Countdown to Christmas (with the coronavirus)
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The briefings will return to Justin Trudeau’s home as the second wave of COVID-19 becomes more of a thing. And while tighter restrictions loomed in Ontario, a “moral contract” has been proposed in Quebec to allow for a four-way leeway at Christmas time. Millions of doses of a vaccine are now increasingly expected as soon as January.
Fresh obsessed with Dominion
Donald Trump arguing that Dominion Voting Systems is a “radical left” firm that rigged the U.S. election results has brought more attention to the company. That attention continued at a press conference where one Trump lawyer noted Dominion’s head office was located until recently in the same Toronto building as the MakeWay Foundation.
Ana Poilievre claps back at a question about nepotism. CBC News reporter Ashley Burke asked Conservative MP Michael Cooper about employing the spouse of his colleague, as the party has called for a clampdown on hiring family members. Ana’s MP husband, Pierre Poilievre, seems more concerned with stopping “The Great Reset.”
The consolidation of clickbait
BuzzFeed’s acquisition of HuffPost sparked a variation on the arguments currently wielded by Canadian newspaper publishers: that the tech giants made the media business more difficult. Meanwhile, as Facebook Canada policy director Kevin Chan faces scrutiny over dealings with Ottawa, he co-signed a case for certain regulations:
Canada’s aspiring saviour of alternative weeklies is out of that job. Brian Kalish headed Media Central as the company bought Now Magazine and the Georgia Straight, but a shareholder proxy battle led to his resignation. At the same time, Now co-founder Michael Hollett is readying the launch of an entertainment magazine, Next.
Finally, living in the afterworld
Leonard Cohen left a legacy set to be examined for decades to come, as this fall brought Michael Posner’s first volume of Untold Stories about him, concurrent with George Walker’s biography cut from wood. The recurrence of “Hallelujah” has also done its part to ensure that Cohen’s death will seem forever tethered to Donald Trump:
