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 Robin V. Sears.
No two countries have a more asymmetrical relationship than Canada and the United States. Canada used to love most things American: movies, music, pop culture. America used to mostly ignore us. We used to sneer at their social and political frailties: racism, deep pockets of poverty, a corrupt and decaying electoral system, a mounting crisis of gun violence.
Important referendums are usually defeated. But successful or not, they always divide families, communities and nations. The wreckage stems from the high emotion, the purely polemical arguments and, most often, the nasty personal attacks that are part of a referendum circus. Canada, like most advanced democracies, has held very few referendums. In part, that is so because governments don’t like...
The world is wracked by rising military and economic conflict. Yet we have few leaders competent to lead their nations through this maelstrom. Emmanuel Macron may be one but he is months away from retirement. New Japanese Prime Minster Sanae Takaichi may be another but has yet to be tested. Americans may soon be left in the hands of J.D...
One voter expectation trumps all others today: trust. You can be charismatic, intelligent, a good orator and attractive, but if voters don’t feel confident that you are worthy of their trust, go home.
The opposition parties were all trumped, as it were, in last year’s election. They may well face the same fate again this year as talk of an election call in Canada grows. If an election does occur, Donald Trump’s continued raft of threats, insults and incoherent rants is a gift to the Liberals. His behaviour underlines the threat he represents...
Premier Doug Ford’s transformation from angry scowling populist to smiling, collaborative statesman now seems complete. He made an astonishing declaration this week. Coming out of the First Ministers’ meetings, he launched into an earnest lecture to Canadians on the essential task, in politics, of building strong trusting relationships, even with opponents.
Bill Davis, one of Canada’ finest premiers and an icon of effective governance, was asked how many political staff he had in his premier’s office. After musing for a few seconds, he said, ‘’I don’t think there were ever more than 13, I knew them all well — even their families.” Asked how many he thought were in Premier Doug...
This was the most gruesome election night for the NDP since the Diefenbaker sweep in 1958. Many great MPs went down to defeat, one may hope many will return. The Liberals gained 11 points and the NDP lost the same. Its collapse allowed Liberal leader Mark Carney to be elected prime minister. But the party with the greatest right to...
The astonishing news Friday of a polite and insult-free phone call between Trump and Mark Carney — one surprisingly, the U.S. president had asked for — has pushed the Trump roller-coaster up for the first time. It may only last hours or days, probably not weeks, but it signals that Canada’s tough retaliatory posture to Trump’s trade war is giving...
Wars turn the tables in democratic elections. No one would have chosen Winston Churchill to lead in peace time, yet he became the 20th century’s iconic war leader. We are witnessing a new form of war: relentless attacks on our economy and threats to our sovereignty. And U.S. President Donald Trump’s rhetoric increasingly threatens the use of force...
Justice Marie-Josée Hogue will soon reveal her findings on foreign interference. (Disclosure: I was an invited presenter to the Commission). She has already noted the parties’ defences against penetration do not appear “robust.” Her recommendations will be wide-ranging. If she recommends that all parties should be subject to supervision in their conduct of nominations and, more importantly, leaderships, the reaction...
The New Year promises to be a painful one for Canadian Liberals. As Isaiah Berlin, the renowned political analyst put it, sometimes in politics there are only two choices — the unpleasant and the unacceptable. Arguably, this is the most unpleasant nightmare the Liberal party has faced in a century. Yes, Paul Martin’s hapless government bequeathed two incompetent leaders and...
One of the most challenging decisions any government leader must take urgently, often in a moment of crisis, with insufficient information, is to reveal a serious national security threat. When it involves activity by the government of a allied nation, it can be excruciating.
Justin Trudeau’s determination to stay the leader of the federal Liberal Party — and, of course, prime minister — is more than ego. He is probably worried about the eruption of a second Liberal civil war. Until the sudden explosion of Pierre Trudeau into leadership in the 1960s, the party was a model of unity. For more than 50 years...
Successful politics begins with faith not slogans and statistics; supporting trust in a political vision. No politician can prove their vision or values are better. Even great politicians can only convince you to have some trust and belief in them. Back in the day, building political trust was usually grounded in face-to-face contact. A voter could shake your hand, watch...
In every election campaign in every western democracy going back as far as that first, famously pivotal, televised Kennedy-Nixon debate in 1960, debates have served as a potentially decisive inflection point on the road to election day. But this 2024 US presidential campaign has completely re-set the political mythology around a single debate’s potential, asymmetrical impact based on President Joe...
It is rare that one event can upend an entire political landscape overnight. But it happened at 1:45 on a Sunday afternoon in Delaware. Mindful that every campaign exaggerates its wins and discounts its failures, consider these statistics about U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris, who become the Democratic frontrunner on Sunday to replace President Joe Biden on this year’s Democratic...
These are bitter days for those who believe in the essential role of a healthy American democracy on the global stage. Bitter, too, for a large majority of Americans. For the rest of the world, terrifying.
To incoming prime ministers Brian Mulroney would always say you have two priorities, above all else: the nation’s security and your relationship with the president of the United States. He devoted dozens of hours schooling Prime Minister Justin Justin Trudeau and Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland on coping with a deeply psychologically unstable Donald Trump. They listened and saved NAFTA...
Years ago, near the end of a political mission to Havana about the raging civil wars in Central America, Ed Broadbent was miffed. Here was Ed, an avid cigar smoker, having just spent three hours in a bilateral with Fidel Castro, and still not a Cohiba or a Monte Cristo in sight. As we prepared for our early morning flight...
Political parties are normally conservative about their internal rules and processes. There is one exception: when a competitor makes an apparently successful big change in how it is led. Then all the others jump to copy it. The "tyranny of delegated conventions," was condemned as anti-democratic, smoky backrooms by the Reform Party in the '80s. Far more democratic to allow...