John Brewin on Politics

Facebook prevents me from sharing Jonathan Sas' excellent Toronto Star op-ed about Ed Broadbent's values and ideals. So, I'm sharing it this way. Click on the next sentence for the link. If you can do only one thing today to celebrate Ed's service to Canada, please read it. Today we grieve and remember together. Tomorrow we get back to work. Please consider a donation to the Broadbent Democracy Fund . Pat and I are supporters, and hope you'll contribute too.

My lifelong friend Terry Grier died on March 13, 2023. We gathered today to say our farewells. David Grier, Ruth and Terry's eldest son, the President of Toronto Metropolitan University, Dr. Mohamed Lachemi, and I each offered reflections. What follows are mine. We are here this morning to grieve the death of Terry Grier. We are here to remember and celebrate Terry’s life, to reflect on his example and on his legacy. I’d like to begin by honouring the relationships that grounded and inspired Terry: His relationship with his parents, wonderful sister Sheila and family; With Ruth, his extraordinary partner in all things; With his three fantastic sons, their partners, his nine grandchildren and two great grandchildren; and, With his neighbourhood and his local Anglican church; With this city and this country -- places where he formed lifelong friendships through daily acts of caring and concern for the welfare of everyone. The love at the heart of Terry’s relationships isn’t sentimen...

As 2023 gets underway, Canadian politics seems to be stuck in a rut. The next federal election is at least a couple of years away. The 2021 election showed virtually no change from the 2019 election. Current federal polls show the pattern continues.  Last year’s provincial elections in Ontario and Quebec saw little change in seat distribution in their legislatures, both provinces re-electing majority conservative governments. B.C. has a new premier in the NDP’s David Eby. We can expect a very similar style and substance from an Eby government in comparison to his predecessor John Horgan. Eby has taken  over a popular government, steady, practical, progressive and successful on the whole. This year, it’s possible to break out of the rut. Alberta votes May 29 and Manitoba October 3. Both elections could well result in strong NDP governments replacing right-wing conservative administrations.  Three NDP governments, instead of just one, will make a big difference on the natio...

Ontario goes to the polls in less than 125 days -- on June 2nd. A new polling season has begun in earnest. Pollsters are already reporting wildly different current voting intentions. In mid-January polls, Angus Reid had the NDP at 36%, PCs at 33% and the Liberals at 19%. Innovative Research placed the Liberals at 36%, the PCs 35% and the NDP at 22%. EKOS reported PCs 35%, NDP 27%, Liberal 26%. The latest poll from a new firm in the field, Counsel Public Affairs, has the PCs at 35%, NDP 31% and OLP 24%. In 2018, the last election, the PCs won a majority with 40% of the vote across Ontario. The NDP won Official Opposition status with 40 seats and 34% of the total vote. The Liberals fell from government to only seven seats in the Legislature, losing party status and gaining only 20% of the vote. In the past six months Premier Doug Ford’s approval rating has noticeably declined, dropping from the mid 40s to the low 30s. The PC share of voting intentions has declined at the same rate.  ...

As the 2021 federal election campaign winds down, we seem to be heading for a “hung Parliament” -- a Parliament in which no single party can form a stable and sustainable government on its own or, put another way, without the cooperation of members from other parties. The poll aggregate sites show a slight (16%) chance that the Liberals will end up with a majority of at least 170 seats in the House of Commons. The Conservatives’ chances of gaining a majority are now down to 1%. Far more likely (83%) is that no party will have a majority. What happens then? Under our constitution the sitting government (the Liberal Party in this case) may have fewer seats than the Conservatives who themselves fall short of a majority. In these circumstances,Trudeau would still be entitled to meet Parliament and try to win a “vote of confidence”. They could win that vote if one or more of the other parties agreed to support a Liberal Prime Minister, the present one or someone new either within the new Li...

We're on the brink of a federal election. It will likely be called anytime between July 31 and Labour Day, and will take place in September or more likely October. An aggregate of recent polls show (with 2019 results in brackets): Liberals at 36% (2019 - 33%), Conservatives 28% (2019 - 34%), NDP 19% (2019 - 16%). The most recent polls indicate those trends are intensifying, although a group of polls within the aggregate show the results are closer. The latest poll by Nanos Research has the Liberals at 37.5%, Conservatives 24%, and the NDP at 21.4%. If the final result is the same as the Nanos poll the Liberals would win a sizeable majority. On the eve of the election, Erin O’Toole significantly trails Trudeau and Jagmeet Singh in popularity and in public acceptance as a “good political leader”. In recent years, we have experienced provincial and federal campaigns that were incredibly stable with the final results very similar to the state of play suggested by pre-election polls. In...

Walking Balmy Beach with Zeus the Wonder Dog at sunset on December 31, 2020 (Toronto) Earlier this year, my sister Martha put us on to Dr. Heather Cox Richardson’s blog, Letters from an American . Like us, many of you have come to rely on Heather for a late night/early morning daily fix on the tumultuous U.S. political scene. Heather is an American historian residing in Maine. She teaches at Boston College and describes herself as a Lincoln Republican. In yesterday’s letter , she reviews the developments in the U.S. in the first 20 years of the new century. Her thesis is that going back to the 1980s the United States has been in a push back led by conservative/reactionary business interests against the New Deal activism of the previous 50 years. The counter revolution started with Ronald Reagan and has culminated in the anti-democratic government of Donald Trump. Thankfully that era, she argues, is coming to a close. The past 20 years have been the “end game of the Reagan Revolution,” ...