Calgary Grit

Top Tory election architect Patrick Muttart – who most people seem to think is a pretty bright guy – is off to the US. So how big of a deal is this? Well, it’s probably more important than people who don’t follow politics think it is, but less important than people who do follow politics […]

Far be it for me to disagree with a respected historian like Peter C. Newman but…I’m going to disagree with Peter C. Newman. In Saturday’s Globe and Mail, Newman explains his theory of how Liberals choose their leaders: If history doesn’t exactly repeat itself, it sets significant patterns, such as the astonishing fact that the […]

The 2008 fundraising numbers are out: CPC: 21,190,928.22 (up 25%)Lib: 5,900,511.89 (up 30%)NDP: 5,466,434.84 (up 37%)Green: 1,631,293.79 (up 66%)Bloc: 713,415.22 (up 66%) On the bright side, Liberal numbers were up 23% in Q4 while most other parties only matched their Q3 numbers, but this may have been due to the leadership “race”. Either way, the […]

1. Dr. Tom is the latest to jump on the “death of Conservatism”/”Right wing uprising” train, in this Globe op-ed. While there might be a fundraising backlash, I wouldn’t expect any of this to hurt Harper at the polls. According to this poll (page 35), only 1% of Conservative voters are less likely to vote […]

Well, not exactly – but close! 1. It came out a few days ago that the RCMP raided Alberta’s Justice Department last July, looking for proof of a forged document that had been entered into evidence at an earlier inquiry. Also: According to Moore’s sworn statement, the Department of Infrastructure freedom of information officer who […]

This move would appear to address some of the problems surrounding Michael Ignatieff’s first shadow cabinet: OTTAWA – Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff today unveiled new roles for members of the Liberal caucus and announced his nominees for House committee chair positions. The Honourable Ujjal Dosanjh (Vancouver South), former premier of British Columbia, will assume the […]

A jilted Jack has lashed out against his old coalition partners with a pair of new radio ads. There’s nothing overly novel about them – it’s basically a rehash of the same tactic he ran against Dion last campaign. But, really, it’s still just the NDP. It’s like worrying about a leaky faucet, when there’s […]

The death of the coalition I can live with. But the death of coalition analogies? That’s like, like…well, I can’t think of what that’s like, but I’m sure these pundits and politicians could: Don Newman (Monday): “The NDP are like that student who made a prom date in March and now, come May, he’s not […]

B. Not necessarily coalition To no one’s surprise (except, judging by his reaction, Jack Layton’s), that horrifying experiment in democracy is now over with. In the end, the coalition threat certainly deserves some of the credit/blame for Harper opening the spending floodgates, so the whole exercise may not have been in vain. So what is […]