Oil prices drop, Iran war uncertainty, Mark Carney's majority and what it means for Pierre Poilievre...

Plus, talking steak and maple syrup with The Food Professor.

If you watch Fox News then everything is going great in the American war against Iran. If you watch any other North American media outlet, especially CNN or our own CBC then nothing is going right in the war.

The truth lies somewhere in the middle, but in a sign that something is moving in the right direction - at least according to the markets - the price of oil has dropped.

A week ago West Texas Intermediate was trading at $112.95, today as I write it sits at $91.66 a drop of $21,29 a barrel or a 19% cut in a week. Of course, that is still much higher than the $57 a barrel we started the year with, but it a clear sign the markets see something moving in the right direction.

Mark Carney has his majority, what does this mean for Pierre Poilievre…

I’ve written a couple of pieces for the Toronto Sun on Mark Carney getting his majority government including this piece where I look at what Carney will do with his majority. Carney’s Liberals are a party with such a big tent now that the tent has no walls and they don’t know what they stand for.

As I point out in my column, the Liberals who passed a law protecting kids changing their gender at 12 or 13 have now decided that kids under 16 shouldn’t have any social media account.

Make that make sense.

My Sun colleague Lorne Gunter takes a look at what Carney’s game plan will be.

Are the Conservatives in trouble…

Don’t dismiss the idea that there will be more floor crossers. I’ve dismissed this idea in the past after hearing claims that didn’t appear to come true.

Of course, now those claims have come true. Which makes me believe that the current claims of the Liberals looking to bring over 7-8 more Conservative MPs is worth paying attention to.

For this column, I spent days reaching out to MPs and insiders in both parties. What’s fascinating is the Conservatives know the Liberals are trying to recruit their members, they don’t deny it and even have noticed patterns.

As I detail in the piece that is worth reading, the Liberals are offering special advisory roles, hinting at cabinet posts, even floating the idea of judicial appointments.

An “expert” who opposes prison comments on prison…

If you are an academic activist who doesn’t believe prisons should even exist should you be one of the media’s go to experts on prisons?

Probably not.

Justin Piché is a prof in the criminology department at the University of Ottawa. Asking a criminologist who studies prisons for comment on the government’s prison policy sounds like a good idea and normally would be.

The problem with Piché is that he’s an activist as much as an academic and he doesn’t believe that prisons should exist. Your eyes will roll if you read his comments that I quote extensively in my column on the issue.

Talking food with The Food Professor…

I always love talking to Sylvain Charlebois, AKA The Food Professor. We’ve been chatting for years going back to my days at 580 CFRA in Ottawa.

In this chat we talk about fake maple syrup, bringing South American beef into Canada and the government buying your groceries for you.