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Pierre Poilievre is nothing if not smooth.
He’s not perfect, he does make slip-ups, but he’s pretty good on the stump. I hadn’t seen him give a speech in person since he was elected Conservative leader last year, but I had my chance this spring. I was the keynote speaker at a convention for Canada’s Building Trades Unions in Ottawa. Poilievre was speaking in the morning and even though my speech wasn’t until after lunch, I got there early and sat in the back of the room to listen.
The guy can hold a crowd and that day he did so by telling plumbers and joiners and roofers how he much prefers to talk to those who really do the work rather than those who sit in the boardrooms. Man of the people, that seven-term MP Pierre. It went over well and many in the room felt that he was sincere, and he did that by connecting through stories about housing, inflation, and the high cost of living.
So, it was interesting as December began to see how the man who wants to be PM would handle a room full of CEO’s.
Andrew Willis was watching for The Globe in Toronto:
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Pierre Poilievre gets down to business with a Bay Street he disdains
Be honest: do you understand the carbon tax?
Do you know how much you pay each year? Do the rebates you receive from Ottawa match that? What impact would Poilievre’s Axe the Tax promise have on your bottom line?
Well, if you know all the answers to those questions then skip ahead to the next story. But my bet is you probably don’t and that you might benefit from this piece by the CBC’s Robin Fletcher:
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If Canada axed its carbon tax — and rebates — this is how different households would gain or lose
Want more on Canadian politics this weekend? Check-in with me, Chantal Hebert and Bruce Anderson on Good Talk. You’ll find the link each week on National Newswatch.
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Modernizing Canada’s Broadcasting Framework
The CRTC is preparing to modernize Canada’s broadcasting system. Canadians’ views on public policy priorities have changed with the times. The Motion Picture Association – Canada commissioned a national study and found people see and value what global studios and streaming services contribute to Canada’s creative economy, including a new world of opportunity for Canadian creative workers.
For the past ten days, I’ve been travelling the country on a tour for my new book (co-authored with Mark Bulgutch) How Canada Works.
I’ve been doing lots of interviews and Q-and-A sessions with audiences in cities and towns from Halifax to Calgary.
Calgary Central Library on Thursday night.
It’s been a great experience and I’ve particularly enjoyed the frequent questions about journalism and its relationship with the people it serves. Many of those deal with trust.
Do you trust the media? Well, you must trust it a little bit or you wouldn’t be reading this newsletter, right? But generally, we probably agree that trust in the media has dropped over the last twenty years or so. Lots of blame to go around, from social media, sloppy reporting, cutbacks in staff and resources, and of course the art of the lie by some of the people journalists cover. But do we overstate this ‘precipitous’ drop in trust for the fourth estate? Tom Rosensteil and Mariana Meza Hernandez think so, and do a deep dive opinion piece in the Washington Post to defend their position:
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Actually, people don’t hate the media as much as you think
Perhaps it’s because I used to work for an airline that I’m so often defensive of them.
Once when I was a passenger agent for the long-defunct airline Transair in northern Manitoba, I faced the wrath of a seat-holder on a DC4 flight from Churchill to Winnipeg. In those days we would often oversell because it was common to have no-shows and last-minute cancellations. Not this day. Which meant that some were not going to make it on that flight and would be put on the next one – the following Monday.
I was working the counter and the guy in front of me was, well, pissed. He wanted his seat and he wanted it now. He went right over to the single payphone on the wall, dumped a bunch of quarters in the coin slot and got through to the executive offices in Winnipeg. He demanded to speak to the President and damn if he didn’t get him on the line. He yelled at him demanding a fix, which he got a few minutes later. We were instructed to take a DC3, typically used for cargo, out of the hangar and have one of our crews fly it to Winnipeg. We stuffed the plane with freight, put our upset passenger in one of the seats we’d just installed, and off they went.
Those were the days when the customer truly was always right. Now it’s hard to get any sympathy even when you ask if you can have a second tiny bag of peanuts as your meal on a two-and-a-half-hour flight.
As I mentioned, I’ve been hopping around the country this week, flying with three different airlines. I’ll leave aside the issue of winter travel in Canada – delays and cancellations are normal, and I experienced both this week. Beyond that, Air Canada seems to have either cut back or abandoned many domestic routes in place of international ones with higher ticket prices. Picking up the slack are airlines like Porter which is convenient, especially because it flies out of the downtown island airport in Toronto, but the planes are cramped, uncomfortable, and bouncy. I’m writing this on a Porter flight where my laptop is perched, shakily, on a tiny pull-out tray the size of a cocktail napkin. And then there’s WestJet, whose calling card in the air is to sound cool: ‘‘Welcome to the skyway highway everyone.”
I’m told all these changes plus record passenger traffic are giving airlines solid profits after some disastrous years during the pandemic. But there are rumblings in the industry including some disturbing stories about flight attendants quitting because of out-of-control passengers and, in the US, a plethora of burned-out air traffic controllers, described here by Emily Steel and Sydney Ember of the New York Times:
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Drunk and Asleep on the Job: Air Traffic Controllers Pushed to the Brink
Can the twice impeached, four times indicted, found liable as a rapist, disgraced, and defeated former President of the United States actually regain office with all that hanging over his combover?
You betcha. At least a growing number of top analysts and commentators think so and, despite many being Republicans, are ringing the “looming end of democracy” alarm bell.
It's not surprising that Liz Cheney is among those who claim that if Trump wins, he won't leave office. David Frum, Bush's former speechwriter and a Canadian, also echoes the dictator line, as do many of Trump's former cabinet ministers and staffers. And of course, there are Democrats eager to jump into the gloomy predictions of doom as well.
I was at a small one-table dinner party with Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of the Atlantic, shortly after the 2020 Biden victory. Even then he was saying Trump would be back and would likely win the Republican nomination. Today he’s worried about where things are heading and told CNN this week “I refuse to participate in the normalization of Donald Trump.” And in this piece in The Atlantic’s opening issue of 2024, he sure doesn’t:
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A Warning
Two more weeks before we get to the holidays. Enjoy the weekend. We’ll be here again in seven days.
The Buzz is a weekly publication from National Newswatch that shares insights and commentary on the week’s developments in politics, news and current affairs.