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Category: Chairman’s Desk

The real play behind Karina Gould’s Liberal leadership bid

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I understand the temptation.

When you stack Karina Gould’s qualifications to become the next leader of her party and Prime Minister of Canada beside the likes of Mark Carney or Chrystia Freeland, one can easily conclude that the only valid question for this candidate is: what the hell is she thinking?

This line of inquiry, which constitutes about 99.9 per cent of the commentary I’ve read about her candidacy, whilst perhaps understandable, is also spectacularly short-sighted.

Political success isn’t about who looks best on paper. Thank God for that. But more crucially: neither is it always about the race right in front of you. Sometimes, the real game is the next one — the bigger picture. And in that sense, Karina Gould has positioned herself brilliantly.

No doubt, that’s precisely why it’s so easy to tell two wildly different stories about this candidate.

The first goes something like this: she’s too young, too green, too much of a long shot. In a word, quixotic. Despite clearing the first two $50,000 financial hurdles, she struggled to clear the far larger $125,000 third hurdle, and she’ll no doubt find it challenging to meet subsequent targets as the race progresses.

That’s the easy narrative, and the one that goes a long way to explain why many believe she won’t, in fact, come even close to becoming our next Prime Minister.

But there’s another story at play. And it’s one most have overlooked.

Karina Gould represents the future of the Liberal Party of Canada.

She has a record of real achievement, most notably championing the national $10-a-day child care strategy — a policy that will fundamentally improve the country for generations. The youngest female cabinet minister in Canadian history, over the past decade she has served as Minister of Democratic Institutions, Minister of International Development, Minister of Families, Children and Social Development, and most recently, Government Leader in the House of Commons, the most demanding job in a minority Parliament.

Her age isn’t a liability — it’s an asset. At 37, she embodies the now largest voting bloc in the country: Millennials. Her presence signals generational renewal and energy.

Her French is stronger than both Carney’s and Freeland’s — a critical advantage in a party where Quebec support can make or break a leadership race.

And most importantly, she is genuine to the core — an increasingly rare quality in Canadian politics.

Of course, these are all impressive credentials. But none are as crucial to her long-term success as the sheer political instinct she’s demonstrating by running in this race.

Because — make no mistake — while she risks the hard scrutiny that comes with a contest of this magnitude, she also gains two invaluable political assets.

First, national profile and experience.

Second, and far more importantly, strategic leverage.

Given the unique preferential ballot structure of this leadership race and the reality that this is likely to turn into a two-horse race between Carney and Freeland, Gould is positioning herself — and her supporters — as the king or queen maker.

That’s a powerful place to be. And you can bet that neither Carney nor Freeland will utter a single negative word about her over the next few weeks. They both know she holds the key to their fortunes.

When a party is at risk of being reduced to ashes in the way the Liberals may well be, you’re not just looking for a leader — you’re looking for a spark. Some ember that’s still glowing in the grassroots of the party, something that can catch and grow into something bigger.

While I see experience, command of the issues, and steady hands from both Carney and Freeland, what I don’t see is the sign of momentum or the kind of energy that stirs something new.

But in Gould’s campaign? I do.

The people behind her at campaign events look like they actually want to be there. The people standing behind Carney and Freeland? I’m sorry to say, they look like they’re being held hostage.

Karina Gould may well lose this battle. But she’s playing a much longer game — and setting herself up brilliantly for it.

And in my view, that’s anything but tilting at windmills. That’s laying the foundation for the real fight ahead.

Doug Ford has to convince Ontarians he is their protector

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Ontario is going to the polls in late February to decide which party, and which party leader, will helm the province for the next four years. As we are still early in the campaign, the Star asked four political commentators to weigh in on what each leader needs to do over the coming weeks to give their party a chance at winning.

My editor has asked me to answer a simple question: How can Doug Ford’s PCs win—and win bigger?

I’m not sure I’m best to answer this question. When Mr. Ford and I faced off as leaders of dueling campaigns during the 2010 mayoral election—he not only beat me, he crushed me.

What’s more, the Progressive Conservative leader enjoys a substantial, some would say unsurmountable, lead in the polls.

But here goes.

The temptation will be to frame the ballot question as “Which of the party leaders do you trust to go head-to-head with Donald Trump and win?” That would be a mistake. It would be akin to looking for someone to tame a tornado.

The president is not a rational actor and it is a fool’s errand to think that anyone can effectively go toe-to-toe with him. It is a battle you won’t win because it is a battle that can’t be won.

Rather, if Ford wants to win and win big, then the ballot question needs to be: “Which of the leaders do you trust to protect you, your family and Ontario from the economic shocks of the Trump administration?”

It is framing the question this way that will see the PCs returned to the legislature with a strengthened majority.

And it is a question which is, simply put, a gift to Ford and his campaign.

The chaos that has emerged from south of the border has provoked both fury and fear in Canadians — including Ontarians — unlike anything in recent memory.

Ontarians are looking for their leaders to stand up for them, to be sure. Matching tariffs, border-state diplomacy, ad campaigns aimed at American voters, and business-to-business pressure are all necessary tactics. Those deal with the fury.

But the fear must also be addressed. And that’s where Ontarians are looking to their own province’s leaders to protect them. Because it’s not just theoretical macroeconomic shocks that has them worried; rather, it is the price shock of suddenly more expensive gas, groceries and other imported products that has them up at night.

No question, calling an early election is always a risk. But the timing of the political contest comes with a calculated set of strategic advantages for the PCs:

  1. With Justin Trudeau and the Liberals still in power federally, the PCs can rely on oppositional sentiment toward Trudeau.
  2. Doug Ford, personally, has never been so popular. Just look at how comfortably he has assumed the face of the “Team Canada” response.
  3. The PCs have a major cash advantage that will allow them to dominate the airwaves.
  4. Liberal operatives are distracted by the federal leadership race. Case in point: they’ve been slow to nominate candidates in key ridings.
  5. The government’s fiscal situation is not going to improve anytime soon—and economic tensions with the United States won’t help. Things might not be great now, but they won’t be any better in fifteen months, when Ford would have had to call this election anyway.

Taken together, these factors will undoubtedly be major contributors should the PCs win re-election.

But none will matter as much as Doug Ford’s ability to convince Ontarians he is the best candidate not to negotiate with a madman but to protect their pocketbooks from a madman.

Elections aren’t won on hypotheticals — they’re won on trust. And right now, Ontarians don’t need a leader who promises to “figure it out” when the storm hits. The storm has hit. They want someone who has been through the storm before and knows how to steer the ship.

Doug Ford’s path to victory isn’t about making Ontarians believe he can tame Donald Trump — it’s about proving he can shield them from the chaos that Trump is likely to spread for four years.

If the Progressive Conservative leader can make that case, this election won’t just be a win for the PCs — it will be a landslide.

The age of the oligarch has arrived in Washington and Canada needs to target these new powerbrokers who have Trump’s ear

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It happened in the blink of an eye.

Seemingly overnight, the rules of the game — how decisions are reached at the heart of the American government — changed.

And Canada has been caught clinging to the old playbook.

During this past week’s inauguration ceremony, the evidence of this development was everywhere.

The foreground offered the official narrative: there, underneath the Capitol dome, stood Donald Trump to receive his oath of office and deliver his fiery vision for America.

But the background told the deeper story — one that testifies to the new power paradigm in Washington, DC. Among the usual suspects — the first and second families, former presidents and vice-presidents, the Supreme Court — stood Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Sundar Pichai, and Tim Cook, in better seats, more visible, more prominent, than Trump’s own cabinet members.

You don’t need to be an art critic to decipher this tableau. Power is proximity to power. To put an even finer point on it, the New York Times reported last weekend that there are not enough fancy homes left to accommodate the influx of those vying for influence!

To date, in readying ourselves to prosecute an economic war with our Southern neighbours, our fatal instinct has been to reach for the shelf and blow dust off the trusty, old playbook.

Page 1: Impose retaliatory tariffs on high-profile U.S. goods. Pick industries that will sting politically.

Page 2: Mobilize cross-border alliances, targeting politicians in states and industries that are reliant on Canadian trade.

Page 3 — we won’t make it.

Because if our grand strategy is to target not the people on stage — but those in the seventh row, beside Trump’s estranged third cousins, guess what?

It won’t work.

As much as it might be hard to hear for the bureaucrats who’ve spent years figuring out how to screw Kentucky’s bourbon industry, we need a new approach. And it needs to target those who Trump listens to above all others.

We have to understand that the age of the oligarch has arrived in Washington.

Because while these oligarchs — Musk, Bezos, Zuckerberg, and others — may compete amongst themselves, the fact is they have far surpassed the traditional power brokers: senators, members of congress, lobbyists, the list goes on. (And, don’t forget, it’s these usual suspects who, during the first Trump administration, proudly proclaimed that they could “control him,” and “rein him in.” I’ll let the success of that effort speak for itself.)

The reality is this: Trump listens to, favours, this cadre of unbelievably rich tech oligarchs, not only because they collectively represent more wealth than most nation states, or because he views them as part of his billionaire peer group, but — most importantly — because of what they control: the attention economy. The platforms of discourse. The hardware we use to connect to them. Sometimes both.

From Twitter (now X, under Elon Musk) to Meta’s platforms, their influence in the digital space translates into political capital that traditional power brokers simply can’t match.

I’m reminded of what a former Biden staffer said after Harris’s disastrous defeat, “How do you spend $1 billion and not win? What the f***?”

The question is rhetorical, but I’ll give it a shot.

In today’s politics, the most valuable currency isn’t dollars — it’s attention. And Trump carried a decisive advantage into this contest, with X and other platforms leaning heavily in his favour.

Disturbingly autocratic as this, we don’t have the luxury of debating what this means for the future of politics or dwelling on the contradictions of a movement claiming to champion the working class while embracing impossibly wealthy tech magnates.

At this moment, the only thing that matters is recognizing the shift and adapting to it.

Should we match Trump’s tariffs dollar for dollar? Absolutely.

But if our strategy begins and ends with traditional tools like retaliatory tariffs and old-fashioned diplomacy, we’re doomed.

If we’re relying on a Republican Senator to burst into the Oval Office to dissuade Trump because the orange juice lobby is upset, we’re dreaming.

As Don Leniham recently put it, “America can compensate Iowa farmers or Michigan factory workers far longer than Canada can compensate Alberta’s oil industry or Ontario autoworkers.”

However, if we develop a strategy that reaches and persuades the people Trump listens to first, then we stand a fighting chance. And in a new game, with a new playbook, against a stronger opponent, that’s all we can ask for.

Who among our best and brightest will step up in Canada’s hour of greatest need?

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In the aftermath of a major historical event, the causative chain that produced it is often shrouded in mystery. The real drivers are almost always impossible to discover in real time. Clarity only emerges decades later, when long-classified documents are finally released from the archives, illuminating what truly transpired.

But sometimes, history doesn’t make us wait. This is undeniably true of the recent announcement by our 23rd Prime Minister to resign his office this past week.

No sane human being on planet Earth is asking: “Why?” or “How?” They’re asking, “What the hell took him so long?” And maybe that’s the question only the historians can solve. But, at the moment, it doesn’t matter in the least.

What matters is that this country is staring down the barrel of existential threats. And to appreciate their magnitude, we only need to put two things side by side.

One. We are facing the greatest threat to our sovereignty and prosperity in generations.

Two. We are currently led by a lame-duck Prime Minister who the majority of Canadians have exactly zero confidence in to lead us — let alone guide us through the storm. Whose perhaps final decision of consequence — to prorogue Parliament — has plunged our nation into a state of paralysis.

Trudeau’s resignation has left a vacuum for genuine, popularly supported, leadership in this country.

So, what happens next? Who steps up in this moment of historic challenge?

It’s a painfully familiar feeling: just when you need something the very most, you find it’s hiding from you. Right now, I wish I meant my car keys.

The simple fact is that in our hour of greatest need, we need our greatest people to lead us. And in the wake of the fallout to Justin Trudeau’s resignation and Trump’s very real threat of economic war, this is what concerns me: that many of our best and brightest will succumb to the temptation to bury their heads in the sand and pretend this is all a dream.

It’s not. It’s anything but a dream. And nothing is a foregone conclusion.

Leadership is not a title; it’s behaviour. It is how you act. It is what you do. And it is what you are prepared to sacrifice for the good of your country.

Fortunately, across jurisdictional and partisan lines we’ve seen examples of just that. Premier Doug Ford is going into the snake pit on Fox News. Finance Minister Dominic LeBlanc has decided it’s better to focus his attention on the threat of U.S. tariffs than his personal ambitions to become Liberal leader.  Former central banker Mark Carney, on the other hand, who could certainly be spending his time doing something less grueling than politics is expected to throw his hat into the ring. These are commendable actions, but we need far more — and not just from our politicians.

In a recent interview with Jordan Peterson, Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre underlined that Canadians cannot assume, “by simply voting in an election that … all the problems are going to reverse instantaneously.”

That’s neither cynicism nor mere expectation management. It’s an acknowledgment of reality. National challenges aren’t solved at the ballot box alone — they’re solved by extraordinary people stepping up, not just in politics, but in every corner of public life.

Trump himself said he does not care who wins our next federal election. What he does care about is pretty clear: beating us.

That kind of pressure can drive a country into despair, numbing it with a fatalistic sense of inevitability. Or it can do the opposite. It can light a fire. It can inspire resilience, defiance, and the will to fight back.

The most critical question we ought to be asking in this historic moment is not whether Trudeau deserved the slings and arrows or how his legacy will take shape. That will be a rigidly partisan, tiresome tug of war.

The real question is where do we go from here and who rises to the occasion?

“History never looks like history when you are living through it,” so the saying goes. Except when it does. This week, many Canadians woke up to the realization that they are living through a turning point. The Prime Minister’s resignation isn’t the end of the story. It’s the prologue to one of the most challenging chapters in our history.

Now comes the hard part.

Advice to progressives: public rage is real and the politics of joy is dead

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More than 200 years ago, Edmund Burke penned the definitive defence of tradition. In it, he denounced the revolution still burning in France and endorsed the monarchy at home.

In response, across the ocean, Thomas Paine delivered a famous rebuke: “He pities the plumage, but forgets the dying bird.”

While the ideological lines in the sand have shifted radically over the centuries, Paine’s observation serves to perfectly describe recent attempts by left-wing commentators to try and make sense of the seismic political events of 2024. Most notably, Kamala Harris’s disastrous defeat and Justin Trudeau’s slow motion car wreck of ever-collapsing support.

The line Paine draws is between the superficial and the substantive. And it’s one that continues to elude many progressives today, as they stumble through campaigns and misdiagnose the roots of their political decline.

Take, for example, the convenient fiction that resurfaces in Canada’s progressive circles every few years: the notion that any shift toward the Conservative party and away from the “safe” shores of the Liberal party is the result of an imported American conspiracy.

It’s the familiar bogeyman of “dangerous U.S. political trends” seeping into Canada’s supposedly idyllic, progressive landscape. If it sounds unconvincing and lazy, that’s because it is.

The very latest buzzword many commentators have latched onto to explain away this shift is “rage.”

Attempting to make sense of the Democratic Party’s devastating loss in the 2024 U.S. presidential race, Rahm Emanuel — current Ambassador to Japan, former Obama chief of staff and a veteran Democratic operative — offered this analysis in a recent Washington Post op-ed:

“Campaigns of joy in an era of rage don’t win elections. When Donald Trump declared, ‘I am your warrior. I am your justice. And for those who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your retribution,’ he was channeling a nation’s fury. The online cheerleading for the killer of a health-care insurance CEO in New York City is just more evidence of this seething, populist anger.”

Critics of conservative electoral success use the term “rage” as if it was invented the moment Trump announced his candidacy back in 2016. That he installed into every working-class heart a sense of grievance and alienation that was previously unimaginable.

It’s a fundamentally spurious view. It’s also profoundly ahistorical.

The United States is a country forged in revolutionary rage and repeatedly fractured by it.

Rage is not new.

What is new — or at least more prevalent — is the left’s tendency to pretend that rage is either misplaced or misguided, as if that delegitimizes its presence. In progressive circles, this wilful ignorance is the real problem. And if the left, on both sides of the border, has any hope of regaining their footing in 2025 and beyond, it must stop focusing on the mere presence of rage and start addressing the deeper issues that created it.

Emanuel is right. The politics of joy, at least at the moment, is finished. Finished because it has been exposed as utterly out of step with the realities people are living with. Unless the problems of grocery prices, job insecurity, the collapse of manufacturing and economic inequality vanish overnight, this will continue to hold true.

For all of Donald Trump’s hyperbole and invented injustices, the wellspring of rage he’s tapped into is not.

And the very worst any politician can do going forward is to pretend it’s simply not there.

Let me put it this way. Sometimes, you walk into a room with the wrong speech.

It’s not that you misplaced your notes, it’s rather that your message does not align with what your eyes and ears tell you is happening in the room.

In other words, if you hear people are worried about skyrocketing prices, citing positive macroeconomic statistics from Bay Street won’t reassure them. If they’re upset that everyday items are locked behind glass at the pharmacy, rhyming off crime statistics to suggest “things aren’t so bad” will only alienate them further. And if they’re repeatedly telling you they no longer have faith in institutions, the answer can’t be to go to bat for those same institutions.

This isn’t to say that progressives should fold over on every issue that they’re losing to their conservative counterparts. But they have to start from the basic premise that if people are angry, they have every right to be. And to get to work in articulating a more compelling response to that anger.

For many progressives, that means ripping up the speech, listening committedly and starting from scratch based on what they hear people in the room are actually saying.

The world is not asking for speeches filled with hopeful platitudes; it’s demanding leaders who can diagnose the rot beneath the surface and offer real solutions to the frustrations fuelling people’s anger.