2024 in Wells

A subscriber update while we brace for the deluge

The Panel at the NAC, Dec. 9

This is my 302nd post since the Paul Wells newsletter launched in April 2022. I want to look back at the year that’s ending, spotlight some pieces I’m proud of, and tell you what I can about my plans for 2025.

This little adventure continues to go well. Growth in free subscribers has been absolutely rock-steady since this newsletter’s early days. It now stands at 30,696, an increase of 47% since Jan. 1. I can never properly express my gratitude for your time and attention. Paid subscriber growth is shallower but also steady, and it works the way you would want it to: when I post my best work here, I sell more subscriptions. This is a strong incentive to bring my A game. But I love my free subscribers too. They constitute a steadily growing audience that our country’s smarter newsmakers understand they can’t neglect. And it is simply gratifying to be read and appreciated.

I will be increasing my subscription rate on Jan. 15 from $5 a month/ $50 a year to $8 a month/ $80 a year. The lower rate is what Substack suggested in 2022; the higher rate is what they have been suggesting for several months now. It’ll still be cheaper to subscribe to me than to some other prominent Canadian newsletters.

If you are already a paying subscriber, or if you subscribe before Jan. 15, you are locked in at the lower rate, and it won’t increase as long as you keep your subscription. As always, if you can’t afford a paid subscription, you should feel free to send me a note by replying to any email from me and I’ll give you a paid-level subscription for free.

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Core mandate stuff

Although I get a kick out of the way some subscribers seem to be personally offended when I send them posts on quirky and offbeat topics, I understand that for just about everyone this is mostly a source for Canadian political news. That works out well, because about 90% of my writing here continues to be about Canadian politics.

In particular, I believe this newsletter has been your best source for coverage of the Liberal government’s terrible 2024. I sent you 25 posts this year on that topic alone, starting in February with this long essay about the opportunity cost of feckless government and ending in December with a trilogy on Chrystia Freeland’s resignation: an eerily prescient piece published eight hours before she resigned, one in the middle of everything, and one about what happens next.

Seven posts this year laid out my thinking on Pierre Poilievre. In January I tried to puzzle out the Conservatives’ position on Ukraine, before exploring why Poilievre constantly insults other politicians and warily greeting the arrival of the axe-the-tax slogan.

In April Poilievre spoke to a union crowd in Gatineau, and I believe the resulting post says more surprising and useful things about him than anything else I wrote this year:

Poilievre and the worker's struggle

In June he won at least a tactical victory on capital-gains taxes. In August I dismantled his private-member’s bill on housing. In October I parsed (and provided the only transcript of) a poem he read at an Oct. 7 commemorative event. None of these pieces sought to campaign for or against the Conservatives. You vote how you like. Most readers understood this, and a few were entertainingly displeased.

Of course our public life isn’t, and shouldn’t be, only about party politics. I sent you posts about the risk of a Quebec sovereignty referendum, the mysterious Doctor Walport (I’m not done writing about pandemic readiness, by the way), public-sector productivity, the role of the Senate, the collapse of executive federalism, and policing large public protests.

Thanks to the support of paying subscribers, I was able to travel when the news required it: to Ukraine at a crucial moment in the Zelensky presidency; to our new NATO partner Finland; and to Edmonton for my most in-depth coverage of the opioid crisis, and of the debate about how to address it.

"Worse than I've ever seen"

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Sound and light

Downloads of episodes of The Paul Wells Show podcast from my website and the Substack app are running at more than triple the rate a year earlier. The podcast practically forces me to think differently every week about the issue universe, about my approach to it, and about interesting thinkers my audience needs to hear. I’m convinced this improves all my work.

Three episodes on Donald Trump’s re-election are now among the most-downloaded in the podcast’s short history, led by this interview with U.S. sociologist Musa al-Gharbi about his book We Have Never Been Woke.

A woke-up call for Democrats

The al-Gharbi episode is the only one that’s close to the popularity of the podcast’s biggest episode ever, which featured Vassy Kapelos interviewing me about my own book Justin Trudeau on the Ropes.

In less than two weeks, the first episode from my Holiday Show at the National Arts Centre has already attracted more listeners than last year’s episode. The Holiday Show is like nothing else I ever do. I’m gratified by the audience response; it’ll make it easier to do more work like this in the future. The second episode will appear in subscribers’ inboxes on New Year’s Day.

This fall I started producing occasional video content outside the weekly podcast schedule. Here’s The Panel on Trump’s re-election, and my live video chat with Justin Ling and Jen Gerson a couple of hours after Chrystia Freeland left the federal cabinet. I agree with readers who say I write better than I talk, but I’ll make more video like this when there’s breaking news.

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Live a little

I’ve never thought of myself as only a political journalist. This year I wrote about the National Arts Centre Orchestra’s mentorship program; about the Montreal International Jazz Festival; about singer-songwriter Donovan Woods; about the beloved journalist Robert Fulford; and about a new oral history of the Village Voice. Of course fewer people read these pieces than my much more abundant political writing. Readers who do give these pieces a chance will reliably discover that they’re where I do some of my best writing.

I’m particularly proud of paying professional photographers competitive wages when their work will help me tell a story. Here’s some of the extraordinary work I featured this year from Hasan Shaaban, Larry Wong, Sarah Palmer, Christie Vuong and Curtis Perry. Click to enlarge.

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And away we go

I’m not sure any of us is ready for the year ahead. I’m not sure Justin Trudeau can remain as Liberal leader past next week. I expect an election in the first half of the year. I may well be wrong. If there are surprises they will be surprising. Whatever happens, I expect to have more to write about than I have in years. You’ll see it before anyone else does.

Can I ask a favour? Insist on your right as citizens to be more than somebody’s cheerleader. Political polarization is terribly tempting for political leaders, because outrage asks fewer questions than citizens do. I’ll try to ensure this remains a place for citizens. Thank you once again for your precious support.