Separation Anxiety (w/ Paul Wells)
About this episode
The episode discusses the host's journey to understand federal politics in Canada, featuring insights from guest Paul Wells.
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit hatchetmedia.substack.com Just over a year ago, when we were launching The Hatchet , there was one thing in particular that worried me — I’ve never felt fluent in federal politics. I think I knew as much as your average journalist — I followed the news, I had my opinions and I had a general sense of the history. But outside of the occasional story, it just wasn’t a beat that I had a lot of experience covering. Once Trudeau resigned in January 2025, it became clear that Parliament Hill was going to dominate the news cycle. And so over that winter break, I set myself a mission. I was going to learn as much as I could about federal politics. I went back and read through (or at least familiarized myself with) as many of the classic books of Canadian political journalism and history as I could. Most were written by authors that we don’t talk about much anymore, despite the fact that they were giants of their respective eras. Christina McCall-Newman , Jeffrey Simpson , Peter C. Newman , Donald Creighton , John Duffy . And then there were excellent books by more contemporary writers about the Ottawa of the past and present…
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