Aaron Wherry

The Liberal Party’s official campaign slogan in last year’s federal election, “Canada Strong,” has the virtue of being hard to argue with. With Canada newly exposed to the vicissitudes of an unstable behemoth next door and a destabilized world order, there is an obvious and urgent need to strengthen and reinforce this country. The debate now is not about whether strength is what’s needed but about how exactly to build…

If a nation is the sum of the stories it tells itself, then its political leaders might be something like its chief storytellers. But that role has long rested more comfortably on the shoulders of American presidents than with Canadian prime ministers; indeed, “storyteller-in-chief” was the title a New Yorker headline once bestowed upon Barack…

On the surface, the 2021 federal election changed almost nothing. Going into that contest, the Liberals and Conservatives held 155 and 119 seats, respectively. Coming out, they had 160 and 119. Justin Trudeau started the campaign with a minority government, and he finished with a minority government. Each party’s share of the popular vote barely budged from its numbers in the previous…