer game — and setting herself up brilliantly for it, writes Jaime Watt. I understand the temptation.
My editor has asked me to answer a simple question: How can Doug Ford’s PCs win—and win bigger?
It happened in the blink of an eye. Seemingly overnight, the rules of the game — how decisions are reached at the heart of the American government — changed.
In the aftermath of a major historical event, the causative chain that produced it is often shrouded in mystery. The real drivers are almost always impossible to discover in real time. Clarity only emerges decades later, when long-classified documents are finally released from the archives, illuminating what truly transpired.
More than 200 years ago, Edmund Burke penned the definitive defence of tradition. In it, he denounced the revolution still burning in France and endorsed the monarchy at home. In response, across the ocean, Thomas Paine delivered a famous rebuke: “He pities the plumage, but forgets the dying bird.”
Often in romantic comedies there’s a moment where the protagonist realizes, “he’s just not that into you.” For Canada, that moment has arrived with President-elect Donald Trump. Trump’s recent public comments and Truth Social post deriding us as the 51st state and referring to our Prime Minister as a governor, said the quiet part out loud. Adding insult to injury...
If you’re out walking after a bad storm, you’re liable to come across a few trees with limbs that are just hanging on. One scintilla of added pressure, one strong gust, and the branch breaks. This is the fragile reality of Canada’s immigration system today. The storm was entirely of the federal Liberals’ making. The next one will be entirely...
People have good reason to doubt the veracity of campaign promises because they have good, abundant evidence that politicians hardly feel honour-bound to keep them. For many politicians, making promises you can’t keep is as natural as breathing on the campaign trail. In turn, the electorate is conditioned to expect political promises to be like piñatas: designed to be broken...
If there is one thing I’ve learned in my time writing this column, it’s that readers, especially those who read regularly, would rather I be direct, precise and dead wrong, than prevaricating, wishy-washy and possibly correct. So here goes.
“A tough but strong decision.” “Put our country first.”
Communication is measured in impact not minutes. But your words will always miss the mark if you don’t watch the clock. Wednesday night at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, former president Bill Clinton spoke for 27 minutes. He was allotted 12. He rambled and roamed.
There’s a moment in every drugstore novel or Hallmark movie where one character whispers tenderly to another, “Don’t change a thing. You’re perfect just the way you are.” I don’t exactly picture Tim Walz, Kamala Harris’s newly anointed running mate, as a protagonist in this sort of sentimental tale. He’s more likely to be the kindly local shopkeeper or father...
“One day you’re cock of the walk, the next a feather duster.” A politician must have cooked up this brutally cruel expression. After all, it is the perfect encapsulation of public life. Its vicissitudes. The hard, immutable fact that it is fleeting. For those who sacrifice so much to serve, this truth is painfully evident.
Just prior to the implosion that rocked global financial markets, Lehman Brothers CEO Richard Fuld assured investors his bank’s liquidity and capital profile were rock-solid. Before the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission pursued charges, Elizabeth Holmes of Theranos swore her magic box (the “Edison machine”) was functioning just perfectly.
Dr. Martin Luther King said the true measure of an individual is not how they behave in moments of comfort and convenience but how they stand at times of controversy and challenge. For political advisers, this principle isn’t just part of their job description — it’s the very essence of it. It is never easy to speak truth to power...
Imagine the confusion. Toronto’s most labour friendly mayor in recent memory and still — a major strike that would have paralyzed this city. Or, as Mayor Chow put it, wrought “huge, huge economic damage.”
It’s a politico’s axiom that perception is reality. Call it a rudimentary observation in a “post-truth world,” but if it weren’t so, we would be living in a very different world with very different headlines. Joe Biden would be in for a slam-dunk re-election victory based on what the hard economic data says is a booming U.S. economy...
If there has even been such a thing as the world’s greatest circus, this is surely it: the trial of Donald J. Trump. And just when you thought it could not get any more pathetic, lurid, absurd, crazier or demeaning (have your pick), this week a new clown car rolled on in: crammed with Trump’s cronies, allies and most significantly...
It’s not rocket science. Ensure families have access to affordable, high-quality child care and guess what? You get drastically better outcomes. Not just for kids, who get a fair start in life, but also for parents, who can return to the workforce far earlier and with greater confidence.
Spring has sprung and with it the Liberal government is clearly waking up from a long period of hibernation. The string of spending announcements leading up to Budget 2024 amounted to the most energetic activity we’ve seen in some time. And guess what?
Will Rogers has an old joke about Prohibition: “Why don’t they pass a Constitutional Amendment prohibiting anybody from learning anything? If it works as good as Prohibition did, in five years we will have the smartest people on earth.” This joke is still funny — more than 90 years later — because it hits at what is essentially a universal...
It’s said that revision sits at the very heart of great writing. And right now, I feel every beat of that truism. Let me be perfectly honest: I am madly rewriting this week’s column. I had written about the disappearance of Kate Middleton, the Princess of Wales, from the public eye, the firestorm of controversy that it created, and the...
As much as victory’s highs are as ephemeral as a shooting star, defeat’s bitter sting lingers in a way never quite forgotten. For me, Election Night 1993 will never be forgotten.
The battle lines of the 2024 U.S. presidential election are drawn, the ideologies entrenched. To say the electorate's divisions are deep and well-established may be the understatement of this new century. And so, now, the outcome will be determined by just one thing: election day turnout.
My last column discussed how our abysmal productivity will likely grow problematically acute under a new Trump administration. It really hit a nerve.
Part cliché. Mostly truism. It is said that there are no sure things in politics. But, after his unprecedented victories in both New Hampshire and Iowa, Donald Trump locking up the Republican nomination looks pretty damn certain.
So, which will it be: door No. 1 or door No. 2? The question, of course, is one of the very first that confronts the newly elected leader of the Ontario Liberal party, Bonnie Crombie. And what will the door she chooses tell us about how she intends to lead?
All doom and gloom. Or is it? It’s beyond cliché to say that the world – and our country along with it – is confronting tremendous and unprecedented challenges. But isn’t that the story of life? Dealing with the new, the unfamiliar, even the horrendous. To be sure, as we sit on the cusp of a new year, not only...
This past week, two developments attracted the nation’s attention. Pierre Poilievre released a 15-minute video on Canada’s “housing hell” that has, at the time of writing, garnered 4.8 million views. And the CBC announced they would be cutting 10 per cent of its workforce. What does a politician’s message on Canada’s housing crisis have to do with mass layoffs at...
My granny, who was the wisest person I knew, always said that if you lived long enough anything can happen. And happen it did this week when the United States House of Representatives finally elected a new Speaker, Rep. Mike Johnson. But only after the country endured three weeks of rudderless political chaos.