Welcome to another weekend of The Buzz. Sit back and enjoy.
Occasionally, I get letters to The Buzz or to my podcast, The Bridge, which suggest I spend too much time on Ontario stories and not enough time on stories that matter to the West and to the East. I understand that, to a point. After all, I used to live in the West, and I remember all too well that feeling of the central Canadian bias.
Here at The Buzz, I try to reflect a broader range in the stories I select.
However, let me make this point. Ottawa-based stories are not Ontario-based stories in the sense the stories I select coming out of Parliament Hill are national stories. They reflect MPs from all over the country and they deal with issues that affect us all. And let’s face it, the majority of stories The Buzz covers usually have an Ottawa angle to them.
Like this one. It centres around an up-and-down week for a Member from British Columbia, the leader of the NDP, Jagmeet Singh.
His party held on to one seat and did well in the other two byelections this week. But Singh returned to Parliament and was welcomed by an outdoor, abuse-filled shouting match with a protestor as security officers stood nearby but did nothing. Then inside, a few days later, he gets in an equally abusive exchange with the Conservative leader where at one point, Singh is said by witnesses to have moved out of his seat, closer to Pierre Poilievre, and said “I’m right here, bro” which sounds awfully like an invite to confront more than just verbally.
All in all, this was not a good week for the centre of Canadian politics. It looked more like a bunch of school kids arguing over access to a games room. But no, it was the country’s leaders, all of them, who want us to believe they are the same people who can responsibly, maturely and successfully manage the country’s complex affairs.
So where did all that leave us? Darren Major of the CBC tried to sort it out:
'I'm right here, bro': Singh, Poilievre have tense exchange during question period
Read >
And where was Justin Trudeau through all that?
He was there and he was taking his verbal shots too, but his problems run much deeper than arguing with Singh and Poilievre. For one observer anyway, Lawrence Martin of the Globe, he has had enough:
The Liberals would do better if they replace their dead man walking 🔒
Read >
More on all this during this week’s Good Talk, the YouTube edition, which is available through nationalnewswatch.com. Bruce Anderson and Chantal Hebert have their thoughts on where all this is going.
Next, the answer to a much more substantive question that’s often asked by many of you: if Pierre Poilievre wins the next election, how do we know what he and his party really stand for?
People ask that question because they truly believe that neither he nor his party have given any real details about what they would do if they were given power. To some degree that’s true, but one could also argue that we are being a bit lazy in doing the research for the answer.
Not so Walrus magazine, who this week came out with a wide-ranging article that tackles that question and gives answers.
The bottom line is this: until Pierre Poilievre gives detailed answers, this may be the best look at just what his policies are. The article is broken into sections and will take some time to read, so be patient. Maybe stretch it over different parts of the weekend. It’s a clip and save for sure.
Carmine Starnino of the Walrus sets it all up:
If Pierre Poilievre Wins
Read >
The deadly new use of tech by Israel had us all talking this week and for good reason.
When you can remotely blow up pagers and walkie-talkies to attack your enemy, you’ve turned a new corner.
But something else happened this week that may have even greater consequences but received little attention. If you remember before October 7th, Israel was said to be on the verge of a game-changing deal with Saudi Arabia. Iran was so concerned about the impact that would have, that it’s said Iran pushed Hamas to launch their terrorist attack. That’s led to an almost yearlong impasse in the Middle East.
So, what happened this week? Saudi Arabia said any deal with Israel is off until Israel agrees to something Benjamin Netanyahu says he will never do – Palestinian statehood.
This from Reuters:
Saudi Arabia will not recognise Israel without Palestinian state, says Crown Prince
Read >
Donald Trump has added yet another strange misspeak to what appears to be an ever-growing list of misspeaks, ramblings and blunders on the campaign trail.
The other day, he referred to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska as Bagram, the US Air Force base in Afghanistan, which he closed down in the last year of his presidency. And he did it more than once.
Now if it was just a one-off, so be it. But it now seems Trump ends up with big mistakes and outright lies in every appearance. The question is, are journalists giving Trump a pass they never did for Joe Biden, where there was a constant string of stories about mental acuity and wondering whether it was time to wheel him off the presidential stage? Eventually, he and/or his own party did just that, but what about Trump? It’s led to the use of the phrase “sanewashing.”
So, what to do and how to report this stuff? Kelly McBride has some answers in The Poynter:
How to avoid sanewashing Trump (and other politicians)
Read >
Canadians can be contradictory at times about their health care system.
On the one hand, they see lots to improve, constantly ranking health care at or near the top of the list of issues facing the country. Yet at the same time, many Canadians list our universal health care system as one of the things that sets us apart from other countries, like the US, who don’t have such a system.
Given that as the background, one of my podcast listeners, Gary Fuhrmann of Kelowna, BC, spotted this new research paper from the Commonwealth Fund, which looked into healthcare systems in ten different countries. Canada is not among the top three. Check it out:
Mirror, Mirror 2024: A Portrait of the Failing U.S. Health System
Read >
Now to this week’s story that you won’t forget.
It’s about dogs, but you don’t have to be a dog owner or a dog lover to be amazed at this one.
Have you ever stared into a dog’s eyes and wondered what the dog was thinking? Prepare to learn something that will surprise you. This from one of my favourite websites, studyfinds.org.
Something amazing happens when humans stare into a dog’s eyes
Read >
‘Tis the season where you tend to look skyward and watch as birds form in migratory groups to fly south.
It is an amazing sight and one we have always assumed was all about birds looking for warmer climates. Apparently not, according to dnyuz.com:
Study Reveals Bird-Migration Mystery
Read >
That’s going to wrap it up for the Buzz for this week.
See you 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.