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 Sabrina Maddeaux.
It’s easy to miss the holes in Canada’s social support systems until you really need that safety net. While many Canadians take pride in programs such as public health insurance or Employment Insurance (EI) benefits, the current reality often falls far short of their legacy reputations. EI benefits have been outdated for a long time. But now, as the U.S...
For a faint second, it seemed as though federal Housing Minister Gregor Robertson had finally seen the light. During a House of Commons finance committee appearance recently, headlines reported that Robertson acknowledged what should be an obvious truth — that “the average home price must fall” to make housing affordable again. This was welcome news for both the generations of...
When U.S. President Donald Trump sent shock waves through the tech industry with his plans to impose a $100,000 fee on new H-1B visa applications, some Canadians’ eyes lit up like kids in a candystore. The candies in this case, though, are highly-educated foreign workers. Calls for the federal Liberals to take advantage of the situation came fast and hard...
In early September, federal Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne gave the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) a public 100-day deadline to fix its severe service delays after widespread reports of constantly dropped calls, hours-long wait times, and weeks to address basic issues — if taxpayers could get through at all. There’s no question the CRA needs better customer service. But the minister’s...
Canada’s housing crisis is entering its “Real Housewives” era: messy and chaotic, with the potential for things to always get worse. The plot line — homes are too expensive, so young people can’t afford them — used to be straightforward. Now, a condo crash is complicating matters. Despite what federal Housing Minister Gregor Robertson says, home prices have to decline...
The idea that Olivia Chow was going to be Toronto’s housing champion was always a fantasy. Many voters, especially younger ones, pinned their hopes on her after years of inaction by John Tory, which they wrongly ascribed to his more conservative ethos. In a quick election, Chow’s long-standing brand as a “progressive” helped carry her to victory. When it comes...
Hard work in Canada has never paid less, in economic opportunity or quality of life. For most young Canadians, it doesn’t really matter how much you make in dollars and cents: without family money, the big picture is largely the same. No homeownership. No path to building wealth. Delayed family formation, or none at all.
Canada’s housing market is anything but an equal playing field. Aspiring first-time buyers face enormous and often insurmountable competition from investors, older generations buoyed by lottery-like equity gains and peers who can tap into the bank of Mom and Dad. One thing they shouldn’t have to compete against: mortgage fraud.
For nearly a decade, young Canadians have been drowning in a sea of economic pain. The rising tides of housing and inflation threaten to drown them as older Canadians, safely aboard sturdy boats bought decades ago, mostly float on by. In such circumstances, the only lifesaver is a relatively stable, and occasionally even healthy, job market. Now that’s gone, too...
Do the federal Conservatives have a problem with women? All signs point to yes — but not in the way many progressive voters think. It’s not that they’re afraid of strong women. Rather, it’s that they can’t seem to figure out how to talk to female voters. Throughout the recent election campaign, Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives had perilously low support from...
“Massive challenges.” That is how federal NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh recently described his what his party is facing in this election. To say he’s sugar-coating the situation would be too generous — you’d have to move mountains of the sweet stuff to get from Singh’s statement to the truth of the matter. The NDP faces electoral oblivion. The most recent...
On November 17-18, 2023, the Canada Strong & Free Network hosted its annual regional conference in Red Deer, Alberta. As part of the programme, The Hub’s editor-at-large, Sean Speer, moderated a panel discussion with Sabrina Maddeaux, a former columnist for the National Post, and Ginny Roth, a Hub contributor and the national practice lead for government relations at Crestview Strategy...
Heather Stefanson ignored pressing issues and failed to take advantage of the conservative moment. It’s somewhat comforting that, in the age of big data and laser-focused analytics, political campaigns can still go so disastrously haywire. The quest to govern is still influenced by ungovernable human factors from charisma, to hubris, to reading the room so
