Canada’s Parliament resumes on Monday January 26th, will you be watching?   There is a lot of talk about an April Election, so it will be important to see who the architect of an election is after only one year since Mark Carney was elected Prime Minister. Here’s a second question; what are you watching?  Will it be Question Period or will it be House Committees.   Whether there is an election could come down to how much work gets done or not done to pass the governments’ agenda.  The government has introduced 18 pieces of legislation since May 2025 when the House started sitting after the election.  

Former Alberta Premier Jason Kenny said this in an interview;  he said that recall legislation says was never meant to be used as a political weapon, but as an "ultimate tool of accountability" if a politician engages in illegal or unethical behaviour. Surely, the UPC government at the time would have thought that what’s taking place now would happen?  How could they not when the law was created to affect MLA’s from other Alberta political parties. Recall legislation is the centre of a political storm with seventeen recall petitions (16 for UCP MLAs and one for a NDP MLA) in Alberta including one for Premier Danielle Smith.  

2014, in Barrie Ontario Ontario PC Leader Tim Hudak announced a reduction of 100,000 jobs in the Ontario Public Service. He also announced the creation of one million private sector jobs over 8 yea…

2014, in Barrie Ontario Ontario PC Leader Tim Hudak announced a reduction of 100,000 jobs in the Ontario Public Service. He also announced the creation of one million private sector jobs over 8 years to get the economy moving again. Fast forward to November 2025, Federal Liberal Leader Mark Carney announces a reduction of 40,000 Federal Public Service employees. This to reduce a bloated PS due to Justin Trudeau’s 10 year hiring spree. Two scenes, same announcements. The difference? Hudak was on the campaign trail and Carney was elected as PM.

Here is a question to ponder, do you think musicians think about their music and how it is being received 20, 40 and 50 years after its release? I’d love to hear from musicians and their thoughts in this topic. The Beatles have led the way with their initial 3 release Anthology series and now we can expect Anthology 4!  Recent examples of releasing music “the vault” include Taylor Swift who has added unreleased songs when she records Taylor’s Version of her albums.  Do you think she will have anything left when there is a 20th Anniversary Edition of her debut album in 2026?

For the second time in a year there is a Postal Strike, if you consider the work slowdowns, the overtime ban and the refusal to deliver business flyers Canadians have every right to be frustrated. Canadians also have a right to have an effective postal service that does not put a financial strain on the government. Minutes after the government announcement by Minister Lightbound to restructure Canada Post and to move all mail delivery to community mailboxes I told my boss, the next move CUPW will make is to go on strike.

The MTV Video Music Awards were handed out last Sunday night (September 7th) and it was lining up to be a battle of Blackpink vs Blackpink vs the World. Before I let you know who won lets give a lay of the land before the first awards were handed out. There were a total of 12 nominations between Blackpink and its individual members. Rosé received 8 nominations, 7 nominations for her smash hit APT, and a single nom for “Toxic to the End”. Rosé was pit against her bandmates Lisa, Jenny and Jisso for the Best K-Pop category.

The NDP finally officially started its leadership campaign with the new leader to be announced in the spring in Winnipeg.  Out of all the political parties in Canada the NDP seems the safest leadership for job security.  Recent evidence supports this claim. Jagmeet Singh was the leader from 2017 to 2025 and was able to stick around to fight three elections.

In my reading challenge for 2025, I’ve noticed that out of the 19 books I have read two books that were about a Prime Minister and one written by a Prime Minister. If I go back to last year, I can add two written about Justin Trudeau and John Ibbitson’s profile of the 13th and 14th Prime Ministers, Diefenbaker and Pearson.

This year, “The Great Gatsby” turns 100.A.O. Scott, a critic at large for The New York Times Book Review, tells the story of how an overlooked book by a 28-year-old author eventually became the great ...

Who knows how the future will regard Justin Trudeau – but the present is having nothing of him. The election was going to go one of two ways, either a Conservative or Liberal win.  A Conservative win would have resulted in a swift repeal of Bills C-5, C-75, C-69 and the Carbon Tax.  To my surprise though the elected Liberals have started their own notions to unload much of the Trudeau legacy.

Today’s post is how election day unfolded in Barrie South – Innisfil. Quietly watching the early votes after the polls closed at 9:30pm before heading to the Election Night Party I woke in a state of calm, different from the last 36 as each day had a long list of “to do’s” to accomplish. Today was simple, have teams go to polling stations and get our supporters out to vote. I had simple plan of getting into the office by 830am enjoy 30 minutes of quiet and coffee. As they say, ‘the best laid plans”…the calls started and the volunteers began to arrive ahead of the prescribed time.

On the Elections Canada calendar it reads Day 8, eight days before the election on Monday  April 28th.  I wish I could say I was out playing games, going to see a live band or even going to see the Barrie Colts love in their 2025 playoff run.  I even missed going to a record shop on Record Store Day here in Barrie. The one night of fun was a night of darts at the Innisfil Legion Hall.  If it works out, I am going to sit in on a session of the Innisfil Town Council next week.  

Wild turkeys, that is the only news I can be sure of as my nose has been hard to the grindstone for the last week.  The turkeys were everywhere, crossing Huronia Rd and creating traffic havoc on Big Bay Point Road.  The turkeys may have even caused some chaos in the Tim Horton’s drive thru at the corner of Huronia and Big Bay Point Rd. Photo by Magda Ehlers on Pexels.com Here we are in week three – the hump week of the election campaign and our focus is now on advance polls and “Getting Out The Vote”!

Week one of the federal election has passed and this weekend and as I start writing this post we’re dealing with freezing rain and power outage! Like 2019 and 2021 I am in Barrie for the election working in the riding of Barrie South – Innisfil (formerly known as Barrie-Innisfil.  I arrived on day two of the election or Day 36, depending on how you read the Elections Canada calendar. The first week was all about setting up the office, getting the initial signs out and submitting nominations papers for the candidate.  

I recently read a piece written by Hub contributor Élie Cantin-Nantel where he looks at the results of an Ipsos poll that indicated 43% of 18–34-year-olds would jump at the chance to make Canada th…

December can be a tricky month to focus on new music, I am talking about the non-christmas music as the release of seasonal music takes over the airwaves, new music lists and the top streaming list…