Last weekend I watched season 14 of South Park, and in a run of super hero episodes they introduced a character called Captain Hindsight. Basically, he flies in at a time of crisis and tells them what they should have done to avoid it, once it’s already

Are the federal Liberals finished? The man who once christened Liberalism "Canada's state religion" certainly thinks so. Peter C. Newman, perhaps the country's longest-serving commentator, has a new book out. When the Gods Changed: The Death of Liberal C

It takes some getting used to, seeing the Liberals shrunken and shrivelled to third-party status in the House of Commons. They’re having a hard time getting used to it themselves. They’re over there in the far corner of the opposition benches. On a good

If you don't completely understand Canadian politics, and who does, then here is your chance to learn how this seemingly ungovernable country has managed to not only hold together — against all odds — but to actually flourish. But the times they are a ch

I was in Toronto and Ottawa last week to launch my book critiquing Michael Ignatieff's career as a public intellectual. Coincidentally, Peter C. Newman's book on Ignatieff's disastrous tenure as Liberal leader was also released last week. Much of the med

Peter C. Newman, having just been asked why Michael Ignatieff never became prime minister of Canada, muses. "He was an impressive man," says Newman, as he waits to go on to a Sun News talk show. "But he was the wrong man." The wrong man. That, in sum,

A little, chronological glimpse into the recent, roller-coaster debate over the Liberals' future. Nov. 9, 2011: Interim Liberal leader Bob Rae delivers a much-reported speech on the state of his party. Nov. 10, 2011: The Liberal Party's president and

For Michael Ignatieff, things began coming apart at a party conclave in Sudbury, Ont. , on Sept. 1, 2009. There he was, on the 70th anniversary of the outbreak of the Second World War, declaring a war of his own on Stephen Harper’s Conservatives. With th

Peter C. Newman, the iconic chronicler of Canadian public life, says the party that governed Canada longer than the Communists ruled Russia is dead in the cold, cold ground, a corpse of its own making only tangentially helped into the grave by Michael Ig