With a peasant-braided hairstyle that she wore as a crown, Yulia Tymoshenko led mass protests that swept Ukraine in 2004. She was a leader of the Fatherland Party. In 2010, she became the first female to run in presidential elections. But shortly after losing to Victor Yanukovich, the queen of the Orange Revolution has fallen into disfavor, to put it mildly.

There is more to Laureen Harper than meets the eye. OLM’s Alexandra Gunn caught up with the on-the-go mom at 24 Sussex Drive to talk about raising a family in the spotlight, her no-fuss fitness regime and what makes Canada the best place to live in the world.

Journalism and fear never go well together. Just one day before I interviewed CBC foreign correspondent Nahlah Ayed, who has been covering the Middle East for over a decade, I learned that somebody tried to kill my colleague in Kazakhstan, journalist Lukpan Ahmediarov.

The recent unexpected defeat of Alberta Wildrose leader Danielle Smith by incumbent Progressive Conservative (PC) Premier Alison Redford in the Alberta provincial election demonstrates that the same reasoning which led to the unanticipated American presidential election victories in 1936 and 1948 is alive and well in Canada.

What will Canada look like if tens of thousands of public sector jobs are lost by the end of this year? That is the question plaguing economists, unions and political analysts alike. These potential job losses follow the federal Conservative government’s announcement to freeze wages and deliver $8 billion in cuts over the next five years.

Politics at the national level has always been a zero sum game; yet it would seem that increasingly the consequences are especially swift for advisors and consultants who find themselves at the wrong end of a comment which could prove damaging to a re-election campaign.

In April, the world’s top polar scientists will descend on Montreal to answer the world’s most pressing question – how is climate change affecting our planet and what should we do about it?