Author: Cam Holmstrom

There are many constant features of all election campaigns that create their own interesting quirks. One of those in communities, big and small, across the country is all-candidates debates. Various groups put them on, from community associations, to labour, to farm groups and other advocacy groups. Depending on where you

I have to admit that the start of this federal campaign period has been pretty underwhelming for me. Maybe it’s because I’ve come to expect better of political parties or because I’ve seen much better in my time on the Hill, but the run up to the start of this

It’s now been a week that Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer has found himself with a big problem on his positions around some social issues. First there was the re-release of his speech against gay marriage from his days as a back bench MP, followed by the news that the Conservatives

With the Federal Election just around the corner, there is one last race to take place before the big show in the fall. That race is the Manitoba Provincial Election, with election day being September 10th. So far, this campaign hasn’t been spectacular and could easily be called low-key. That

When watching our elected leaders at work, it’s always interesting to watch when someone decides to take a bold step and try to be the first to do something difficult. The fact is that our politicians simply don’t do that very often, for very good and understandable reasons. But sometimes

As of today, the 43rd General Election coming this fall promises to be a very tight race with a lot at stake for all of the parties. The fact that we have a dead heat at the top of the opinion polls and the New Democrats and the Greens battling

It was just yesterday that I wrote about a spectacular communications gaffe from the Liberals on carbon pricing, in which I talked about the importance of consistent and well prepared communications. But being politics, there are always going to be many examples of communications done poorly to go around. It’s

Communications is key in our modern political world and the importance of having a clear message cannot be understated. That’s always been true in politics long before now, but in this age of social media and 24/7 news, it’s all the more important because there are so many ways for

After a bit of time off today I was able to record and post the newest episode of the Magpie Brûlé podcast. In this episode I review the most recent events in Canadian politics, the latest LavScam drama, the run up to the Leaders Debates and the recent news around

In many ways, I consider myself to be very blessed and to be very fortunate. I have a loving family who I can always depend on, an amazing wife and best friend who I can’t imagine life with and a bubbly daughter who is full of life, curiosity and who

It was just last week that I went into the news surrounding the Federal Leaders debates, who was in and who was out as of that moment. In that piece I mentioned the about how 2015 was different because we saw multiple debates organized by multiple groups, beyond the usual

Back in June I wrote about the Ontario Conservatives plans to force gas stations to put politically torqued stickers on their pumps with misleading information about the federal Carbon Tax. With a fine of $10,000 a day for gas station owners who refuse to post the stickers, this heavy-handed move

Politics can be a strange and fickle beast at times, or at least some days it feels that way. And in one way, that makes a lot of sense; people change, grow, evolve over time. We fall in and out of love, relationships and friendships all throughout out lives. Yet

Between elections it’s not uncommon for Parliament to makes changes and updates to the laws that guide our election campaigns. Sometimes that involves simple updates to make the laws more relevant to the current day, and in other cases those changes are bigger and more sweeping, like we saw with

This week another political event started, with a provincial election in the province of Manitoba. Despite the fact that under Manitoba’s fixed date election law the next election wasn’t supposed to be for another year, Conservative Premier Brian Pallister dropped an early writ to try to take advantage and win

With the big news around LavScam from earlier this week it’s turned out to be a much more eventful week in political Ottawa than most of us were expecting. It’s made for a lot to talk about, that’s for sure, and there will be a lot more to talk about

Yesterday turned out to be a much bigger day than most of us thought it would be when we all woke up on a lazy mid-August day. Ottawa has been so quiet this summer as everyone focuses on the fall campaign and gets ready to go, yet yesterdays news on

Just yesterday I was on CFRA talking about the most recent revelations from the CBC’s Aaron Wherry’s new book on the Prime Minister, which talked about Mr. Trudeau’s views on the whole SNC/PMO Scandal. We pretty much agreed on the air that unless something big changed, LavScam wouldn’t be a

The last Federal Election that we had in 2015 was remarkable for many reasons and we saw many things that we hadn’t seen before that had an effect on the result of the campaign. But probably the biggest thing that affected the end result of the 42nd General Election was

This afternoon I had the chance to talk with CFRA’s Rob on “News and Views” Strategy Session. Along with Melissa Lantsman, we talk about Aaron Wherry’s new book on Prime Minister Trudeau, the list of invitees to the Federal Leaders Debates (and who was left out) and the launch of