Talking about Canadian politics: The CBC At Issue panel, Eric Blais, Evan Scrimshaw, Brittlestar

The CBC At Issue panel

This was the panel's "wrap up" discussion about 2025:
 

TLDL: best stories of the last year (Trudeau, Carney, Trump, and Poilievre's election loss), most newsworthy premiers (Ford, Smith, Kinew)

Eric Blais on how Poilievre disappoints
In the Toronto Star, Quebec consultant Eric Blais writes Pierre Poilievre keeps finding new ways to disappoint us (gift link)

...What many voters — including Conservatives — are waiting for from Poilievre isn’t contrition or therapy. It’s evidence of processing. A signal that he understands the difference between a style that electrifies a base and one that reassures a country.
This resistance to reflection didn’t begin on election night. It was baked into the Conservative campaign itself.....
....A one-on-one interview with the CBC’s Barton is not a neutral backdrop for a Conservative leader who has spent years attacking the public broadcaster. The appearance alone could have carried a message: I’m here because it matters that I speak to all Canadians, not just the ones who already agree with me.
Instead, Poilievre largely repeated what he has long preached to the converted, assuming they were watching. The opportunity wasn’t squandered by a wrong answer, but by a refusal to recognize the moment for what it was.
Ironically, many of the voters Poilievre now needs might still be ready to let go of their concerns about him as a future prime minister. But they can’t do that for him. They’re waiting for the signal where he shows he has processed the loss, absorbed the message, and adjusted accordingly.
Until he can acknowledge the loss, accept what it revealed, and let go of a style that narrows his appeal, interviews like the one on CBC won’t move him forward. They’ll simply confirm that he’s still fighting yesterday’s fight by blaming the other guy, while the country waits for something different.

Scrimshaw on the CPC crisis
In his Scrimshaw Unscripted substack, Evan Scrimshaw writes Tactics, Strategy, And Poilievre’s True Crisis

...the problem for the CPC isn’t that they’ve made a lot of dumb mistakes, it’s that they really haven’t. They’re making better decisions, they’re fucking up basic less often, and their tactics seem better off. They’re clearly, at least in my view, leaving less meat on the bone, and whatever influence [new CPC campaign chief] Steve Outhouse has on this process is clearly professionalizing the operation in a good way for them. The caucus management questions are real, but on the whole, the ship of the CPC is running a lot smoother than in February or March.
And they’re still losing....
... their decision to not even interrogate the election loss has led them here, thinking they could solve structural problems with tactical solutions.
This isn’t even an argument for firing Poilievre per se, it’s just an argument that the CPC need to acknowledge their plans aren’t enough to solve their problems. Questions of firing people - whether political leaders, hockey coaches, or whoever else - are not decisions you make in a vacuum, and I’m unconvinced that there’s some Conservative saviour who would solve the party’s structural divides and make the modern CPC a coherent party that offers more than tax cuts and mandatory minimums as the solution to literally any problem. But if you’re not going to fire Poilievre - and right now I don’t think the membership will come even close to anything resembling a bad result for Skippy - then you have to do something beyond hope that the Liberals fuck up...

Brittlestar on protecting the rule of law
Finally, I want to note this brilliant substack column by Brittlestar about the importance of the rule of law in Canadian society: Fairness is a team sport:
He begins

Canada loves its sports metaphors.
Hockey, especially.
If you’ve ever had a conversation with a Canadian over the age of 10, you know we’re capable of turning literally anything ...politics, weather, tax season ...into a face-off situation and we’ll probably find a way to insert a Paul Henderson or Sidney Crosby reference.
But here’s the thing: fairness really is a team sport.
Not the sweaty kind with whistles and Gatorade, but the kind that quietly keeps the country running without anyone punching someone in the penalty box of democracy...

He goes on from there - read the whole thing. He ends with:

...The rule of law only works when everyone plays by the same rules ...no exceptions, no favourites, no “well, this guy has connections.” It’s the foundation that keeps the game fair, the rink safe, and the whole country from descending into off-ice chaos.
Fairness is not passive.
It’s not automatic.
It’s something we protect together....

And Brittlestar adds a link to the Ours To Protect website, by a consortium of Canadian law societies.