“Lenny” is a collection of recorded messages, designed to fool telemarketers into thinking they’re talking to a real person. Here’s what happened when Lenny got a call from a Conservative campaigner representing Pierre Poilievre. As Alison@Creekside has reported: “The telemarketer calling here on behalf of the re-election campaign of Pierre Poilievre, champion of the Fair […]
Katrina’s campaign journal: Party line
We continue Katrina Kairys’s series on getting to know Canadian politics from the ground up, by volunteering during the 2015 federal election campaign. Read installments 1 and 2 here and here. By Katrina Kairys I was blown off last night. I really thought things were going well, and I suppose it started out okay, but we had a difference […]
Lynton Crosby: Two can play the attack game
By Montreal Simon When the story broke that the Australian attack dingo Lynton Crosby was working for the Cons, I was struck by how angrily the political thugs in the PMO reacted. The Con flak Kory Teneycke tried to play down the news, claiming first that Crosby was not here, and then that all he […]
The Jets tickets that weren’t
By Chris Turcotte So a funny thing happened on a recent Wednesday evening. It was funny for a few minutes and then it ended up causing me a lot of grief and wasted time. I was mad, like really, really mad. I’m all for a practical joke, anyone that knows me, knows that I have […]
Too bad about the kid. Now, back to war.
By Montreal Simon Many hours after I first saw it, I am still haunted by this photo of that poor little Syrian boy washed up on a Turkish beach. And by the knowledge that his refugee family begged the ghastly Chris Alexander to let them emigrate to Canada. But got absolutely nowhere. But while I’m […]
Katrina’s campaign journal: Dans Outremont
With this second installment, we continue Katrina Kairys’s series on getting to know Canadian politics from the ground up, by volunteering during the 2015 federal election campaign. Read Ep. 1, “New kid on the doorstep,” here. By Katrina Kairys Shortly after canvassing in Toronto, I headed to the province next door to see how the […]
Shattering Stephen Harper’s Legacy
By Claudio D’Andrea At a slim 124 pages, Mel Hurtig’s latest book, The Arrogant Autocrat: Stephen Harper’s Takeover of Canada, doesn’t leave him much track to bulldoze the Conservative prime minister’s record. Instead this series of short chapters is like a bobcat that levels the mess that “The Harper Government” has made of our country. […]
ISIS rampages, artists fuss
By Jim Henshaw It wasn’t the first time somebody has died on stage. Two of recent theatre’s great comedians, Dick Shawn (The Producers) and Sid James (pick any Carry On . . . movie) both did final pratfalls that convulsed their audiences –- until the realization dawned that they were never getting up again. Genesius, the […]
Margaret Atwood and The National Post: We’ve been there
In honour of Margaret Atwood’s temporary banning by The National Post, and subsequent re-posting in helpfully edited form, we offer backofthebook.ca editor Frank Moher’s “On being disappeared by the National Post,” originally published on January 5th, 2010. By Frank Moher I knew when I submitted my last book review to The National Post that it might […]
Stephen Harper’s phony regionalism
By Frank Moher Benjamin Perrin’s testimony on Thursday reminded us that, regardless of what Stephen Harper knew or when, every tendril in the Duffy scandal leads back to the Prime Minister, and his insistence that hapless Mike pretend he lives in P.E.I. When Duffy’s Senate appointment was first mooted, it was Harper, not Duffy, who decided […]
