In the closing moments of an excellent At Issues panel on CBC's The National last night, National Post columnist Andrew Coyne explained why traditional Question Period theatrics are so feckless when a real scandal envelopes government. [If the Opposition] would slow down and ask short simple questions, rather these kind of multiple-part grandstanding theatrics, but they don't seem to be capable of that. What sort of short questions, host Peter Mansbridge asked. [S]imple questions of fact that put ministers on the record, where you can then compare what they say on the record with what they say later. It's more in the nature...

22 May, 2013

After listening to wrongness guru Kathryn Schultz's TED talk on the counterintuitive blessings of making mistakes, it seems an opportune moment to get this out of the way. A quiet but astute observer of provincial and national politics writes: I meant to ask you where you get your drugs from. They are obviously very powerful. I mean, how else can you explain your federal election campaign outcome prediction? That would be this prediction: I look forward to their stories a month from now acknowledging April 12 as the turning point when a majority slipped from Harper’s grasp, and a minority Liberal Government became...

20 April, 2011