2015 was already earmarked to be a big one for Canadian politics. But I don’t think anyone expected so much to happen so early in the year, let alone in the first week and a half of February.
Between Eve Adams defecting from the Conservatives to the Liberals, Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird resigning and the Supreme Courts’ assisted suicide ruling, the hashtag #cdnpoli has gotten plenty of traction so far this year.
The biggest day of news came on February 9, which you can see on the chart below.
That morning, Eve Adams dropped the bombshell that she was crossing the floor to the Liberals. Later the same day Prime Minister Stephen Harper shuffled his cabinet, moving former Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney to Defence and former Defence Minister Rob Nicholson into the recently vacated Foreign Affairs spot.
Since the announcement came late in the evening on February 2, you can see most of the related spike came the next day.
The news that Baird would step down was also the source of the most retweeted tweet for the period, from CBC Politics, which is below.
BREAKING: John Baird to resign as foreign affairs minister as early as Tuesday, CBC News has learned http://t.co/eva8JSBiwQ #cdnpoli #hw
— CBC Politics (@CBCPolitics) February 3, 2015
The next most retweeted tweet related to the Supreme Court partially striking down the assisted suicide law, also from CBC (below). The announcement came on February 6, which was also the day with the third highest tweet volume.
BREAKING: Doctor-assisted suicide allowed by Supreme Court in specific cases http://t.co/XxgyYeNO9M #scoc #SCC #cdnpoli — CBC News (@CBCNews) February 6, 2015
The next highest day was January 28, driven by Bell Let’s Talk Day and the hashtag #bellletstalk.
There was also plenty of chatter about Keystone XL, especially from Greenpeace’s Mike Hudema, who was again the top influencer by total retweets for #cdnpoli.
In fact, the top influencers for the period looks very similar to our previous lists, including users Bergg99 and Stephen Lautens.
