As expected, the Coalition Avenir Québec won a big majority government in Monday’s provincial election. But it was only expected because of the polls — because the polls turned out to be right. The polling firm that has one of the best track records over the last few years has been Léger, with near-perfect calls not only in the Quebec election but in the Ontario election in June and the last two federal campaigns , too. To explain how Léger conducts its polls, I’m joined on The Writ Podcast by C...
Oct 07, 2022•34 min
François Legault and the Coalition Avenir Québec started the 2022 Quebec election campaign with a big lead in the polls. And that’s where they are ending it — despite themselves. But while another CAQ majority looks very likely, the campaign hasn’t answered perhaps the biggest question we had when it began — are Quebec’s politics in the midst of a re-alignment as the Conservatives and Québec Solidaire rise and the Liberals and the Parti Québécois fade away? To discuss what each of the parties ca...
Oct 01, 2022•52 min
The 2021 federal election is one the Greens would like to forget, as the party failed to run a full slate of candidates and captured only two seats and 2.3% of the vote. It was a disastrous showing that followed months of internal turmoil. Now the Greens are trying to find a replacement for former leader Annamie Paul — and haven’t seemed to put their internal divisions behind them. The low-key leadership race features a lot of new faces, one familiar face in former leader Elizabeth May and a con...
Sep 23, 2022•31 min
Pierre Poilievre won the Conservative leadership race with more support on the first ballot than any previous leadership candidate for the Conservative Party or its predecessors. It was a big win. His first week, though, did not go so smoothly after one Quebec MP, Alain Rayes, quit caucus, citing Poilievre’s tone and style of politics as the reason. That the party had to subsequently apologize for text messages sent to party members in Rayes’s riding asking them to call his office to voice their...
Sep 16, 2022•44 min
The Conservative leadership race will be finally coming to a close on Saturday when the winner will be announced in Ottawa. The safe bet is that Pierre Poilievre will win — perhaps even on the first ballot. But what will the results mean not only for the consensus front runner, but for Jean Charest, Leslyn Lewis, Roman Baber and Scott Aitchison? Does it matter if Poilievre wins on the first ballot? What’s next for Charest should he lose? What will the results mean for Lewis and the social conser...
Sep 08, 2022•41 min
On Sunday, François Legault officially kicked off his re-election campaign in Quebec. Voters will be going to the polls on October 3 in an election that is Legault’s to lose. But despite his party’s big lead in the polls, there’s still a lot at stake in this election campaign. The Coalition Avenir Québec needs to avoid any mistakes that could get in the way of a victory while the old governing parties, the Liberals and Parti Québécois, need to avoid catastrophe. Québec Solidaire and the Conserva...
Sep 02, 2022•34 min
The next few weeks are going to be pretty important ones for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his Liberal government. The Conservative Party is about to name a new leader in (probably) Pierre Poilievre, who could turn out to be the most formidable political opponent Trudeau has faced since Stephen Harper. Parliament is about to return to work in the House of Commons as the Liberals continue their balancing act of keeping their minority government afloat with the support of Jagmeet Singh and the...
Aug 26, 2022•32 min
This week on The Writ Podcast , I’m handing the hosting job over to you and answering your questions! Earlier this week, I reached out to founding members of The Writ and other subscribers who have been supporting me since Day 1 to solicit questions about politics — federal, provincial and municipal. I received some great ones and I’ve tried to answer them all. When I couldn’t, I’ve asked some special guests to join me. Here’s a sampling of some of the questions tackled in this episode: - What’s...
Aug 19, 2022•53 min
This year is turning out to be one of great change in British Columbia politics. In power since 2017, Premier John Horgan announced at the end of June that he would be stepping down. His replacement will be named in December. On the opposition benches, the B.C. Liberals not only named Kevin Falcon their new leader in February, they might also find a new name, too. It means when the next election in the province occurs in 2024 (or earlier), the political landscape in B.C. will be very different f...
Aug 12, 2022•30 min
It’s a tale of two leadership races. The Conservatives look likely to settle on Pierre Poilievre as their next leader based on newly-published fundraising figures . While he’s been around the party for his entire adult life, he will nevertheless take the Conservatives in a new direction — and apparently fill the party coffers in the process. The Greens, on the other hand, might just head in reverse. After resigning as leader of the party in 2019, Elizabeth May is considering a return to the part...
Aug 05, 2022•37 min
When the Wildrose and Progressive Conservative parties merged to form the United Conservative Party of Alberta, it was always going to be an open question whether the new entity could remain as united as its name suggested. The rise of the right-wing, populist Wildrose Party was a reaction to the growing anger and fatigue with the PCs, who governed Alberta for an uninterrupted period stretching from 1971 to 2015. But after the PCs were booted from office, the two rival parties became aligned in ...
Jul 29, 2022•30 min
Politics doesn’t take a summer vacation. In the Conservative leadership race, Pierre Poilievre seems to be cruising toward a victory in September but Jean Charest isn’t throwing in the towel just yet. What will the results mean for the future of the party? For the Liberals, the summer hasn’t been going great. From passports to airports and Ukraine, various problems keep dogging the government. Will this just be a summer Justin Trudeau will want to forget or the first signs of serious trouble? Th...
Jul 22, 2022•43 min
Don’t adjust your podcast player — The Writ Podcast is coming to you in French! When Philippe J. Fournier joined me for our chat about the Quebec election last week, I thought we’d test out a shorter podcast in French to see if there is any interest. If you don’t speak French, don’t worry, we covered the same territory in English in Friday’s episode. The Writ will be back to its regularly scheduled English-language programming later this week. La campagne électorale au Québec sera officiellement...
Jul 18, 2022•18 min
In less than two months, Quebec’s election campaign will officially be underway. While the polls suggest that François Legault’s Coalition Avenir Québec is on track for a big majority victory, there are still some big questions that have to be answered when voters cast their ballots on October 3. First among these is whether or not the CAQ can cruise to a win. Does the party have any vulnerabilities that could trip it up between now and election day? Can the Quebec Conservatives finally make a b...
Jul 15, 2022•39 min
With the disqualification of Patrick Brown from the Conservative leadership race being a fast-paced and developing story, I decided to post this week’s episode of The Writ Podcast as soon as it was ready to go rather than wait until Friday morning. And what a story it is. Late on Tuesday night, Patrick Brown was booted from the Conservative leadership contest for his campaign’s alleged breaking of the rules that govern political financing. Brown denies the allegations and puts the blame on Pierr...
Jul 07, 2022•36 min
Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservatives made a big play for labour support in the Ontario election. And it appears to have paid off. The PCs were able to win seats away from the New Democrats in places like Windsor, Hamilton and northern Ontario, regions the NDP has traditionally been able to count on from one election to the next. The PCs also received a series of labour endorsements, setting off a narrative of a fracturing of labour support for the New Democrats as the PCs make inroads into a ne...
Jun 24, 2022•30 min
Voters in two ridings in New Brunswick are heading to the polls on Monday in a byelection that will kick-off a busy political summer in the province. Miramichi Bay–Neguac and Southwest Miramichi–Bay du Vin were vacated last year when their two MLAs, one a Liberal, the other a Progressive Conservative, quit provincial politics to take a run at federal office. As a result, these two neighbouring ridings will test the political waters in New Brunswick two years into Premier Blaine Higgs’s majority ...
Jun 17, 2022•33 min
With the deadline for eligibility now gone, it’s time for the Conservative leadership contestants to start converting members, both old and new, into voting supporters. But with a pool of more than 600,000 members, this race has suddenly gotten much, much bigger than it has ever been before. Though, with Pierre Poilievre’s campaign claiming half of those members, is there much of a race left to run? Do Patrick Brown and Jean Charest still have a path to victory? And what role could Leslyn Lewis ...
Jun 10, 2022•44 min
With just a few days to go before voting day in Ontario’s election, friend-of-the-show Philippe J. Fournier of 338Canada.com is back to join me in a provincial tour of the battlegrounds and ridings to watch on Thursday night. Will Steven Del Duca’s Liberals or Andrea Horwath’s New Democrats emerge as the official opposition? Can Mike Schreiner’s Greens win that coveted second seat? And is there anything that could get in the way of Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservatives winning the majority gover...
May 31, 2022•53 min
The Conservatives met in Laval, Quebec on Wednesday for the final debate before the June 3rd leadership cut-off. With the debate taking place entirely in French, and three of the candidates doing no more than reading from prepared notes, it was really a contest between Pierre Poilievre, Jean Charest and Patrick Brown. Or, to be more accurate, between Poilievre and a tag-team of Charest and Brown. The Writ is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becom...
May 27, 2022•28 min
With less than two weeks to go before election day in Ontario, David Coletto of Abacus Data and Sabrina Nanji of Queen’s Park Observer are back to discuss the latest on the campaign trail, including the impact of Andrea Horwath and Mike Schreiner testing positive for COVID-19, what to make of Steven Del Duca’s chances of winning his own riding and why Doug Ford is running such a low-key campaign. David also gives us a sneak peek at some exclusive polling on who won — or didn’t win — Monday’s lea...
May 20, 2022•37 min
It wasn’t the nasty affair that we saw last week, but Wednesday’s Conservative leadership debate still had its moments — and sound effects! It was like a game show, and like a game show there will only be one winner. Pierre Poilievre entered the debate as the front runner, chased by the likes of Jean Charest, Patrick Brown and Leslyn Lewis. Unlike the first debate, though, this was not a head-to-head match between Poilievre and Charest. Instead, there were entire stretches of the debate in which...
May 13, 2022•48 min
The writs have been dropped (hey, you don’t know, someone might have plopped them on a table) and the Ontario election is off and running, with voters casting their ballots on June 2. Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservatives are looking to be re-elected with a majority government and are ahead in the polls, chased by Steven Del Duca’s Liberals and, in third, Andrea Horwath’s New Democrats. The Writ is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free...
May 06, 2022•32 min
When 5 PM rolls around, we’ll know who is going to be on the ballot in the Conservative leadership race. That’s the deadline for candidates to submit 500 signatures from members spread across the country, a $200,000 entry fee and a $100,000 compliance deposit. It’s not a threshold that weeds out any serious contender, but it can be too much for those who, let’s face it, don’t have a real shot. In the end, this contest is probably going to come down to one of the four main contenders: Pierre Poil...
Apr 29, 2022•35 min
A big and important vote is taking place on Sunday, as the second round of the French presidential election will be decided between Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen. The polls give Macron the edge, but his advantage over the right-wing Le Pen has shrunk since they last faced-off against one another in 2017. What’s behind this closer race, and what could a victory by either Macron or Le Pen mean for France, Europe and the rest of the world? The Writ is a reader-supported publication. To receive ...
Apr 22, 2022•30 min
Last week’s federal budget marked the first budget since the 2021 federal election and the first test of the deal struck between the Liberals and New Democrats that could keep Justin Trudeau in office until 2025. What does the budget say about both this deal and the plans for Trudeau’s third term in office? Meanwhile, the Conservative leadership race has been heating up as candidates go on the attack — Charest vs. Poilievre, Poilievre vs. Brown, and everyone avoiding saying anything critical of ...
Apr 15, 2022•37 min
In just a little over three weeks, the Ontario election will be officially launched and in a little less than eight weeks we’ll know who the winner is. At the moment, the polls suggest Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservatives are on track to be re-elected. There have been a lot of new developments as the election gets closer and closer. Candidates are being nominated, political ads are hitting the airwaves and the reverberations out of Ottawa, be it a new child care agreement or the Liberal-NDP gov...
Apr 08, 2022•26 min
When the Conservatives launched their leadership race earlier this year, the date to name a leader was set with at least one factor in mind: the need to have a leader in place in case the party headed into an election in the fall. But now that the Liberals and New Democrats have signed a deal that could extend the life of this Parliament to 2025, the Conservative leadership campaign’s urgency has changed. Has that changed the race itself? To break down the latest developments in and around the C...
Apr 01, 2022•38 min
It’s not always easy to recognize when something big is happening — something that could be remembered for a long time as a turning point. Could the Liberal and NDP confidence and supply agreement be that kind of turning point? Since 2004, Canadians have elected minority governments in five of seven federal elections and we’ve had majority government for only eight of the last 18 years. If minority governments have become the rule rather than the exception, the way we do politics in Canada might...
Mar 25, 2022•38 min
On Tuesday, voters in the riding of Fort McMurray–Lac La Biche elected Brian Jean as their next MLA, the latest development in a political drama that could cost Premier Jason Kenney his leadership. Running as a United Conservative Party candidate, Jean was always the heavy favourite to win the seat. But this is not necessarily a win for the governing United Conservatives, as Jean was — like all other candidates on the ballot — opposed to Jason Kenney’s government. Kenney’s rival for the UCP lead...
Mar 18, 2022•31 min
