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 Jen Gerson.
It truly is quite astonishingly hypocritical that the same people who have made careers railing against the way Alberta is under-represented by population in the Senate seem to get quite huffily defensive over the tabling of new electoral districts that would leave urban Albertans meaningfully under-represented compared to rural ones. Earlier this year, Alberta’s Electoral Boundaries Commission unveiled a new...
Well, it looks like our prime minister is losing his nerve, eh? Reports are now leaking fast and furious that Trump’s surprise August 19 tariffs have worked to break our strategic patience. Canada is working to secure some kind of interim deal, and if the leaks are to be believed, we’re going to give the Americans essentially everything they want...
So I guess we’re doing this, eh? I mean, of course Alberta is holding a secession referendum. It’s Alberta; the province that consistently exhibits the inverse of one of Paul Wells’ most-famed Rule of Politics. To wit: “1: For any given situation, Canadian politics will tend toward the least exciting possible outcome.”
Elections Alberta could have known more than a month ago that there was a violation of the province’s voter file, exposing the personal data of 2.9 million electors in the province to unknown numbers of bad actors. They could have known because I warned them – or, rather, I tried to. I reported an anonymous tip. I got a call...
If there’s one thing that’s driving me a little nuts about the active petition to foist a separation referendum on Alberta, it’s this: the claim that the process is some kind of benign and beautiful expression of democracy. Because, frankly, no, that’s not really how our democratic system is supposed to work. Canada is not California — which uses tools...
It’s hard to know what to make of Pierre Poilievre’s speech at the Conservative convention this weekend except to note that there is more information to be gleaned from that which was not said than that which was. On the one hand, it should be noted, the leader’s address to the faithful was conventionally conservative, tonally appropriate, and entirely safe...
If there’s one conclusion we can draw from the recently released National Security Strategy put out by the Trump administration, it’s that the current crop of Americans in power really do feel like victims of the world that America created. In that strategy, the White House outlined the Trump administration’s priorities, outlooks and hoped for direction. While it’s common for...
There’s really only one question I want answered by this week’s federal budget: is Canada really going to use this generational crisis with the U.S. to address our systemic spending sprees and economic malaise — or was “Elbows Up” really just a s—t excuse to further enrich and coddle the cultural and corporate oligarchs who have spent the last 1...
What, exactly, did the people of Canada elect Mark Carney to accomplish? I think this is a question worth serious consideration as we round in on the prime minister’s first 100 days (or so) in office, and as he’s demonstrated that “elbows up” seems to consist of — rescinding taxes and counter-tariffs that have irked Donald Trump. Carney came to...
The Calgary Stampede is inevitable: no politician or pundit can resist its terrible gravity, its faux-cowboy charm, free breakfasts and boozy fundraisers. So, too, is the Conservatives’ annual Stampede barbecue, a highlight of the political circuit, which this year allowed Pierre Poilievre to emerge from stasis after a disappointing spring election result. And emerge he did, offering his base a...
Regardless of how one feels about Justin Trudeau and his legacy, it must be conceded that his long-delayed sort-of-resignation — for let’s remember that he’s still Prime Minister and will be for at least several weeks — is extraordinarily poorly timed. Rather than quit at a juncture that would have allowed the Liberal party to choose a successor who had...
John Rustad shouldn’t have been a contender. Last year, the BC Conservative party leader — who himself was ejected from the then B.C. Liberal party over comments that sounded an awful lot like climate change denial — was polling in the single digits. His party was labelled by its critics as a “conspiracy” party, with candidates espousing wild views on...
The goose. She cooked. The toast. It burnt. The frog. It boiled. Look, I'm going to confess that, unlike most Ottawa politics nerds, I did not spend much of last night frantically refreshing Elections Canada's count totals page as the ballot figures came rolling in for the St. Paul's by-election. Instead, I attended an Oilers watch party, and the sadness...
Comedian Bill Maher came up with a killer routine on his show a few weeks ago mocking all of the U.S. celebrities who threatened to leave America if Donald Trump won the election in 2016. This — as we Canadians know full well — is a perennial promise made by scores of actresses, singers and gurus on predictable two-to-four year...
"Conservative premiers across this country are misleading Canadians, are not telling the truth," said Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. "Eight out of 10 families across the country in federal backstop jurisdictions make more money with the Canada Carbon Rebate than it costs with the price on pollution." I want to talk about this quote. In recent weeks, it's become popular among...
Let’s start by noting that it’s a little bit odd for a government to hold a technical briefing for a bit of legislation more than a week after that legislation has been tabled. Usually presentations of this kind are held for media, MPs, and various stakeholders as or just before a complicated issue or bill is about to be announced...
Watching Prime Minister Justin Trudeau give an extended interview to Alberta's Ryan Jespersen is the first time I've ever felt visceral concern about the man leading this country. I genuinely don't mean this in any mean or partisan sense. What I mean is that this interview raised serious concerns about Trudeau's headspace, his judgment, and whether or not this man...
I like economists, generally, but one thing I will note about them is that they are rarely blunt. Particularly on issues of deep cultural or political sensitivity, they have a tendency toward cautious language couched in caveats and jargon, and they generally — generally — try to avoid alarmism. Which is why this story from the Globe and Mail this...
I would invite my fine readers at The Line to stop and imagine what the world would be like today if Calgary mayor Jyoti Gondek had decided to simply do her fucking job on Thursday night. Let me paint this picture for you: close your eyes and allow this scene to play out in the theatre of the mind. Gondek...
At the beginning of November, Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly gave a hallmark speech at the Economic Club of Canada. It was the kind of keynote address that must be parsed to grasp our government's thinking about the state of the world and our nation's role in it. Yet the line that jarred me most in that speech was also...
A plan to subject more digital media, including podcasts, to CRTC oversight and regulation isn’t going to end well. We don’t have to make it easy for them. Having recorded such roaring success in its attempts to fix the Internet to date — she wrote, after watching a Line post disappear into the abyss of
A plan to subject more digital media, including podcasts, to CRTC oversight and regulation isn't going to end well. We don't have to make it easy for them. Having recorded such roaring success in its attempts to fix the Internet to date — she wrote, after watching a Line post disappear into the abyss of Meta thanks to C-18 —...
