Make political journalism less frenetic again
“We are not going to dignify this repugnant and divisive claim with a response,” Doug Ford’s office responded after Toronto city councillor Kristyn Wong-Tam took issue with the premier’s latest pandemic lingo. At issue was the delay in delivery of Pfizer vaccines, which led to a quick clinic closing. Justin Trudeau says the rollout remains on track.
When you’re the other man
Before the Conservative caucus vote on whether Derek Sloan should remain in the party over a $131 donation from a white supremacist comes the claim that some MPs see it as an inside job approved by Erin O’Toole. But the decision to remove Sloan will be done by secret ballot rather than by the leader himself, who’s risking more of a social conservative backlash than before.
“We hope president-elect Biden will show respect for Canada and will sit down and at the very least talk to us.” Jason Kenney is standing by to see if Joe Biden will yank the Keystone XL permit on the first day of his presidency, as multiple sources are confirming. But the PM has hung on to the belief that the pipeline ain’t over till it’s over.
Daniel Dale caught one last lie
Westmount High screened the vice-presidential inauguration of its most famous alum to current students in Montreal, some of who participated in a video message for Kamala Harris. A new era at the White House also led CNN’s fact checker to write about his four-year journey of following Donald Trump—a job that reached the finish line:
Wattpad made a $754 million deal in South Korea. The popular platform known as Naver bought the storytelling app with plans to merge it with digital comics publishing portal Webtoon. Wattpad will remain headquartered in Toronto, where it was founded 14 years ago as an e-reading app that found a fanbase in teenage girls.
Finally, a quarantine pop teen
Tate McRae now has a full-fledged American top 40 hit in “You Broke Me First,” after TikTok facilitated a break for the 17-year-old from Calgary. The song has also served as a particular pandemic anthem, going from a self-filmed iPhone video to two different MTV awards shows, plus isolated late-night shows from one Jimmy to another: