The Top 10 Blogs of 2025

Every year political leaders dominate the headlines and news cycle. 2025 was no different, but perhaps we heard more from those politicians than ever this year.

For the 10th year in a row, here are my most popular blogs of the year.

10. Political Potted Plants 

I have a friend ask why politicians have so many people standing behind them when they’re at news conferences, or doing anything where the media is around. I told him those people are called potted plants. They are there for a purpose, much like decorations. They’re to be looked at and shown off to make it look like the politician has the support of the people. Sometimes though those potted plants can have negative consequences.

9. Attacking the Attack Ads

Another federal election blog from earlier this year. As Mark Carney was on his way to bringing the Liberals all the way back from a 30-point deficit in the polls, a flurry of attack ads against him started appearing on television. The Conservatives were paying for the ads that kept calling Carney "sneaky", as in, he can’t be trusted. In fairness though, the Liberals were doing the same thing, trying to make Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre look like President Trump’s best buddy. It got annoying very quickly. 

8. Justin Trudeau's Media Moments 

We weren’t even a full week into the new year when Justin Trudeau announced he was stepping down as Prime Minister. It came as no surprise because all through the Christmas season he was seen as dead man walking after Chrystia Freeland put the knife in his back and twisted it a month prior. In this blog, I looked back at Trudeau’s media legacy. Some of it was good. Most of it wasn’t. This blog had the highlights and lowlights.

7. Risky Restaurants, Real Reporting 

As someone who spent 15-years in the news media and has followed what’s been happening in the media ever since, I appreciate nothing more than good, solid journalism. Far too often though it’s rare to see a media outlet really dig into a story and attack it from several angles, uncovering government mismanagement. That’s why I appreciated a series on the problem of restaurant food inspections the Edmonton Journal ran in September. It also had a twist. The investigative series was aided by university journalism students. By year's end, the government announced plans to improve inspections, likely as the result of that investigative series.

6. Chalkboards and Spin Doctors

In October, over 50,000 teachers went on strike across Alberta. We all remember the strike coming to an end when the Alberta government used the heavy-handed notwithstanding clause. At the start of the dispute though we saw several examples of the government and teachers’ union doing handstands in the news media to try to get public opinion on their side. It happens in all labour disputes. Public opinion is important and although this strike ended much differently, the PR campaigns were the same.

5. The Chatty Premier

In March, Premier Danielle Smith flew to Florida to speak at a right-wing fundraiser. She’s never met a microphone she didn’t like and normally when she’s asked to speak or comment to the news media she’s done so, figuring any publicity is better than no publicity. She used to be in the media and it shows. She knows how to handle herself around reporters. Most often that approach has worked for her, but on this trip it didn’t.

4. The Separation Smokescreen

Perhaps the longest-running political story in Alberta in 2025 was the one about separation. The government opened the door for a referendum on whether Alberta should separate from the rest of Canada. That touched off a massive petition drive from former Alberta cabinet minister Thomas Lukaszuk. As this blog in May pointed out though, separation was just a smokescreen for other issues, especially to give the Alberta government some leverage over Ottawa.

3. The Slippery Premier

When I was in the media we had a term for politicians who always seemed to come up with good answers when they were backed into a corner by reporters. "Slippery" was the term we used. In this blog, I wrote about Premier Danielle Smith being slippery – always finding ways to answer questions and make those answers sound logical. I found myself often not agreeing with the answers she gave, but she always had an answer.

2. Thank God for the Globe and Mail

One of the reasons we have the news media is to hold governments accountable. A great example came this summer when reporting from the Globe and Mail led to the CoruptCare Scandal. The Alberta government was caught bending purchasing rules to help their friends. I gave thanks to the Globe and Mail’s reporters for that, along with the little website that could The Breakdown, which first broke the story. By the end of the year, the Globe seemed to be doing a story a day on the man behind the scandal.

1. Missing on a Shot You Shouldn't Have Taken

As the year ends, Wayne Gretzky is being used to hype World Cup games in Canada next year. The last time he tried to do the same with the 4 Nations Faceoff in February it didn’t go well. His support for US President Trump, who wanted to take over Canada, led to some tricky times for The Great One. As I pointed out, he never should have got himself into such an awkward position in the first place.

Next Week

Nest week will be my last blog for 2025 and I will have a big announcement and an even bigger announcement. See you on December 15^th.