“Actually, throughout my life, my two greatest assets have been mental stability and being, like, really smart. ...I went from VERY successful businessman, to top T.V. Star to President of the United States (on my first try). I think that would qualify as not smart, but genius....and a very stable genius at that!”

Who would have believed it?

John Diefenbaker waggled his finger sternly across the aisle as he instructed the Liberal government of the day in 1968: “It is a long road that has no ash cans.”

While the provenance of Dief’s metaphor is obscure, his warning was clear. You think you know what you are doing, but don’t get so full of yourself, so convinced of the rightness of your course that you do not see the obstacles littering the road ahead.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his present-day Liberals must surely understand the Chief’s message. Their 2017 has been full of ash cans.

The most frustrated politician in Ottawa these days has to be Andrew Scheer.

He has been leader of the opposition for six months, long enough to have moved out of the shadow of his predecessor, Stephen Harper, and long enough to put his own stamp on the Conservative party.

One would think that among the easiest policy changes to sell in the United States is a tax reduction. This should be particularly true for a tax cut directed to the middle class, where the majority of voters are found. Whatever one thinks of Donald Trump's presidency, one must acknowledge that he has a remarkable gift for marketing and sloganeering. Whether apocryphal or not, the phrases "Make America Great Again," "Drain the Swamp" and "America First" have resonated with a significant slice of the U.S. electorate.