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Dec 3 2023

Soft populist. Pardon power. Moderation crisis. The Roundup

Dec 3, 2023
David Akin's Roundup
Clippings of #cdnpoli, #media, and #tech content aimed at those with an interest in Canadian politics and policy. And sometimes Canadian postage stamps.
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Canada
The governing Liberals have been working to hitch Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre to Donald Trump’s 'MAGA' populist politics. [National Post]
Housing hell: How we got here and how we get out
This is a new thing, in my experience, in direct-to-voter political communication by a political party. It's a 15-minute documentary- style presentation from the Conservative Party of Canada featuring its leader Pierre Poilievre. Think of an attack ad with graphs. As a broadcaster, I can tell you that asking anyone -- even the most rabid partisan -- to watch a 15-minute long attack ad is asking a lot. Still: Here it is for your review - DA [Poilievre YouTube channel]
Report No. 16 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Health. [House of Commons]
From the provinces
Bonnie Crombie, the Mississauga mayor and former Liberal MP wins election after three rounds of ballots, defeating Nate Erskine-Smith, Yasir Naqvi and Ted Hsu. [Global]
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Elsewhere
A U.S. indictment says an Indian government official tried to have a hit man kill Gurpatwant Singh Pannun - who holds dual Canadian-American citizenship -- in New York City. [NYT]
President Trump’s unprecedented use of pardon power to benefit political and financial backers - including Conrad Black - is paying dividends as he seeks to return to the White House. [WaPo]
The conduct of the trials, their fairness, and their possibly damning verdicts will be at the center of the 2024 election. Transparency is crucial. [New Yorker]
Someone in China created thousands of fake social media accounts designed to appear to be from Americans and used them to spread polarizing political content in an apparent effort to divide the U.S. ahead of next year's elections. [CP]
Media

A declining share of U.S. adults are following the news closely, and audiences are shrinking for several older types of news media. [Pew]
Meta’s response to the conflict in Gaza highlights platform’s lack of preparedness for handling crisis on social media. [Rest of World]
Telegram announced new features related to channels including better discovery of similar channels, emoji customization for reactions and stats for stories to better compete with WhatsApp. [TechCrunch]
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Sci/Tech

2023 has been a banner year for zero-day exploits in Chrome, and Google has patched its 6th one, calling it an "emergency." [ZDNet]

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