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 Scott Stinson.
The room at the Oak Ridges Community Centre is full for a weeknight local candidates forum. Staff from the Richmond Hill Board of Trade bring in extra chairs, but some residents remaining standing at the back of the room. At the front are three tables for the participants. Two placards are notably absent, for Costas Menegakis, the Conservative candidate for...
Mark Carney must know, from his hockey-playing days, the uncomfortable feeling of nursing a lead while the clock winds down. It always goes slower than you’d like. But instead of watching the minutes and seconds tick by on an arena scoreboard, Carney has two-plus weeks to steer the Liberals toward what, three months ago, would’ve seemed like an unthinkable victory...
Within the space of an hour or so on Wednesday afternoon, the baffling incoherence of Donald Trump’s tariff scheme — because it cannot properly be called a strategy — was laid bare. The U.S. President posted on his social-media site that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had called to ask “what could be done about Tariffs. I told him that many...
Doug Ford’s stated reason for calling an election more than a year early is plainly ridiculous. The premier no more needs a new mandate to deal with the threat of U.S. tariffs than he has needed one to implement any number of policy positions in recent years, from transit to housing to alcohol sales to sending out $200 cheques to...
Federal environment minister Steven Guilbeault posted a video over the weekend in which he was skating on the Rideau Canal. “One of the reasons we are fighting climate change,” he says, “is to protect iconic places” like the Ottawa landmark.
In the spring of 2013, Justin Trudeau, then newly elected as leader of the federal Liberals, gave a speech at a downtown Toronto hotel, comically heavy on bromides and platitudes. In what would become his signature style of oratory, he made sweeping generalizations that lacked specific evidence. Canadians had a unique tendency toward hope and progress and hard work, he...
Give Bonnie Crombie points for honesty. In an interview with the Star’s Rob Ferguson to mark the one-year anniversary of her victory in the Ontario Liberal leadership race, the former Mississauga mayor said she thought the new job “would be easier.”
Canadians owe Chrystia Freeland a debt of gratitude. Not because of a noble sacrifice or a selfless act — she didn’t resign as finance minister until after Justin Trudeau told her he wanted to demote her — but because her spectacular exit from the federal cabinet made clear that no one in this Liberal government is free from the Prime...
Calgary removed fluoride from its water supply in 2011. Rates of childhood tooth decay increased sharply. Calgarians voted to bring fluoridation back in 2021, and the renewed system is expected to be in place by 2025. It seems wrong to call Calgary’s experience a cautionary tale. “Cautionary tale” implies an unintended, negative consequence. That the collective dental health of Calgarians...
For his next foray into bilateral relations, Donald Trump has many clever options. He could hold his palm out for a handshake with Justin Trudeau, then pull it back and run it through his hair. Psych! He could go with the old pull-my-finger trick. A timeless classic. He could announce, in a late-night post on his Truth Social platform, a...
It will forever be a weird fact of American history that Joe Biden and the Democrats, having successfully defeated Donald Trump in an election, then treated him with a deference and respect that he never once granted them. They were cautious and careful about investigating his many alleged crimes, acting with near reluctance to acknowledge Trump’s flagrant disregard for the...
It will forever be a weird fact of American history that Joe Biden and the Democrats, having successfully defeated Donald Trump in an election, then treated him with a deference and respect that he never once granted them. They were cautious and careful about investigating his many alleged crimes, acting with near reluctance to acknowledge Trump’s flagrant disregard for the...
It was often said during the presidential election campaign that Donald Trump’s plan to slap heavy tariffs on imports from its neighbours Canada and Mexico suggested an understanding of economics that wouldn’t have passed a first-year university course. I don’t think this is quite true. It wouldn’t pass a high-school economics course. This isn’t advanced economic theory. It’s b...
Theories abound for why Doug Ford is charging toward an early election like a tween toward Taylor Swift tickets. Or anyone toward Taylor Swift tickets, really. The Ontario Premier wants to ensure he can seek a new mandate while the unpopular Justin Trudeau remains in Ottawa. Or he wants to avoid doing so once Pierre Poilievre has replaced him. Maybe...
Quick, someone tell Doug Ford: Now’s your chance to secure federal billions for a tunnel under Highway 401. I kid, I kid. But it is hard not to escape the extremely Fordian air of the emergency policies announced on Thursday afternoon by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. A $250 one-time vote-buying cheque? Liberals were mocking the Ontario Premier’s plan for $20...
As the results rolled in on Tuesday night and it became clear that the United States was moving back toward Donald Trump, I thought about Doug Ford and bike lanes. The Ontario premier has moved with great haste to implement a quasi-ban on the construction of new bike lanes in the province, and in the city of Toronto he has...
If the federal carbon tax is not yet dead, it has suffered a mortal wound. Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives, enjoying a 20-point lead in the polls, have a kid-on-Christmas-morning enthusiasm for repealing it as their first order of business. The Tory position is hardly new, but last Thursday federal NDP leader Jagmeet Singh signalled his intention to disavow the carbon tax...
A curious thing that has developed in these unusual times, when a convicted felon can romp to the top of the Republican ticket, is that “outsider” politicians have embraced the idea that “shock” is always a good thing, no matter how shocking, or humiliating, their own behaviour might be. That is the only plausible explanation I can muster for how...
Donald Trump is said to be good friends with Greg Norman, the former professional golfer. Norman, now the frontman of LIV Golf, the Saudi-backed breakaway league that Trump has embraced because the PGA Tour turned its back on him, had a fine career. He was also, infamously, a terrible closer.