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February 2018 was a particularly bad month for made-in-Canada bozo eruptions, from the ongoing crap miasma that is the PC Party of Ontario's leadership race, to the National Lampoon-esque Trudeau family vacation to India, to the verdict in the Gerald Stanley trial (and, many would say, the trial itself).

But if we're being really honest, there was nothing special about February.  Throughout this country's history, we've had to watch through our fingers as Prime Ministers, Premiers, judges, journalists, athletes and artists, and anyone else who calls themselves a representative of our terminally apologetic nation make utter asses of themselves on the world stage.

This year, the year of Canada 150, featured enough diffidence and shame so as to barely qualify as a celebration at all, while our respectable showing at the Olympics barely registers when compared to the cringe-a-lympics of public figures falling all over themselves.  Globe and Mail articles about how our Olympians have become the new ugly Americans check any sort of national pride we might feel about our medal haul.

To be fair (and to be Canadian) there are signs that our insecurity might be on the wane, too.  Loonie Politics colleague JJ McCullough, in one of his recent WaPo pot stirrers, posits that striving towards Canadian-ness is at an all time low, and "lived experiences that transcend country" are on the rise.  He cites the popularity of the Canadian health care system among the American left, and that of Jordan Peterson and Lauren Southern among the right, and points out how American cultural movements like #MeToo and Black Lives Matter have taken root here.  "Legions of young Canadian men blog and meme-war about Trump with little sense that it's a foreign fight," he writes.

What a lovely theory.  However, as long as our national obsession with shame and being shamed persists, another explanation for this data exists: that Canadians are so worried about being stereotyped by those memelords as sensitive, snowflakey, insecure "f**king leafs" should they identify as Canadians, that they intentionally avoid confusing their American counterparts with the more idiosyncratic aspects of Canadian culture.

And those memelords have a point.  When you read the harrowing and nauseating account of how the PC Party of Ontario dithered and delayed when it came to Patrick Brown's resignation, fretting about the news cycle rather than trying to make a principles decision, or how national security advisor Daniel Jean sacrificed his political neutrality to try and spin a story of "rogue elements" trying to make the PM look bad overseas, and an all-too-familiar picture of the status-conscious Canadian who is so afraid of looking silly that they stumble into countless social blunders emerges.

They would probably say it's not part of their mandate, but part of the blame for our tendency to take ourselves too seriously lies with the discounting of actual satire in favour of the kind of safe, inoffensive cornball humour pushed by the likes of CBC Comedy.  Bad enough that our government comedians censor themselves at a level that you would never see on other public broadcasters such as the BBC, but you have to go to quasi-anarchists like Scott Vrooman to find someone who cracks jokes at the country's expense, and even then the humour is still rooted in an insecurity about corporations ruining our pristine reputation, rather than at the inadequate institutions themselves.

Perhaps a supremely talented artist, a Canadian Ai Weiwei, will emerge to criticize the absurd situation we find ourselves in.  For that to happen, however a disaster on the level of the 2008 Sichuan earthquake would need to take place.

Thankfully no such catastrophe has occurred, but with the two resignations of Patrick Brown and the utter cluelessness of the Prime Minister becoming more and more difficult to ignore, perhaps more Canadians will stop giving the hacks that maintain a lock on our public institutions the benefit of the doubt.  We have seen some developments towards mocking the Prime Minister's ridiculous outfits, and we have seen some fantastic political cartooning that likened the Patrick Brown situation to a real-life slasher film.

In a bit of humorous irony, the unbearable ridiculousness of Canadian public life may inspire the armchair comedian in all of us to demand better.

Photo Credit: The Indian Express

Written by Josh Lieblein

The views, opinions and positions expressed by columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of our publication.


The tensions between a party caucus and its leader are rarely evident in modern politics, but in the past few weeks alone, we're seeing increasing example of it bubbling to the surface.  In both provincial and federal politics of late, as we see an increasing number of leaders selected from outside of their party caucuses, and increasingly they are refusing to run for a seat as quickly as possible.  When MPs are made to blindly follow someone who has not been elected along with them, it's inevitable that there will be tensions.

Over the weekend, the Bloc Québécois House Leader, Gabriel Ste-Marie relinquished his post because he has been unable to work with party leader Martine Ouellet, who doesn't have a seat (and who currently sits as an independent member of the Quebec National Assembly).  Ouellet apparently believes that her MPs should be pushing for independence in Ottawa, whereas many of the MPs are more focused on representing Quebec's interests in the House of Commons, and the difference became irreconcilable for Ste-Marie.  Ouellet is also known for not being able to make compromises and concessions, which makes it even more difficult to lead a party when she is absent from Ottawa for much of the time.

Prior to this, the Patrick Brown omnishambles has laid bare tensions within the Ontario Progressive Conservative caucus with his ouster and the subsequent exposing of the "rot" within the party's structure.  When Maclean's posted the contents of the conference call that caucus members were on the night that the allegations against Brown were first aired, there was a definite sense of disconnect between those MPPs in the caucus looking to protect the party rather than just the leader's reputation, and they were prepared to be cold-blooded to do so something that is almost unthinkable in the age where caucus members are expected to line up behind the leader and nod vigorously at everything he or she says.  Supporters of Brown have since denigrated the caucus members as being "ungrateful" and "traitors," and castigated them as "elites" who have apparently betrayed the grassroots members who elected Brown, as though those caucus members were not elected in their own right.

There is a famous misquote that commentators like to trot out about Pierre Trudeau allegedly saying that MPs were nobodies fifty yards from the Hill.  (In reality, his quote was about the opposition only having the forum in Parliament to talk, and "When they get home, when they get out of Parliament, when they are 50 yards from Parliament Hill, they are no longer honourable members they are just nobodies.")  Regardless of the veracity of the quote, it has become received wisdom, but when one looks at the dynamics that play out in Parliament under the current power structures, it becomes increasingly clear that MPs are treated far more like "nobodies" while they're on the Hill by their own leader than they are in their home ridings.

Our leadership selection system has upended the proper functioning of our political system.  The elected members of the legislature have ceased becoming the check on the powers exercised by Cabinet, and are instead cheerleading squads for their leaders.  The continued bastardization of the rules of debate have turned the House of Commons into a forum for reading assigned speeches into the void rather than engaging in meaningful debate, and Question Period is about gathering media clips, with the spotlight being on the leaders to do get the best lines every day.  MPs and MPPs are expected to be compliant drones for the leader, and even the media will encourage this particular viewpoint when they start concern trolling that MPs who exert the slightest bit of independence are a sign that the leader could be losing his or her grip on their party.

Mind you, that's if the leaders have a seat, which increasingly they don't.  Leadership contests are increasingly about bringing in an outsider with fresh ideas and a fresh face to mould the party around themselves with witness how in the current Ontario PC leadership race, there is not a single member of caucus among the candidates, and each of them are quickly repudiating the platform put together by the previous leader (which was branded with his face) as though it was something that belonged to him alone rather than the party and its membership.  And while that leadership contest is coming close enough to an election that there is the reasonable possibility that whoever the leader is could win their seat and be in the legislature for the following parliament, that's not always the case.

Ouellet has refused to run for a federal seat despite several opportunities to do so, and NDP leader Jagmeet Singh similarly refuses his own run until 2019, leaving Guy Caron to be the party's de facto leader in his absence, and caucus unanimity isn't always on display there either.  Former leadership rival Charlie Angus has tweeted (and deleted) shade directed at Singh on more than one occasion.  And even Conservatives have been grumbling privately about some of the choices made by Andrew Scheer when it comes to how he's running things, particularly some of his strategic choices.

It all boils down to the power imbalance that now exists in parties.  If we want MPs to take back their power, for them to do the jobs of accountability that they are supposed to do, and if we want meaningful work for them, it means we need to start diminishing the power of party leaders once again.  Doing that means returning to a means of selecting them that aren't broken, that don't encourage warlordism and cults of personality.  It means re-empowering MPs (and MPPs) to select and fire their leaders so that it's those elected representatives who have the power.  MPs should be somebodies on the Hill, and they can't be so long as the leaders have assumed all of the power.  It's time to return it to where it belongs.

The views, opinions and positions expressed by columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of our publication.


I want to start off this column with a solemn pledge: Never, ever again will I write anything about the current Ontario Progressive Conservative Party Leadership race.

Doesn't matter how important or exciting or historic this race is; I'm officially finished with it.

And the reason for that is simple: It's just too bloody nerve-wracking.

I mean, I've just spent an entire day on pins and needles waiting to hear whether or not former PC leader Patrick Brown was actually still a leadership candidate.

It was something I needed to know since I was in the process of writing a nearly 700 word column explaining why things were looking pretty good for Brown.

And let me tell you, it was a brilliantly argued and masterfully written piece of political punditry.

In fact, I was trotting out all sorts of solid arguments suggesting that, despite all the political baggage weighing down Brown's leadership aspirations, allegations of sexual misconduct, accusations of "crooked politics", the infamously terrible melt-down press conference his campaign had actually gained a certain tactical advantage.

If nothing else, I argued, Brown and his team had managed to create a narrative that was somewhat appealing on an emotional level.

After all, Brown's story was that he'd been treated unfairly by both the media and by the party's establishment.

And since many PC members instinctively dislike both the media and the party establishment, Brown's pitch was likely resonating on a grassroots level.

Plus, I pointed to certain polls reported in the media, which at least gave the perception that Brown was a serious contender in the race.

What's more, I also noted how one of Brown's rival leadership candidates, namely Caroline Mulroney, had made a strategic error when she demanded he pull out of the race.

After all, her attack on Brown gave off vibes that Mulroney feared him.

In fact, if I was on Team Brown, I'd have reacted to Mulroney's gambit by saying something along the lines of, "This is desperate ploy on her part; it shows that she's know my campaign is gaining momentum, and that I can win this race!"

Plus, Mulroney's tactic only reinforced Brown's message that the elites were treating him unfairly.

He could have framed it this way, "Even though I passed the vetting process, even though I met all the qualifications needed to enter the leadership race, the elites still want me out".

So yeah, my column was extremely persuasive and it was just about ready to be emailed off to my editor.

But then, before I could hit the "send" button on my e-mail, the whole PC leadership race universe changed when the news broke out that unnamed sources were telling the media that Brown was about to quit the race.

Needless to say that kind of shook me a bit.

But hey, I'm a professional; I'm used to dealing with and adapting to rapid changes in politics.

I would just rewrite my column a bit and come up with a new angle to write about the leadership race.

Maybe I'd get all classy and quote Aristotle or Machiavelli on how the vagaries of politics can take down even the greatest of leaders.

But then more stories started to surface on social media suggesting other unnamed sources were telling the media that Brown wasn't going to quit, that he would stay on to the bitter end.

So what was I supposed to do now?

I had a deadline to meet and didn't know if Brown was in or out!

Was he a hero or goat; a fighter or quitter; a lion or mouse?

At any rate, after what seemed like an eternity, word finally came down that Brown was indeed officially quitting (again.)

Unfortunately, by then the damage to my psyche was done.

So from now on, I'm only going to write about topics that are more predictable than the PC leadership race, such as guessing what Donald Trump will tweet next.

Photo Credit: Toronto Star

The views, opinions and positions expressed by columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of our publication.


This week, democratic institutions minister Karina Gould announced changes to the appointment process for new senators, intended to make it easier to apply for a Senate seat.  Those changes include creating a new year-round process so that Canadians can apply for a Senate seat at any time; that applications will be kept on file for two years, so that they can be considered at any point during that time; and adding the ability for organizations and individuals to nominate someone.

On the face of it, most of these are changes that are not bad ones.  It's probably a good idea that you're giving applicants the opportunity to apply in advance of upcoming vacancies, and it's probably not a bad idea to create a limited bank of potential candidates so that when future vacancies do happen, the system can be a bit more responsive and possibly even proactive when it comes to filling those seats in a more expeditious manner because let's face it, the process to date has been anything but expeditious.  The fact that we still have twelve vacancies left to fill, and that the process as it stands has only managed a handful of appointments over the past year is clearly an indication that this particular system is not working properly.

But as much as these changes may be necessary, they're not really addressing the fundamental problem with the way that this appointment process has been running, which is the fact that it still relies on people putting themselves forward, rather than the advisory board going out looking for candidates who are qualified, fit the needs of the Chamber at the time, and more importantly, are seeking out candidates who wouldn't normally consider themselves for such a position.  And that's one of the key factors that I keep going back to, and which Emmett Macfarlane, the University of Waterloo political science professor who was consulted on the design of this appointment process, had advocated at the time.  Relying on self-nomination is a poor way to run an appointment process for a position like the Senate, particularly because it's a body with institutional independence that makes it very hard to discipline or remove its members when they do wrong.  If you build your appointment process toward people who feel that they ought to be the Senate because they deserve it in other words, people who have an inflated sense of self rather than it being an honour that is bestowed upon them unexpectedly, I worry that you're attracting people more likely to feel entitled to their entitlements.  There are egos in the room, and certainly, we are starting to get hints of that entitlement with some of the newer appointees.

What would be a better way of going about it?  Well, for starters, the government should have gone with a process like Macfarlane had suggested, and which should more properly have been modelled on how the Vice-Regal Appointments Committee operated during the Harper years (which, probably not surprisingly, was disbanded by Trudeau despite it being a good process that worked extremely well).  Superficially it looks similar, with a federal component of three members and two ad-hoc members from each province or territory with an upcoming vacancy, and each would draw up a shortlist for the PM to choose from, but the most important difference was the fact that they went out into the community to find candidates, and to speak to community leaders about who would be a good recommendation.  It was not dependent on people submitting their resumes for consideration.  It was also far more proactive in terms of working toward upcoming vacancies.  This is really what Trudeau should have been looking to emulate when it came to looking for new senators (and what he should have kept in place for vice-regal appointments, a process which is once again a complete black box).

I should also note that an improvement to the process would have allowed for appointments to be made not only to the independent crossbenchers, but to allow for senators with partisan loyalties to be appointed in order to help maintain a balance within the chamber that is currently in danger of being lost entirely.  Currently the process asks for disclosure of past political activities but says that these will not disqualify applicants though given the number of times that they keep repeating that this is for a more independent Senate, there does seem to be an implication that this may indeed be something that would be screened out.  And it's too bad, because if we want the Senate to operate most effectively, we would have roughly equal numbers of Liberal, Conservative and Independent senators.  This can easily be accommodated by the kind of process that has been put into place (or better yet, like the way it should have been run).

Meanwhile, it will probably be some time before even this "improved" process can get underway because, well, there is nobody to advise on these appointments.  Currently, all of the advisory positions  both the two federal seats and the two seats for each province and territory are vacant.  The only person who is in this process remains the advisory board chair, Huguette Labelle.  Given the pace at which this government operates, it could be months before those advisory positions are filled and can start evaluating applications as they come in, which will slow down the deeded appointments even more.  The fact that there are still so many vacancies is not doing this government any favours when it comes to questions of their competence.

I would also add that I got a tip that Gould also sent a version of the press release to Liberal MPs with the additional line "I hope that as representatives of your communities, you will inform your constituents and stakeholders about these changes to the Senate appointments process."  For a process that is supposed to remain arm's length of the government and indeed of partisanship (as much as I may disagree with that) this is poor optics to say the least.  But there's that question of competence again…

The views, opinions and positions expressed by columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of our publication.


Weeks of highs, lows, scandals, ejections, lawsuits and backstabbing from every direction. Other than rape, murder and/or pillaging, what's left?

I often said I'd run for public office before turning 30.  I've come close to declaring my intentions as a federal, provincial and municipal candidate.

Yet, after observing the Ontario PC party tsunami, I don't even slightly regret being 17 years late in fulfilling this commitment.  In fact, I fully intend to add a few more numbers to this tally!

From the moment Patrick Brown stepped down as leader of the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario on Jan. 25 due to allegations of sexual misconduct, this has been one of most insane roller-coaster rides ever taken by a political party.  (In a democracy, anyway.)  It's been three straight weeks of highs, lows, controversies, scandals, ejections, lawsuits and backstabbing from every possible direction.

Other than rape, murder and/or pillaging, what's left?

The leadership race has been intriguing, too.  Former PC MPP Christine Elliott, former Toronto city councillor Doug Ford, venture fund manager Caroline Mulroney and Parents As First Educators president Tanya Granic Allen have all thrown their hats in the ring.  Brown, who has been rebuilding his reputation as the original CTV interview involving his two accusers has been collapsing at the seams, unexpectedly joined them on the last day to submit nomination papers.

What does all this mean?

A recent non-scientific Toronto Star poll of about 7,000 respondents reportedly showed Brown at 32.25 per cent, followed by Elliott (28.48 per cent), Granic Allen (16.48 per cent), Mulroney (13.6 per cent) and Ford (9.19 per cent).  The numbers don't seem logical, as Ford and Mulroney have led comfortably in other early polls.  The newspaper is also fiercely opposed to Canadian conservatism and would only appeal to red Tories.  Nevertheless, it's an interesting snapshot.

No matter who becomes the next PC leader on March 10, they will have the unenviable task of knitting together the party's deeply fractured membership.

There are PCs who are furious that Brown was accused of sexual misconduct.  There are PCs who believe this allegation and others who don't.  There are PCs who are fuming that he re-entered this race and others who feel he deserves to lead them into the June provincial election.

There are PCs who believe Elliott is experienced and others who feel she's running a dismal leadership campaign for the third consecutive time.

There are PCs who believe Ford is exactly what the party and province needs in a leader, and others who feel that he'll create a circus and guarantee victory for Liberal Premier Kathleen Wynne.

There are PCs who are pleased that Granic Allen represents social conservative values and others who feel she's a one-issue candidate who serves no purpose.

And there are PCs who believe Mulroney is a breath of fresh air in Ontario politics and others who believe her political inexperience makes her a weak candidate.

The usual coalescing around the winning leadership candidate is, therefore, extremely unlikely.  A significant amount of political blood will remain on the floor, and it may require some serious wheeling and dealing to properly clean it up.

Here's the real irony: In spite of this tsunami, the PCs could still win the election due to Wynne's record-breaking level of unpopularity.

A Feb. 12 Campaign Research survey of 1,426 online Ontario respondents found that an Elliott-led PC party would win 46 per cent support, ahead of the NDP and the Liberals.  If Mulroney led the party, she would draw 41 per cent, again ahead of the NDP and the Liberals. A Ford-led party would draw 39 per cent support, once more in first place.  Wynne would finish in third place behind Elliott or Mulroney, and behind the NDP's Andrea Horwath, and Wynne would be tied at 24 per cent support with Horwath against Ford. (Granic Allen and Brown hadn't declared when the survey was conducted.)

What a strange time to be a voter in Ontario.  It makes you pine for the quieter, gentler days of the late Toronto mayor Rob Ford.

Yeah, I went there.

Troy Media columnist and political commentator Michael Taube is also a Washington Times contributor, Canadian Jewish News columnist, and radio and TV pundit.  He was also a speechwriter for former Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

The views, opinions and positions expressed by columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of our publication.


Over the past couple of weeks, Question Period has been dominated by the plaintive wails of the Conservatives that demand that the federal government stand up to defend Kinder Morgan's Trans Mountain pipeline against the predations of BC's NDP government.  It's not enough that the government has approved the pipeline and declared it to be in the national interest apparently, they must bring the full force of federal power to bear against it, before it suffers the same fate that the aborted Northern Gateway and Energy East pipelines did.

First of all, it bears reminding that BC's actions to date have involved putting out a press release.  It shouldn't need to be stated that the federal government can't take BC to court over a press release, and yet here we are.  They've stated the intention to hold consultations on bitumen, but there is nothing concrete that the government can actually do anything about.  At this point, it's all talk, regardless of the fact that Alberta took the somewhat proactive step to ban imports of BC wine in retaliation.  Demands that they do something at this point remains hugely overblown.

Let us also not forget that the narrative around the other two pipeline plans being abandoned are too cute by half.  For one, it ignores the fact that the Conservative government was found by the Supreme Court of Canada to have dropped the ball on their duty to consult Indigenous people along Northern Gateway route, and had they made just a little more effort, they may have won the necessary approvals and won that court challenge.  But they didn't.  With Energy East, the resurrection of the Keystone XL pipeline was the bigger death knell of that project as it was further along, more cost effective for the proponent, and it made far more economic sense for them to shift their contracts to the Keystone XL project than in Energy East.  While they may have cited the "uncertainty" of the National Energy Board deciding to look at upstream emissions as part of their evaluation, it didn't change the very clear signals from the government that it was ultimately a cabinet decision (thanks to rule changes pushed through by the previous Conservative government), and that was not one of the criteria by which they would be basing their decision.

As for Trans Mountain, we are at a stage of the project where the federal government involving itself directly would be hugely inappropriate because the NEB is a quasi-judicial body whose rulings have approximately the same weight as that of the Federal Court.  If Kinder Morgan felt that the project was being unduly threatened by the provincial or municipal governments in BC, they can apply to the NEB to make an order that will give them the access they need, and they have already successfully done so with some of the roadblocks that Burnaby was attempting to put into place.  Having the federal government insert itself into this process before Kinder Morgan makes any further applications would have the same effect as the government trying to bigfoot the courts on a decision that they are supposed to render, ignoring the separation of powers and the whole purpose for why we have these quasi-judicial bodies in the first place.

Add to all of these demands came a bill tabled by Conservative-turned-Independent Alberta Senator Doug Black last week, which would legislatively declare that the Trans Mountain pipeline is in the national interest and that any works related to it are "not frustrated or delayed."  But aside from the general useless nature of a bill whose only sole clause is to reiterate something that the government has already declared, one wonders if this doesn't just frustrate the work of the NEB in carrying out their duties as the regulator and creates even more confusion into a situation where a clear delineation of responsibilities already exists.  In addition, the fact that the Conservatives in the House of Commons were demanding that the government table a timeline for when the pipeline could begin construction, as though that were a decision that was in their hands they don't control the NEB, nor do they control Kinder Morgan (unless the Conservatives are planning to nationalize that particular company "in the national interest") is all absurd theatre.

At this point, we need to ask ourselves whether these demands, which are entirely performative for the sake of their voters at home, are actually helping the cause, or if they're ultimately hurting it?  Why this question matters is because the Prime Minister last week went to the National Observer, an outlet that is not exactly friendly with the government, and laid it out clearly that the approval of the Trans Mountain expansion was part of a bigger whole, a necessary trade-off that allowed Alberta to sign onto the government's national climate framework and get the needed buy-in that they can show the rest of the country that if Alberta is willing to take these steps, hard emissions cap and all, that they can make it work across the board.  But if the Conservatives demand that the government use the full weight of their federal powers to push this pipeline through, as inappropriate as some of those measures might be, how can they then turn around and call it unconstitutional for the government to act within its same clear powers to institute a national carbon price?  You can't demand that the government use those powers in one circumstance and then turn around and declare them invalid in another, without looking like complete hypocrites.  But if they want this pipeline to happen, they might need to concede that the whole package needs to go through along with it, and that may be the tougher pill to swallow.  Harming the political trade-off, however, could mean no pipeline in the end, and the demise could very well be the fault of those whose bully tactics blew up in their faces.

The views, opinions and positions expressed by columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of our publication.


If we take a big breath and attempt to observe the unfolding Ontario Progressive Conservative Party leadership race as an ordinary political event, and not — as Jamie Watt so eloquently put it â€” a "shitshow," it's possible to draw some useful lessons about the state of North American political culture in the year 2018.

A great many Ontarians, and conservative Ontarians especially, are sick of two things: the #metoo movement and the mainstream news media.  There is simply no other way to explain, beyond complete nihilistic sociopathy, why ex party boss Patrick Brown would believe he has some chance of success in running to succeed himself after abruptly resigning last month under a cloud of sexual allegations.

When news first broke that Brown was being accused of sex crimes by two young women, the pump was already primed for skepticism.  The seemingly endless stream of sensational sex scandals that had come to define 2017 had already shown signs of running dry, with the villain-of-the-day devolving from indisputable monsters like Harvey Weinstein to vastly more sympathetic characters like Steve Paikin and Aniz Ansari.  What passed as an allegation of sexual abuse had grown vaguer and more subjective with the passage of time as well — gone were clear cut-cases of rape, molestation, and lewd profanity, in their place attempts to inflate unsatisfying sex, bad dates, and awkward come-ons as acts of violent violation.

The news media tasked with keeping such things in proper perspective, however, had long ago abandoned any pretense of objectivity in their desire to keep the sensationalism train chugging.  No matter how dubious, the anonymous accusers were always cast as heroes, the men always guilty by mere virtue of being on the receiving end of allegations.  The previous wisdom on women — that they are fallen creatures just as inclined to lie, misremember, or exaggerate as the rest of peoplekind — was suddenly out the window, in its place obviously untrue and unsustainable mantras about needing to believe all women all the time.  Ancient common law virtues like due process and fair trials were recast overnight as sinister codewords of patriarchal oppression.

These are clearly broad generalizations and I don't necessarily buy into them myself.  But they're also incredibly powerful counter-cultural narratives at the moment, particularly on the political right, which has been steadily evolving into an ideological movement more defined by its defiance of "identity politics" victimology than anything else.

The cynical genius of Patrick Brown has been exploiting this reality.  In framing himself as a victim of lying women, media sensationalism, and political correctness run amok, a habitual liar and back-stabber who had alienated or betrayed virtually every flavour of Ontario conservative has transformed overnight into a martyr of genuine right-wing resistance.  An empty anybody-but-Wynne figurehead has become a man of firm political brand and purpose.

That Brown's post-resignation rehabilitation strategy has resembled a 90s-era PR campaign for a disgraced rapper, with lie detector stunts and interviews where he talked about his mother but dodged hard questions mattered not; here was a man willing to actually fight the feminists, fight the press, fight the social justice lefties, and even fight those within his own party conspiring to bring him down.  He has become a genuine populist, a genuine outsider under fire at a time when that's precisely what a sizable chunk of his base craves more than anything else.

It's a comeback that's also been buoyed, oddly enough, by the very press his supporters are so eager to demonize — and not merely from predictable places like the Toronto Sun or The Rebel, either.  Canadian journalists and pundits from across the board have been incessantly tweeting and retweeting columns and news stories that feed the narrative that Brown is being railroaded, a trend that marks continuity with an earlier habit of incessantly tweeting and retweeting columns and stories feeding the narrative that the whole "#metoo" movement had gone too far.

Canada's leading journalos are, by and large, a progressive bunch, yet arguments that the women of this continent are being reckless and suspect in their wanton accusations of sexual impropriety seems to resonate with this class in spite of its ideological wrongness.  This may reflect the old adage that everyone is conservative about their own interests, and the #metoo cyclone hasn't yet cleared through the Canadian media, but either way, it's a factor working in Brown's favour as he attempts to reorient his place in the news cycle.

Whether the sexual charges leveled against Patrick Brown are true or not seems fairly irrelevant at this point, much like the charges leveled against Roy Moore were during his election, or those leveled at Donald Trump during his.  Those inclined to believe Brown is morally unfit for office, as I do, have enough evidence to support their conclusion; those who believe the morality of leaders is less important than their ability to fight ideological enemies have enough for theirs.

The logic that wins will provide perhaps the clearest evidence of where the right wing of this country is headed.

Written by J.J. McCullough

The views, opinions and positions expressed by columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of our publication.


(Warning: This article is about the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party leadership race, which is dramatically changing on an almost hourly basis in ways no mortal human can possibly comprehend or predict.  So by the time this goes online everything you're about to read might be totally irrelevant. )

The Ontario PC leadership race is the most amazing, most spectacular and most incredible piece of political theatre ever witnessed in Canadian history.

Or to put that another way, it's the Game of Thrones of politics!

And one thing that makes it so fascinating are the marvelous characters starring in the show.

To show you what I mean, here's a brief rundown of the cast:

Caroline Mulroney
With her esteemed political pedigree, her sophisticated charm and her sterling private sector background, Mulroney is the closest thing the PCs have to an aristocrat.  And that makes her the most intriguing candidate in the race since she offers the party everything it needs, except for one tiny, little thing: political experience, of which she has zero.  Nevertheless, if you believe all conspiracy theories floating around, she's the handpicked candidate of the party's shadowy elites.

Doug Ford
Like Mulroney, Ford has a famous last name; but that's where the similarities end.  If Mulroney is a princess, Ford is a blustery, brawny, brawling, bruiser.  A born street-fighter, Ford offers a tough-talking brand of populism that will appeal not only to the Legions of Ford Nation, but also to the growing number of Progressive Conservatives who simply want to "stick it" to the system.  And if you believe all the conspiracy theories floating around that's why the shadowy party elites will do everything they can to stop him.  Yet, Ford has seemingly at least one well-known fan among the elites: according to certain media reports, Premier Kathleen Wynne wants him to win the leadership.  It reminds of how Hillary Clinton reportedly wanted Donald Trump to win.

Christine Elliott
Elliott's vast political experience along with her deep ties to the Ontario PC party makes her the most "normal" leadership candidate in this race, which ironically also makes her an oddity.  Working in her favour, however, is that she has the clearest path to victory.  If for any reason, PC party members perceive the other candidates to be too "far off the wall", they will likely give their vote to the most boring and dull candidate on the slate, i.e. Elliott.  Don't laugh; this is how Andrew Scheer won his race.

Tanya Granic Allen
I have no idea who this person is, but what I do know is she's giving a feisty voice to social conservatives, a group, which over the past year the PC party has seemingly done everything it could to actively alienate.  So it looks like the Christians are striking back.

Patrick Brown
OK, now we've come to what's easily the weirdest leadership candidacy ever.  Consider that just weeks ago, Brown's political career was in ruins, his reputation in tatters; scorned by the party he once led, he seemed to be on the road to oblivion.  Yet, in an incredibly short period of time, through clever media management, Brown has, at least to some degree, rehabilitated his image.  Basically, he's gone from "Sad loser" to "Scrappy underdog".  And "Scrappy Underdog" is not a bad image for any politician.  At any rate, if he wins, it'll be the most incredible comeback since Lazarus.

So with all these quirky, unconventional and atypical candidates crowding the PC leadership stage, who knows what plot twists and surprises; what thrills and chills; what conflicts and dramas await us as the narrative unfolds.

And yes, some might say the whole spectacle is a political disaster of the first magnitude.

But disasters attract attention, which might ultimately work to the PC party's advantage.

In other words, the PC leadership race will test that age old public relations maxim which states "any publicity is good publicity."

Photo Credit: Toronto Star

The views, opinions and positions expressed by columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of our publication.


So after railing for months on this here website about the clear and present danger posed by Patrick Brown to the PC Party, and that party's prospects for victory this year, and the damage that would be done to the credibility of the conservative movement even if he did win the election, the official spokespeople for that party came around to my way of thinking.

Frenzied Facebook statuses and panicked tweets talking about the very, very scary attack ads that the Liberals will employ in June should Brown somehow regain the leadership scurry across my feeds, alongside fake polls in which supporters of the other four candidates are encouraged to vote early and vote often to create the impression that Patrick will retake this party over their dead bodies. Short weeks ago, these selfsame tactics were used against Doug Ford, albeit far less frequently.

This farcical reversal shows that the PC Party are, and always have been, a group of utterly unprincipled and entitled hacks intent on regaining power by any means necessary, and who fear losing that power at the hands of Brown's vengeful and fanatical supporters.

That fact will become clearer in the coming days as more allegations of sexual harassment are levelled, more accusations of financial impropriety are thrown around, and the once publicly united party descends into a fracas of mud throwing.

As it stands, anyone would have good reason to fear a group of people who bent reality itself to create enough of a reasonable doubt with respect to the allegations levelled against Brown so that they could go on to make the equally dubious claim that their guy's name is sufficiently cleared for him to enter the race.

But the PC braintrust also fears Brown's naked ambition because he is the Frankenstein's monster born of their own lust for bloodshed and thwarted hopes. They are as contemptibly deluded as he is- they just hide it behind a façade of respectability. He holds up a mirror to them, and they don't like it.

Thus, I didn't expect anyone in the PC's to take me seriously when I was sounding the alarm about Brown before his mask fell off, and I don't expect anyone to take me seriously now. The one thing Brown and I have found in common is that we both point out the PC Party's glaring defects.

But where I simply wish to draw attention to what is obvious, Brown hopes to exploit the PCPO's neuroses for his own personal and manipulative ends.

He knows, perhaps consciously, or perhaps unconsciously, that these monkeys in tuxedos like to comfort their consciences with lip service to "conservative principles."

And in his King Kong-esque climb back to the top, Patrick Brown and his defenders made several references to due process and the rule of law.

Now, of course we all love due process and the rule of law. Only radicals who want to tear our society and the PC Party down would dare question either of these pillars of our democracy.

But when Patrick Brown and his crew stuff ballot boxes in nominations, or disqualify candidates for sketchy reasons, or hold stage-managed policy conferences, or engage in questionable membership practices, suddenly these principles are more honoured by the breach than in their observance.

What do we expect? Perfection? Are we so spotless and without sin? Who are we to judge and throw rocks? And why are we throwing rocks at all, when Brown and his people have machine guns?

Brown has no problem exploiting his tribe's more practical fears, either, such as the fear men have of being undone by #MeToo and the fear women have of being written off as crazy if other women speak out and get debunked.

This whipsawing alternation between principles and pragmatism has been part of Brown's daily diet as a Conservative hack since he was old enough to wear his first badly fitting suit as a Young Tory. He learned it at the feet of people who have been doing the same since before he was born. And now he seeks to bring ruin to those creators who spurned him.

It'd be poetic….if it weren't so pathetic.

Photo Credit: Mississauga.com

Written by Josh Lieblein

The views, opinions and positions expressed by columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of our publication.


On Tuesday evening, Independent Senator Marc Gold gave a speech in the Chamber about the proposal put forward by Government Leader in the Senate err, "government representative" Senator Peter Harder around his proposals for "sober second thinking."  Gold saw Harder's contribution to the debate around Senate modernization as "constructive" and he welcomed it and gave a speech which was described as "demolishing myths" around the need for a formalized opposition in the Senate.  It may not surprise you that I was not impressed by his speech, not convinced in the slightest.

The first point that should be made is that every time someone digs into the history of the Senate and finds calls for it to be without partisanship, they are usually ignoring some of the context around the time, the composition of the chamber, and what their aims and objectives were.  For example, citing one-time Senator Earnest Manning that the Senate should be entirely non-partisan likely stemmed from the fact that he was a former Social Credit premier, and became the first and only Socred senator in Canada's history.  That he didn't fit into the Liberal-Conservative dynamic of the chamber likely contributed to his beliefs that said duopoly structure should be eliminated.  Not that you'd hear those citing him giving such context.

My second point is that Gold and others make the fundamental error of looking at the Senate in isolation, rather than in full bicameral perspective.  There should be an interplay between the members of both chambers, and normally that would happen within the party caucuses.  The senate is the corporate memory of parliament, and within the caucus room, it provides a check on party leadership, while at the same time having the institutional independence so as not to be whipped or ordered about by those same party leaders.  This, of course, has varied over the past few years, which is a separate problem from the one that Gold is trying to address, but we can't just consider the Senate without considering how it should be interacting with the House of Commons at the same time.

A big part of the arguments that Harder has repeatedly put forward, and which Gold picked up on, was the fact that there is a great deal of variability within Westminster systems, so there is no one model that Canada must follow in order to maintain that character.  The problem here is again contextual.  While each country may have a Westminster model, their upper chambers (if they have them New Zealand, of course, being an example where they got rid of theirs and it didn't solve the problems that they thought it would) differ because of circumstance.  While you can point to Australia having expertise with the Estimates and operating in a way that requires building coalitions with smaller parties due to its elected-by-proportional-representation make-up, or that the House of Lords has specific competencies that it has developed, that too has to do with its own history and dynamics.  The Canadian Senate is one built on a foundation of dual federalism both territorial federalism, and linguistic/cultural federalism, which is unique among other Westminster models.  It's also large enough that it can't operate in a consensus manner like, for example, the Nunavut legislature, which is another oft-cited example of a Westminster body without partisanship.  Not every element is transferrable, no matter how much you may think it is.

And then we get to the heart of the issue.  Senators like Hader and Gold confuse formal opposition with partisanship, in part because the Conservatives in the Chamber have been pushing that viewpoint.  While the current Conservative viewpoint has tended to ensure a dynamic whereby the Senate acts as either a rubber stamp when they are in power, or a source of needless obstruction when they're not (thanks in large part to the problematic dynamic that the Harper Conservatives infected the chamber with in treating their swath of newly appointed senators like backbenchers to be ordered about), that's not how the chamber should be organized either.  But even without partisan labels, there should at the very least be a philosophical underpinning to a structured opposition in order to provide a necessary challenge function to the government.

That challenge function is key to sober second thought, and it's not something I'm seeing in the arguments put forward by Harder and Gold.  Sure, they talk about putting forward a diversity of perspectives when examining legislation, which they think can be achieved by means of "a set of standing rules that would provide a structured road map for the passage of a bill through the Senate."  The means by which they plan to set that roadmap is a business committee, which I also have very big problems with because it creates a powerful clique that diminishes the power of individual senators.  But without any organization or grouping that can provide that challenge function, who can and will call the government out, sober second thought is more difficult because it's diffuse.  It's especially more difficult if one expects that only the current crop of independent senators will perform it going forward because there is a not unjustified criticism that they largely share the government's basic philosophical underpinnings.

Doing away with structured opposition creates some 100 loose fish who become vulnerable to being swayed in one way or the other on any given issue, particularly if the Government Leader seeks to co-opt them on an issue-by-issue basis.  Not having an organizing principle means that the senate would have to rely on individual incentives to guide debates, whether they're organized by a business committee or not, and that can be a problem.  It's especially going to be a problem if you extend this same principle so that only interested parties sit on committees, rather than spreading out the expertise a little, because you also run the risk of groupthink.  We've seen that happen, on the fisheries committee, and especially on the national security and defence committee, which became a lobby group for the defence industry.  Having some structured opposition can provide a focus for the activities of the chamber as a whole, so that the business of Parliament can be seen for the forest rather than the trees of individual issues.

Just because Gold thinks that the principles of Responsible Government belong only in the House of Commons, which is the confidence chamber, it doesn't diminish the fact that the primary purpose of Parliament is to hold government to account, no matter which chamber does it.  The Senate is not supposed to be a debating society or a council of elders.  It is not supposed to merely advise on legislation that passes before it.  That's a narrow interpretation of the functions that ignores its role in the broader parliamentary ecosystem.  And eliminating the role of structured opposition to spite the Conservative partisans will only lead to bigger problems down the road, like every single attempt to "modernize" the rules of Parliament has ever done, time and again.  Heed the lessons of history rather than cherry picking them to suit your agenda. Once you break the Senate, it will be difficult to put it back together again.

(Also, a note to the Conservatives in the chamber: Tone down the partisan gamesmanship and apocalyptic rhetoric.  You're only giving ammunition to Harder and Gold.  Think of the bigger picture).

The views, opinions and positions expressed by columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of our publication.