The ad controversy that won't go away and Poilievre's moral clarity and budget blues...
Plus having a laugh when politics breaks your heart.
Can we please stop talking about Doug Ford’s ad?
I’ve written far too much on this commercial that never should have been controversial and it seems the story keeps marching on.
On Saturday, Mark Carney revived the story by finally commenting on the ad once again after days of refusing to even admit if he had ever seen it. From my weekend column in the Toronto Sun.
“I did apologize to the president,” Carney said. “The president was offended by the ad, and it’s not something I would have done, which is to put in place that advertisement, and so I apologized to him.”
Carney then tried to exert his prime ministerial power.
“I’m the one who is responsible, in my role as prime minister, for the relationship with the president of the United States and the federal government is responsible for the foreign relationship with the US government,” Carney said.
Asked if he told Ford that he shouldn’t run the ad, Carney’s one word response was, “Yes.” He then said we all saw the fallout from the ad and what happened.
As I go on and explain in the column, please give it a read, this stance made Carney look weak.
Why the silence and then the claim that he told Ford not to run it. I expressed my doubts about it at the time and now it appears that I was right.
Ford was peppered with questions by reporters on Monday about whether Carney had asked him not to run the ad.
I’ve got another column on this front dissecting all of this and what the U.S. Supreme Court may do on Wednesday - hint, they won’t strike down all the tariffs - and what Ford was saying about the apology to Trump.
Ford refused to answer deeper questions about his conversations with Carney and his staff weren’t talking saying they don’t want a fight with Carney and his team, they just want this to be over.
Hopefully it is over now.
A special thank you…
The first written post just for paid subscribers went up last night. It was a deep dive on media bias in the country based on my years of experience.
Lots of new people signing up, so thank you all.
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The moral clarity of Pierre Poilievre…
I wrote about that crazy decision by the Supreme Court last week that struck down the one-year mandatory minimum sentence for anyone convicted of possession of child pornography. If you haven’t read it yet, I go into detail about why the decision was so bad, decided not based on the cases before the court but on a made up case chosen by the judges.
In Friday’s newsletter, I gave more detail about what these so-called “reasonable hypotheticals” are and how the courts are abusing them. There will be more to come on that later.
What I was happy to see was that politicians from Alberta Premier Danielle Smith to Ontario Premier Doug Ford and federal Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre speak out against the ruling. Often politicians are afraid to speak against horrible court rulings, but this one had all three calling for the notwithstanding clause to be used to overrule the judges.
Poilievre was truly impressive with his moral clarity when asked about this by the media.
He even defended his position in the belly of the beast during an interview on CBC with Rosemary Barton.
Well done Pierre, I wish all politicians had that moral clarity.
Will Tuesday’s budget deliver…
All eyes will be on Ottawa on Tuesday afternoon for the first budget of the Carney government.
Why does this matter?
Because as Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem said last week, if we don’t change things we will end up with a lower standard of living. As I explained last week, that means the federal government needs to make changes in regulations and the investment climate in order to boost the economy.
Today I gave the Carney government some free advice on tax changes they could make to boost the Canadian economy. It is sure to be a controversial list of five tax changes.
They won’t listen or implement the ideas, but they should.
When politics breaks your heart…
Mark Leiren-Young is a bit of a heartbroken progressive but he’s written a funny new book about his time with the NDP and then the Greens. In Greener Than Thou: Surviving the Toxic Sludge of Canadian Ecopolitics, Mark gives an inside look into both parties that will leaving you laughing.
Had a chance to speak with Mark on the Full Comment Podcast this week, hope you enjoy it.
I watched Poilievre’s interview with Rosemary Barton of the Carney Broadcasting Corporation last night and first of all I will give him credit for going on there. I think be held his own despite her constantly interrupting him when he was in the middle of making a statement so she could defend or make excuses for the Liberals. Poilievre deftly handled the whole thing very well and over the budget question he did a remarkable job. I loved when she pressured him about why he will support a $ 41 billion deficit only - when in the past he was totally against deficits amounts of half that His reply was priceless - he said usually governments traditionally present a budget at the beginning of the year and we can measure their progress as the year goes on and they can adjust throughout the year to stay on track. However since this government did not present a budget this year and the year is 3/4 of the way over - the money has already been spent - what choice do we have but to support the number Carney promised during the election that the deficit would be - $ 41 billion. BAM. That shut her up quick and she decided to pivot to the issue the CBC has been trying to play up for awhile - the Leadership review - a non topic if there ever was one. Who in the Conservative Party is looking to challenge Poilievre right now ? Who has made their intentions known that they will run against him ? The only ones talking about discontent in the Conservative Party are “unnamed sources”. In other words - the Liberal party themselves, whipping up some discourse. Barton even got put in her place on that one when she stated that the last 2 election leader for the Conservatives was Steven Harper. Poilievre’s response to that was great “and look how well that worked out”. Perfect,
Conservatives hold the high ground.
Time to attack.