Susan Lunn Bio

Let me state up front, I like tradition.

So for example, when my family tries to serve up something other than turkey for Thanksgiving, I'm unhappy.

It was the same feeling yesterday when I heard the Prime Minister's Office was not holding an actual briefing on the prime minister's upcoming trip to southeast Asia.

Instead, they sent out an email.

It was three and a half pages long, filled with information I had already gleaned from the APEC website, the department of foreign affairs and a Google search or two.

The prime minister's new director of communications told me he was available to answer any questions I may have, which he did, although it took more than an hour.

I've been on Parliament Hill for 11 years. I've gone on prime minister's trips with a total of three prime ministers. There has always been an in-person briefing that's led to at least an hour of questions from the parliamentary press gallery. There has never been, in my memory, just an email.

Here's hoping my cousin is still planning on cooking turkey later this month.

Premiers this week struck a committee to look at innovative ways to save health care dollars, as they ponder the possibility of getting less money from Ottawa in the not to distant future.

As politicians worry about how to pay for medicare, more and more people are dealing with the health care and other issues associated with old age, putting extra burden on hospitals and health-care budgets.

One Toronto hospital is looking at an old idea to help keep costs down while improving quality of life for elderly patients: house calls.

Read Susan Lunn's story and listen to The House after the jump...

I haven't been on the Conservative plane since week one of the campaign.

Today I managed to return to my favourite seat.  But as I sat down, I noticed one difference. 

There are photos inside the plane, just above the windows -- 8x10 glossies from the campaign so far.

 

It's inevitable that on an election campaign you're going to end up in a Tim Horton's.

This is Canada. And its "Roll Up the Rim" time. But in the past two weeks I"ve been to two with two different leaders.

Reporters travelling with Conservative Leader Stephen Harper haven't seen any sign of him in the back of the plane yet. But his wife Laureen has come back twice now bearing gifts.

Tonight it was Keith's beer. The Harpers visited the historic Keith's brewery in Halifax Thursday.

Harper pulled a couple of pints while there. His wife, on the other hand, got beer for the plane. The night before, it was chocolate-covered fruit.

After all the press corps' fights with Harper all week over the lack of questions reporters get to ask him, it's interesting he's left all attempts to woo us up to his wife, Alexander Keith and chocolate.

You probably don't think Lady Gaga and Stephen Harper have much in common.

But they share one thing.

They've both sang with Maria Aragon.

More AND THE VIDEO after the jump....

I've seen many incarnations of Stephen Harper the campaigner.

There was the time he backed away from a group of children, who, admittedly, were covered in finger paint.

Then eventually he got to the point where Monday, he could hardly contain the laughter as a cute two-and-a-half-year-old was hitting him on the back of his legs to get his attention.

Then there's Harper the speaker.

In the 2005-2006 campaign, he started using a teleprompter, two see-through paddles on either side of the podium.

By the end of the campaign, he tried a wireless microphone to sum up his platform in a speech to supporters. If he had a teleprompter, I don't remember seeing it.

But its 2011. And its time for a new look.

When Stephen Harper was in opposition, in the 2004 campaign, he took every reporter's question during the daily scrum.

Things got testy at times. But everyone got one question.

Same with 2005/06. Over the campaign's eight weeks, every reporter got to ask him a question, every day.

In 2008, Stephen Harper's first as prime minister, there were so many reporters on the bus, we had to alternate days.

But now, in 2011, the questions are limited to four for those of us who are on the campaign plane at a cost of thousands of dollars a week.

And Conservative campaign staff wonder why everyone started shouting.

Anyone else who is applying for a job, even if they are reapplying, has to answer questions.

One hopes that tomorrow we get more.

Every political party has a colour.

Liberals are red.