We now have our 5 participants for the 2015 Canadian federal election race. Stephen Harper, Thomas Mulcair, Elizabeth May, and Daniel Paillé now have their Liberal equivalent: Justin Trudeau.
Trudeau won the Liberal leadership race on Sunday, replacing interim leader Bob Rae.
The NDP had its convention over the weekend, trying its best to steal Trudeau's thunder. Thomas Mulcair was endorsed by 92.3% of the NDP delegates.
The Liberals have 2½ years to convince Canadians to put them back on top, and somehow gain back the anti-Conservative vote from the NDP.
Previous coverage:
Will Justin Trudeau be the Liberal Party savior?
Trudeau has the name recognition, based on his father, former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, and he is from Quebec, the province that may have the most votes up for grabs in 2015. Trudeau has to win over the 905 Toronto suburbs and B.C. without too much vote-splitting with the NDP in key ridings.
A lot of those borderline ridings have Conservative representation where the incumbent got well under 50% of the vote.
Mulcair and the NDP are also trying to change its image. The new NDP constitution is more centrist, and Mulcair is trying to seem "less angry," though that is more of an accusation from the Harper government than based in reality.
Harper and his cronies will try their best to blow away the Liberal leader with negative ads, just as they did with Stephane Dion and Michael Ignatieff. Trudeau will need to fight back against the negative tide, being the third Liberal leader in the last 3 federal elections. Since Trudeau has experience in the boxing ring, he'll have that edge. But the fight will be a long one, and may likely extend well beyond the next 30 months.
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R.A. Dickey has a story made for "60 Minutes." Horrible tales of sexual abuse suffered as a child. Struggling major and minor league career. Cheated on his wife. The knuckleball helped change a lot of that around, and proceeded to win the Cy Young Award last season.
The Toronto element of that chapter was more of an afterthought, except to say that Dickey is off to a rough start as a Blue Jay. Dickey won his first game as a Toronto Blue Jay on Saturday. Cynics might point out that this is the first game on the road, away from the domed Rogers Centre. When Dickey gets his knuckleball going indoors, the Blue Jays will breathe easier.
With Jose Reyes out until at least the All-Star break, the Blue Jays will have to work much harder just to keep up in the American League East Division.
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Porter Airlines is known as the small airline flying out of the Billy Bishop lakefront airport in Toronto. Porter flies to places Ontario-East along with U.S. destinations such as New York, Washington, Boston, and Chicago.
Porter wants to redefine its role to serve "Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, Winnipeg, California, Florida and the Caribbean" starting in 2016. And the airline wants to do so with Canadian-made Bombardier CS100 jets.
For those who have flown Porter (present company included), these new jets are considerably bigger than the jets Porter has flown. In order to fly the new jets at Billy Bishop, runways will have to be expanded. This means expanding the airport further into Lake Ontario.
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Speaking of travel between Canada and the United States …
The U.S. presidential permit is set, so the new Detroit-Windsor bridge can start construction. Right?
Land acquisition is the next step in the long and winding road (bridge) on this journey. Construction is expected to start in 2015, perhaps 2016. The bridge should be done by 2020 (great vision), assuming no other hindrances from Matty Moroun or anyone else.
This bridge was needed 10-15 years ago. NAFTA is 20 years old this year.
In the meantime, you can check out our coverage of the Daily Show's take on the new bridge project.

