Political Traction

Political Traction

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Political Traction episodes

  • Special Update: The NDP Leadership Vote

    Really what the leadership vote demonstrates is an unwillingness to move back to third-party status.

    For our special update on the NDP leadership vote, Allie gets Sally Housser’s perspective on what it means for the NDP moving forward now that Tom Mulcair is no longer leader of the party.

    16 min
  • Special Update: The NDP Leadership Vote


    Really what the leadership vote demonstrates is an unwillingness to move back to third-party status.

    For our special update on the NDP leadership vote, Allie gets Sally Housser’s perspective on what it means for the NDP moving forward now that Tom Mulcair is no longer leader of the party.
    Sally has worked in a variety of communications positions for the NDP both federally and provincially. Beginning as a press secretary in Jack Layton’s office in 2011, she recently served as Rachel Notley’s press secretary during the successful Alberta NDP provincial campaign.
    16 min
  • Open And Transparent

    It’s more a difference in interpretation of how they’re presenting the numbers than any sort of error or lack of thought of what’s gone into the budget.

    Big news from last night! Tom Mulcair is officially out as the leader of the NDP. In order to give due attention to this change, we will be providing a special update on the NDP leadership vote later tonight, rather than covering it in this episode.

    27 min
  • Open and Transparent

    It’s more a difference in interpretation of how they’re presenting the numbers than any sort of error or lack of thought of what’s gone into the budget.
    Big news from last night! Tom Mulcair is officially out as the leader of the NDP. In order to give due attention to this change, we will be providing a special update on the NDP leadership vote later tonight, rather than covering it in this episode.

    For this instalment of Political Traction, we’re talking about transparency. Over the past week, the Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO) released a less-than-happy review of the Liberal government’s first budget and the Panama Papers have everyone talking about tax havens and accountability.

    Allie and David go over what Ottawa’s saying on the PBO, the Panama Papers, and the US Election and then Allie talks with Colin MacDonald.

    Colin is a Senior Consultant at Navigator, and he has served as senior policy advisor to several Ontario cabinet ministers across a variety of ministries. He was also director of policy for one of the candidates for leader of the Ontario Liberal Party during the party’s 2012-2013 leadership contest.

    27 min
  • Region, Region, What’s Your Region?

    We’re in a dangerous kind of precarious sense of federalism right now, not just over the EIﾅwe’re already getting a bit close to the old sense of western alienation.

    This week on Political Traction we’re taking a look at regional issues and how they affect communications plans. Certain areas impacted by the downturn in oil prices are excluded from the recent benefits made to Employment Insurance in the federal budget, and it’s creating an East vs. West mentality against Ottawa.

    24 min
  • Region, region, what’s your region?


    We’re in a dangerous kind of precarious sense of federalism right now, not just over the EI…we’re already getting a bit close to the old sense of western alienation.

    This week on Political Traction we’re taking a look at regional issues and how they affect communications plans. Certain areas impacted by the downturn in oil prices are excluded from the recent benefits made to Employment Insurance in the federal budget, and it’s creating an East vs. West mentality against Ottawa.
    Allie talks with David to get the top issues from Ottawa – one of them being EI. Then she talks with Sally Housser. Sally is a Senior Consultant at Navigator and has held various communications roles with the NDP, both provincially and federally. She also served as the press secretary in Jack Layton’s office and as the Deputy National Director of the Federal NDP during the 2012 leadership race. Sally’s also based in Navigator’s Edmonton office and Allie asks her to give a more local perspective on the EI changes and their impact on Alberta.
    24 min
  • The Budget

    It’s the first time we’ve really seen the media be critical of this government. There’s always dissenting paragraphs in articles, but now we’re seeing headlines and full articles about broken promises.

    It’s federal budget week! Ottawa was abuzz with the release of the Trudeau government’s first budget, so this episode of Political Traction focuses exclusively on items from the federal budget.

    23 min
  • The Budget

    It’s the first time we’ve really seen the media be critical of this government. There’s always dissenting paragraphs in articles, but now we’re seeing headlines and full articles about broken promises.
    It’s federal budget week! Ottawa was abuzz with the release of the Trudeau government’s first budget, so this episode of Political Traction focuses exclusively on items from the federal budget.

    From the size of the deficit to historic amounts of indigenous spending, there is lots to talk about – like how did the Liberals do? With the budget out and some cold, hard numbers, are Canadians still willing to give Prime Minister Trudeau and his party the benefit of the doubt? Or is it the end of the new government’s honeymoon period?

    Using our Political Traction methodology, Allie and David walk through which budget items did and did not get traction with Canadians across the country. Overall, Canadians are much less concerned with the budget than Ottawa – especially when there are other big news items, like the recent attacks on Brussels and the death of former Toronto Mayor Rob Ford. But, the budget items that they are concerned with tend to line up with what got the most coverage from media and political pundits.

    Given that the budget is a technical and dense topic, most Canadians rely on the media to get their budget facts. Considering this, communications plans are pretty important.

    This week, Allie talks with Will Stewart, Managing Principal of Navigator and a founding Principal at Ensight, to get some perspective on the strategic communications involved with the budget announcement.

     

    23 min
  • You Stink!

    This week we have a special episode of Political Traction. Parliament is on a break week, so we are going beyond Parliament Hill and taking you to Lebanon.

    This week, we’re talking about garbage — literal garbage, and literally mountains of it. For months now, garbage has been piling up in Lebanon. The rivers in the country are lined by actual walls of garbage that are four, five, six feet tall. There is so much garbage that this is beyond just a waste collection problem, or a municipal problem, or a political problem. There is so much garbage that is is now also an environmental and public health problem.

    22 min
  • YouStink!

    This week, we’re talking about garbage. Literal garbage and literally mountains of it. For months now, garbage has been piling up in Lebanon.
    This week we have a special episode of Political Traction. Parliament is on a break week, so we are going beyond Parliament Hill and taking you to Lebanon.

    This week, we’re talking about garbage – literal garbage, and literally mountains of it. For months now, garbage has been piling up in Lebanon. The rivers in the country are lined by actual walls of garbage that are four, five, six feet tall. There is so much garbage that this is beyond just a waste collection problem, or a municipal problem, or a political problem. There is so much garbage that is is now also an environmental and public health problem.

    So for this episode, we are looking at one group who, through digital activism, is drawing a lot of attention to this issue. This group is called YouStink.

    Through a series of fortunate events, Joseph Lavoie met Alaa Sayeg, who does training for digital media and digital activists and is one of the early activists in the YouStink movement. So this week, we’re looking at the organization’s digital activism and how it has been able to get so much political traction with the general public.

    One of the ways that YouStink has been able to get this traction is with its videos. In February, Lebanon’s Ministry of Tourism released a video of aerial shots of Beirut. The footage was suspiciously lacking in garbage. So, YouStink released their own video, using the same locations, techniques, and music, but including all of the garbage that is piling up.

     



     

    They also created a giant garbage catapult to hurl some of the readily available bags of garbage at government and police buildings.

     


    مقدمة نشرة أخبار تلفزيون "أم تي في":إنه يوم "الزباليكا 1" بامتياز، و"الزباليكا 1" لمن لم يتعرف عليه بعد، هو السلاح الجديد لحملة "طلعت ريحتكم" ضد الحكومة وممارساتها غير المدروسة في ملف النفايات. وبهذا السلاح الجديد وجهت الحملة أكياس النفايات نحو البرلمان والسراي. مع ذلك فإن لا شيء يدل على ان ما حصل سيثني الحكومة عن خطتها بترحيل النفايات وفق كلفة مرتفعة، فهل نحن في حاجة الى "زباليكا 2" و"زباليكا 3" عل الحكومة تتراجع عن صفقاتها المشبوهة؟

    Posted by ‎طلعت ريحتكم‎ on Saturday, February 6, 2016


    Garbage Catapult

     

    Since the group started in July, it has managed to get almost 197,000 likes on their Facebook page, it has over 310 videos, and it has organized protests, drawing as many as 70,000 people. Its use of digital tools and social media has made YouStink the perfect metaphor for the garbage crisis and government reform in Lebanon.

    To learn more about YouStink you can visit the organization’s website and Facebook page.

     
    Read more about Youstink and the garbage crisis:
    Aljazeera, "Many injured in Beirut 'You Stink' protest over rubbish"

    Aljazeera, "New rallies in Lebanon over months-old rubbish crisis"

    BBC News, "'You stink': The fight to get rubbish off Beirut's streets"

    22 min

About Political Traction

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Political Traction takes you behind the scenes for an insider’s look at what’s really going on when it comes to the country’s biggest political stories. Each Friday, host Adam Owen sits down with an…