Who killed Question Period?

I have an op-ed in the National Post, which looks at the way in which Question Period has declined even more of late than it's usual terrible self, and the ways in which the fixed election date has made a bad situation even worse. I'm also very happy that this made it into the print edition of the Post, for my first time.

Michael Chong's Reform Act is Easy to Hate. So Why Does the Media Love it?

I have a new op-ed on the Canadaland website, where I look at the one-sided coverage of Michael Chong's Reform Act on two of our national political shows, and give some critical commentary on what the one-sidedness of that coverage says about the way in which we're being served by our political media. As one of the few reporters who has looked at Chong's bill from a critical perspective, looking at other coverage has been an interesting exercise.

Why aren’t MPs paying attention to Information Commissioner Legault?

My column this week on Loonie Politics looks at the rather serious issue of the Information Commissioner's special report on the RCMP's destruction of records related to the long-gun registry, and why her concerns aren't registering with most MPs – a mere three questions have been asked on the subject in QP, despite the huge concerns with what happened, and the government's response in trying to change the law retroactively, which is the aspect that people should be most concerned about.

For Evan Solomon, Elizabeth May's Speech was a Democratic Crisis (It was not)

I have a new op-ed up on the Canadaland website, which looks at how the two main political shows covered the issue of Elizabeth May's bomb of a speech at last weekend's Press Gallery Dinner, and her subsequent apology tour. It's been a while since I've done much critical commentary of the political shows – something I didn't quite get into as much during my time writing the Politics on TV column for Maclean's, but I'm grateful that Canadaland has asked me to write more about this.

Why CANADALAND: COMMONS is possibly the worst thing for Canadian politics

I have an editorial on the Canadaland website, which is a rather scathing critique of the first episode of their new Canadaland: Commons podcast. I hadn't expected to write this piece for them – I had expressed my head-exploding disbelief with the show over Twitter with a stated intention to blog more about it later, and was immediately contacted by one of the Canadaland website producers with the offer to write it for them, on a paid basis. I accepted, wrote the piece, and soon found that I was not the only person who felt that way about the show. And kudos to Canadaland for putting critique up about their own podcast on their website.

Conservatives not putting their money where their mouths are

My column this week on Loonie Politics tries to put some numbers to the narratives, particularly where the Conservatives try to position themselves on national security and defence. While a lot of big words get spoken, and photo ops happen near the front lines in Iraq, the truth of the numbers as told by people like the PBO is that the government isn't backing up those narratives with the actual dollars to make a difference, which is a real problem.