Ben Mulroney on his secret run for office...

Plus, the poll Poilievre needs to worry about, why our economy isn't doing great and dudes in the WNBA.

The problem with taking vacation, as I recently did, barely writing anything for 12 days, is that you come back to work with 1 million ideas. Don’t get me wrong, not writing or thinking about politics for 12 day was great - though not easy for a workaholic like me.

There were times when I just wanted to jump in and say something, and aside from a few tweets - and my pre-recorded and scheduled videos that I produced before I left - I resisted the urge. Even on the flight home, when I realized that I would have to pay for wifi, I declined to because doing so would mean I would have to justify it by working and writing.

Don’t get me wrong, I love what I do and I am blessed to do it, but everyone needs a break to recharge. And if you can’t tell, I’ve been recharged and have lots to say.

Ben Mulroney’s secret plan to run for Conservative leader…

I don’t know if you’ve heard, but Ben Mulroney wants to be leader of the Conservative Party of Canada. Sure, he’s denied it, sure his family has been tight with Pierre Poilievre and helped raise lots of money for him.

But…

If you have the kind of knowledge that only the gnostics do and you can read secret meanings into tweets, then clearly Ben is running.

He’s not, but that didn’t stop me from teasing him as we chatted about politics today.

Is the WNBA a league for women or people who say they are women…

I’m looking forward to watching Caitlin Clark and Sophie Cunningham of the Indiana Fever play against the Toronto Tempo when they come to town next week. No, the WNBA is not the NBA, but that doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy women’ sports and the WNBA has a quality product that of late is drawing a lot of controversy.

We can look to the flagrant fouls committed against Clark and Cunningham, or we can look to the fact that the WNBA can’t define what a woman is.

That is the topic of my latest column for the Toronto Sun.

Don’t expect this discussion to end there though, because in Canada, we have sporting groups like Skate Canada taking tough political stands on this issue. After Alberta passed their Fairness and Safety in Sport Act last year, Skate Canada said they would not host events in the province, because they don’t believe in protecting women’s sports for women.

I’ve asked them for comment for two days in a row now and not had a reply. Will see if one is coming soon or if they are just going to ignore me.

Oh, and while Skate Canada won’t host events in Alberta due to their very reasonable legislation, I haven’t seen Skate Canada say they will boycott the Olympics where men in women’s sports is now banned.

The troubling poll numbers for Poilievre…

If you support the Conservatives and Pierre Poilievre, ignore the rash of summer polls that are all over the map. This isn’t me saying polls aren’t to be trusted, I do trust polls from reputable firms using reputable methods - watch who I cite and who I don’t.

But right now we are in the middle of summer and in the past two weeks we’ve seen polls showing a Liberal lead of four points and a Liberal lead of 20 points and everything in between.

That’s crazy.

There is one poll that I was writing about today in the Sun that Conservatives should be concerned about. It’s all on who Canadians can trust on certain issues and unfortunately, at this point, Carney is beating Poilievre.

As my colleagues at National Post put it when they first reported on this, it’s about vibes, not policy.

You can read the column here or watch the video below.

Everything is awesome in Canada, right…

Eric Kam is a gift to Canada that more people need to experience. He’s a professor of economics at Toronto Metropolitan University, the place most of us still call Ryerson.

He’s also pretty blunt when it comes to speaking out about the economy.

Last week, we saw what are still weak unemployment numbers come out from Stats Canada and Official Canada jumped up and down like it was the best thing ever. We added more jobs that the Americans, we are stronger than the Americans, we are awesome.

Except, did you know that our jobless rate is still much higher than the United States? That’s even after altering our measurements to the American view of the statistic.

We love to tell ourselves sweet little lies about how we are doing.

Dr. Eric Kam isn’t having any of that. Enjoy our chat.