Paul Wells Newsletter

When I came on the scene, in a previous century, Jean Chrétien’s staff was calling these two-day ministerial getaways outside Ottawa “cabinet retreats.” Every government since has followed suit, until now. Mark Carney prefers “cabinet planning forum.” It’s what you call a cabinet retreat that’s strongly discouraged from wearing brown shoes.

Today the National Arts Centre Orchestra announced that John Storgårds will become its music director, beginning a year from now in the 2026-27 season. Storgårds is Finnish, and his friends back home call him Jontte, YOHN-tay, which is like “Johnny.” Hence my headline. Storgårds will become the Ottawa-based orchestra’s eighth music director — the term for an orchestra’s main conductor and the person who sets its musical approach — since it was founded in 1969.

In September of 2022, when this newsletter was five months old, I announced that the time had come to make “a big bet on in-depth conversation” with a new podcast, which I called The Paul Wells Show. In a lot of ways that bet paid off nicely. I’m proud of the podcast. But after three seasons, I’m cashing in my chips. I’m ending production of The Paul Wells Show as a weekly podcast. This decision was hard to make.

Leaders lose and then win all the time. Jean Charest lost in Quebec in 1998 before winning in 2003. Dalton McGuinty lost in Ontario before winning. Lester Pearson lost twice to John Diefenbaker before winning. Stephen Harper lost before winning. François Legault lost twice before winning. Could Pierre Poilievre yet be prime minister? Hard to say. I haven’t been to the future so I’m not sure what’s in it. Poilievre spent 2022 to 2025 coming close to winning. He is eager to try again.

With the FBI searching John Bolton’s home, the president trying to fire a Fed governor the way his administration fired the heads of the Defence Intelligence Agency and the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and National Guard troops patrolling two American cities with perhaps more to come, it is time for Anne Applebaum to resist the urge to say she told us this would happen. Rather, she says early in this week’s podcast episode, Donald Trump told us it would happen. This or something like it.

Say what you will about Pete Hoekstra, and I’ll be delighted to join in, but the dude gets results. Eight days ago the U.S. ambassador to Ottawa told Global News that Mark Carney “has pulled the rug out from USMCA” and “has decided, ‘That’s fair game.

Current time: 0:00 / Total time: -59:43 Audio playback is not supported on your browser. Please upgrade. Wayne Eyre’s predecessor as Chief of the Defence Staff held the position for a shorter time than anyone who ever held the job. It was messy at the end. So Eyre’s rise to the top job came faster than he expected, in 2021 — at a time when Canadian electoral politics was as polarized as I’ve ever seen. He retired last summer, not long before Justin Trudeau did.

It probably really is a coincidence that on Monday, the day of Pierre Poilievre’s Battle River — Crowfoot mulligan, Doug Ford will be in Ottawa to visit his absolute favourite federal party leader, whom he enjoys meeting all the time, Mark Carney. “Me and my friend up in Ottawa, we’re going to have a heart-to-heart,” Ford told reporters Tuesday in Windsor. “He knows how I feel already.

You’ve earned another fresh podcast episode. This week my guest is Scott Anderson, the leading war correspondent who’s written for The New York Times Magazine, GQ, Vanity Fair, Esquire and a bunch of others. His ninth and latest book is King of Kings: The Iranian Revolution: A Story of Hubris, Delusion and Catastrophic Miscalculation.

Thank you , , , , , and many others for tuning into my live video with ! Join me for my next live video in the app. OK, that first paragraph was auto-generated by the Substack interface, but I subscribe entirely to the sentiment expressed. Thanks for watching! Now it’s actually me writing. We topped out at more than 1,500 simultaneous live viewers during the chat.