Patrick Gossage

Canadian Politics is facing a double whammy: A CPC leader who mistrusts journalists and believes in conspiracy theories, and growing distrust and reduced influence of journalists. The degradation of Canadian politics continues with the convincing crowning of Pierre Poilievre as the undisputed [...]

Written in collaboration with Karen Gordon Politicians don’t go into elections to lose. It’s possible that the current low poll standings for Liberals against Conservatives and Justin’s personal popularity will remain low for the next three years. If Pierre Poilievre wins as CPC [...]

The CBC’s flagship nightly news program, The National, enjoyed good ratings when helmed by national news figures like Knowlton Nash and Peter Mansbridge before changes led to a decline in ratings. Further format and host changes saw ratings pale beside CTV’s consistently strong nightly national [...]

If Poilievre wins the Conservative leadership race in September, and it looks like he might, we’ll be treated to a three-year war between him and Justin Trudeau before the next election. Despite the traditional media’s ridiculing of Poilievre’s more outlandish policies and claims, [...]

Feature photo by David Kawai It’s not often that the head of a major cultural organization has been able to thank both the Harper and Trudeau governments for major investments in their organizations. But on July 1, 2017, at the lavish opening of the revitalized and expanded National Arts [...]

The imposing sandstone structure on Wellington facing the Hill and the War Memorial has quite a story. The Langevin Block has morphed from being the first building outside the Hill to house a growing civil service into a symbol of the power and influence of the Prime Minister’s Office which [...]

Our chartered banks are now the bedrock of our economy. Until the 1930s, Canada’s first bank — the Bank of Montreal — enjoyed a pre-eminent position in the economic and political life of Canada, and has remained a pioneer and leader in its financial affairs ever since. A lavish [...]

There are more civil servants than politicians and journalists in Ottawa, but increasingly, and of necessity, allegedly neutral government employees are political players, their lives often turned around by the incoming government’s new policies and priorities. They will find veteran campaign [...]

Illustration: Shooting the Rapids by Frances Hopkins (1879) Official Ottawa is struggling to define a new era of relations with our founding nations almost indifferent to the central role they played in the exploration and opening up the continent to trade. In fact, the very savvy Odawa [...]

One big difference between Ottawa and Washington DC is that the wicked House of Cards fourth season is the stuff of binge watching in the capital of the most powerful nation on earth — to the point where the plot’s twists are fully outlined in advance in The Washingtonian — the city’s premium [...]