Friday, November 6, 2026
The Niagara Independent
Friday, November 6, 2026

Joan Tintor

Columnist
National

Conservative leadership field narrows

Two weeks ago I predicted an eventful week in the race to succeed Conservative leader Andrew Scheer. Turns out my prediction was a week early: it was last week that we saw several events that will likely shape the contest that ends five months from now. On Tuesday, former Mulroney cabinet minister and Québec premier Jean Charest frustrated hopes of an exciting fight between himself and Peter MacKay, by dropping out. The statement he released claimed the timeline for the leadership contest was too short, and made it difficult for an “outside candidate” (his words) to round up the $300,000 and 3,000 member signatures required in two months.

Joan Tintor
National

Trump strangely silent on Trudeau and Iran

Something weird happened last week. Justin Trudeau blamed America for the circumstances that led to Iran downing a passenger plane with 57 Canadians onboard. In response, US president Donald Trump … did nothing. In an interview with Global News, anchor Dawna Friesen asked Trudeau whether the Canadians were “collateral damage” to US-Iran tensions. Trudeau’s answer was in obvious agreement with the question’s premise: “If there were no tensions, if there was no escalation recently in the region, those Canadians would be right now home with their families.”

Joan Tintor
National

Who will answer the Conservative starting gun?

This should be an eventful week in the nascent contest to replace Conservative leader Andrew Scheer. The party’s leadership committee released the rules for the leadership contest over the weekend. The key bits are: candidates will have to raise $300,000 just to cover their fees and deposit (the $100,000 deposit will be returned if they follow the rules); they have until February 27 to apply (with $25,000 due up front) and until March 25 to hand over the rest of the $300,000. Anyone who wants to vote in the race must be a Conservative party member by April 17th. Dates and locations for debates (or “leadership forums” as the rules call them) are pending.

Joan Tintor
National

Trudeau’s seriousness gets its first test

Barely a day after the Canadian Press released a story about Justin Trudeau’s vacation beard – “Justin Trudeau is sporting a new, more serious look to go with his more businesslike approach to being prime minister” went the lede – tragedy has given Trudeau his first opportunity to prove how serious he can be. Information emerged on Thursday that Iran had indeed shot down the Ukrainian airliner on which all 176 passengers and crew – including at least 63 Canadians – died on Wednesday. This explained Iran’s shady behaviour in the aftermath of the crash: immediately claiming that the plane had suffered a mechanical failure, refusing to release the flight recorders to civilian authorities qualified to examine them, then claiming the recorders were damaged and some data was likely unrecoverable.

Joan Tintor
National

Lisa Raitt has to pick a lane

Sometimes when I am still struggling for a column topic of a Monday afternoon, I turn on the TV and radio news channels, hoping something will present itself. Usually it does not, and I return to my computer in defeat yet again. Yesterday was an exception. I happened upon Lisa Raitt – former Conservative MP, co-chair of the Conservative Party’s leadership committee, and Bell Media contributor since the election – on Evan Solomon’s radio show. After some call-ins about how the Conservative party handled various issues in the past, Raitt offered a non-answer to Solomon’s opinion on one of the potential leadership candidates.

Joan Tintor
National

Movies the CBC could CGI Trudeau into

The week between Christmas and New Year’s used to be a reliable window for little-known outfits to drop an outrageous story or claim onto hungry news outlets, which would often give such nonsense a boost that would be impossible any other time of the year.

Joan Tintor
National

Morneau’s optimism meets economic reality

On Monday morning, the day after finance minister Bill Morneau had criticized his Conservative critic for warning of a “made-in-Canada” recession, the news broke: Statistics Canada data showed that Canada’s economy shrank in October. From Reuters: Canada’s economy unexpectedly shrank by 0.1 per cent in October, the first monthly decline since February, partly because of a U.S. auto strike that hit manufacturing, Statistics Canada data indicated on Monday.

Joan Tintor
National

Liberals give Canadians another busted budget for Christmas

You probably missed it in the pre-holiday hubbub. And if you check the news on the weekend you will probably still miss it. Because Justin Trudeau’s first broken promise since the October election disappeared from the news in 48 hours. On Monday, finance minister Bill Morneau released the government’s fall economic and fiscal update, after MPs were safely in their home ridings for the holidays. It was immediately clear why: the headline was that the 2019/20 fiscal year will end with the government in the red by $26.6 billion, up from the $19.8 billion projected in Morneau’s budget way back in … March. Not a great topic for question period, and certainly an unhelpful distraction from the Conservatives’ ongoing Andrew Scheer drama.

Joan Tintor
National

A last own goal marks Scheer’s exit

The initial story (from unnamed sources) was that Conservative leader Andrew Scheer was using party funds to pay for his kids’ private school tuition, and was doing it “without the knowledge or approval of the [Conservative] Fund” as Global reporter Mercedes Stephenson tweeted in an “exclusive” moments before Scheer stood to speak in the House of Commons on Thursday. But, as stories from unnamed sources often are, it was not entirely accurate. Two hours after Scheer resigned, party president Scott Lamb issued a statement that after Scheer was elected leader in 2017, Lamb offered to have the party reimburse Scheer for the costs of moving his family to Ottawa: “This includes a differential in schooling costs between Regina and Ottawa. All proper procedures were followed and signed off on by the appropriate people.”

Joan Tintor
National

Trudeau’s two China faces are on a collision course

Today marks one year since Canadians Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor were arbitrarily arrested in China for unspecified violations of Chinese state secrets laws. A lengthy piece in Monday’s Globe and Mail detailed the conditions under which they are now held: Kovrig in a jail outside Beijing, and Spavor in the Dandong Detention Centre.

Joan Tintor