NOW and NEXT

The Ukrainian government says Tik Tok is the social media platform of choice for the Russian propoganda offensive in Ukraine. The Washington Post says a representative from the Ukrainian Ministry of Digital Transformation says Tik Tok is the weakest platform and the Russians are making the most of it. Mis-information and dis-information wars are being waged at the click of a mouse.  Today on The D...

Canada’s Industry Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne met with the telecom CEOs and has given them pretty clear marching orders. They need to come up with a workable plan to  adopt emergency roaming, mutual assistance during outages, and a communications protol to better inform consumers et al on the state of the outage. (Side note: Could Rogers crisis comms be worse?? The company is offering $5-...

Millions of Canadians felt the full effect of a nation-wide system failure at Rogers. The outages affected cell, wireless, television, and internet services, in some cases, for days. That, inturn, closed some businesses and services or slowed them to a crawl. After the initial outrage was voiced loudly across the country, the narrative turned to calls for more telcom competition and questioned the...

Today on The Daily Brief, Brian Lambie, President of Redbrick Communications says government agenices and public employees often default to avoiding social media. The thinking is, avoiding social media means avoiding landmines.  But Brian says it can create a blind spot, particularly for municipal agencies if they aren't aware of or attuned to local issues being discussed and debated in social med...

We are still in the pandemic. We can expect more COVID cases and, by all accounts, we will see an uptick in cases come the fall. So, it ain't over. But COVID is receding. That's good news. That's allowed us to return to business, to school, to recreation, to a restaurant without a great deal of restriction. But the crisis caused by COVID is not nearly in the rearview mirror. Inflation and the cost...

The latest developments at the Congressional inquiry into the January 6th attack on Capitol Hill in Washington has turned up the heat on Attorney General Merrick Garland to indict Donald Trump on criminal charges. Today on the Daily Brief, Hamiline University Professor David Schultz says the evidence and testimony presented over the past couple of weeks makes is clear the AG has very little choice...

We're more than four months into the Russian war in Ukraine. It's been nearly a year since the Taliban regained control of Afghanistan. About half of newcomers from those regions are kids and they are struggling with the mental health issues. Kids Help Phone has stepped up and added four new languages to its service to support these young people. Ravina Anthony, Project Manager, Newcomer & Diversi...

We've got a newish cabinet at Queen's Park. It's version 1.5 - not quite 2.0 considering how few changes we see around the table. One exception is the announcement of Michael Ford as Minister of Citizenship and Multiculturalism. The On The Ledge panel joins this edition of The Daily Brief to talk what's next and what to expect in the next Ford mandate. You can watch OR listen to this episode on ou...

Today on the Daily Brief, you're invited to be part of our series, Every Guitar Has A Story! Let us know if you've got a guitar story you want to share and we'll see if we can include you in the series. We also dive into the hottest issue facing this country today - the cost of living and affordable housing. In this episode we feature a podscast we produced for Habitat for Humanity Canada in the s...

As COVID recedes, more of us are considering our new world of work.  And the conversation quickly turns to whether you'll be back in the office. Today, we talk about the lessons learned and the post COVID approach to recruiting new talent and leadership. Anthony Batchelor at Odgers Berndtson joins us to explore the future of work for employees and employers. You can watch OR listen to this episode...

On this first day of Summer 2022, we face some serious challlenges. None more difficult than coping with the soaring cost of living as we stumble our way out of the COVID pandemic. I made a stop to pick up a few items at our local grocery store. Three bags cost more than $100! None of it was fancy stuff. I bought lunch meat, weiners, hot dog buns, a tin of coffee, a bbq chicken and a 6-pack of non...

Remember all the noise from the Ontario government about getting daycare rebate cheques to families in May, after Ford Nation agreed to be part of the national daycare program? Well, no cheques in May. No cheques in June. In fact, there's only one municipality in the GTA that has opened up its application process for daycare operators. There is precious little indication that this program will do...

It was a popcorn, appointment tuning event for political wonks, (Present!:) across the United States and around the world. What would we learn about the January 6, 2021 insurrection on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C.? Not much really.  Sure there was more graphic detail offered in testimony from security officials and police officers who faced the mob that day. And yes, we heard testimony from me...

All this talk about a Liberal-NDP merger in Ontario is utter nonsense. Why would the NDP waste any energy or time "merging" with the leaderless Liberals, when they're well positioned to stage a hostile takeover.  A re-energized NDP could easily render the Liberals irrelevant before the 2026 campaign.  Sabrina Nanji at the Queen's Park Observer quotes a pair of party insiders on their thoughts abou...

The RCAF Foundation is honouring the next generation of aviation and aerospace innovators. Fifty students from across Canada have been named as the RCAF Foundation Scholarship recipients for 2022. Foundation CEO, Jeremy Diamond, joins the Daily Brief to celebrate this cohort of STEM students determined to change the world! You can watch OR listen to this episode on our YouTube Channel (Be sure to...

The horrifying story that is the Mount Cashel Orphanage Scandal began nearly half a century ago when the first allegations of physical and sexual abuse were levelled at the Christian Brothers who ran the facility. This past weekend, the Archdiocese of St. John's in Newfoundland and Labrador closed bids on the sale of Church properties in 34 diocese across the province in an effort to raise the est...

If it were a country, cybercrime would be the third largest economy in the world behind the United States and China. Best estimates suggest cybercrime will cost $10.5 globally on an annual basis by the year 2025. AT&T says it represents the greatest transfer of economic wealth in history. Today on the Daily Brief we talk to Jeff Musson, Executive Director of Coding for Veterans, and Kym Geddes, ho...

More seats, more popular vote means four more years for Premier Doug Ford in Ontario. And he did it by staging near perfect campaign. He didn't engage the media. He didn't engage the Opposition, except on Debate Night. He barely spoke in public during the final ten days of the campaign and he came away with a resounding win. Of course, when one party wins 60% of the seat in the legislature, it mea...

Bob Reid at Broadway Strategy and Communications spent time advising Mike Harris when he sat in the Premier's chair in Ontario. What's it like for the leaders and the staffers on Election Day. The campaign is over. It's up to us to mark our ballots. You can watch OR listen to this episode on our YouTube Channel (Be sure to subscribe!) Follow Dave on Facebook , Instagram , LinkedIn and X And you ca...

The Toronto Star says Doug Ford broke their Fact Checker because, for the most part the far and few between statements he made between May 25 and May 29 stated uncheckable facts. To me, that means he's spent the bulk of what little time he's spent speaking publicly uttering meaningless slogans. On average, he's spending 5 minutes a day speaking publicly in the final stretch of the campaign.  On th...

In this episode of The Daily Brief: Sabrina Nanji just gets on a roll over Steven Del Duca's prospects of winning his seat in Vaughan-Woodbridge when she falls off the internet! No injuries reported. But it speaks to the shift in media coverage at Queen's Park and on the campaign away from in-person scrums in favour of remote video links and a one-question-one-followup format. You can watch OR lis...

Elections Ontario says more than a million voters cast ballots in the advance polls this month. That represents nearly 10% of all eligible voters. Those ballots were cast over 10 days. That compares to just under 700 thousand advanced ballots cast in 2018 BUT the advance polls were only opened for five days. What do all these numbers suggest? Best bet is most people just want this campaign to be O...

That's what the Ontario election campaign has come to with less than a week to go before Election Day on June 2.  The Toronto Star's got its hands on ANOTHER set of leaked polling numbers - this time from the NDP. Surprise, surprise! The NDP's confidential, internal memo says they've got the "wind at their back"! More likely that leader Horwath has figurative knives at her back. And the latest fro...

We are a week away from counting the final ballot tally that will determine who will sit in the Premier's Office in Ontario.  And here's where we stand. Andrea Horwath is running to keep her job. Steven Del Duca is running to win his seat. And Doug Ford is sleep walking his way towards another majority. Will the final week make any difference in the campaign? Probably not. All but one number has s...

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