“Know the star you are. And see yourself as part of a galaxy.”

So sayeth the Mother of All Influencers, the Hashtag Highness, the Rich Stick Insect, Paris Hilton. Paris – who I met at a Super Bowl Playboy party in Texas once, full disclosure, and who couldn’t put two words together without a team of ghost-writers – is right, says a new report.

Influencers – at least in Canada, and at least in respect of politics – are the new galactic stars, says a report written by assorted tall foreheads. Influencers rule, dude. They slay.

The detailed, 80-page report, which had many big words in it, was authored by the Canadian Digital Media Research Network, with the assistance of some brainy people at the McGill University and University of Toronto-led Media Ecosystem Observatory. Its main conclusion can be stated thusly:

Influencers had a bigger impact on the 2025 Canadian federal general election than the mainstream media and the politicians and political parties put together.

Like, way more.

The report found that influencers produced almost half, 47 per cent, of the political content that pinged around the Internet during the election. News organizations made up only 28 per cent, and politicians a piddly 18 per cent. Ouch.

Way back when dinosaurs roamed the Earth, and when Stockwell Day allegedly interacted with them, the mainstream media dominated the discourse. So, too, politicians and political parties, who spent truckloads of dough on ads. Not anymore.

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Here.

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My Daisy Group email has been hacked. Please don’t open it. Apologies.

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Dani Miran stopped shaving when his son Omri was taken hostage by Hamas on October 7, 2023. As far as I know, he hasn’t shaved it off yet, but he could.

That’s because his son was finally freed over the weekend. Freed, after 737 days living in 23 different places, above ground and in dirty, dark tunnels.

His father, Dani, was 80 years old when I interviewed him at Hostages Square in Tel Aviv. Dani’s hair was gone on top, but the beard was impressively white and full, like Santa. Unlike Santa, Dani didn’t smile much. Understandably.

The sun was blazing, so we sat in a tent at Hostages Square, which is across the street from the IDF headquarters. Other hostage family and friends were with us, listening to Dani speak about his son, the hostages and Israel. They would nod as he spoke.

“I’m not here about anyone or anything else,” Dani says. “I’m here for my son.”

He looked around. “I want the whole world to know my son, to remember my son. And I want my son back.”

On October 7, Omri Miran and his family – wife Lishay and two very young daughters – lived at kibbutz Nahal Oz in Israel’s South, near the border with Gaza. On that fateful morning, Hamas terrorists forced the family to open a locked door by threatening to shoot a 16-year-old neighbour in the head. As Omri was taken away, his wife Lishay told him: “Don’t be a hero. I love you, and I’ll take care of the girls. I’ll wait for you.”

She, and Dani, did. For two years, they tirelessly advocated for Omri and the other hostages, imploring Israelis and the world to remember them. At one press conference outside the home where Omri was taken, they spoke directly to him, telling him his daughters loved him, they all loved him, and to “just come back.”

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In politics, as in hockey, “elbows down” can have unhelpful consequences.

You can get hit more, for example. Lots more bruises and missing teeth, too.

A quick 2025 refresher, for those who don’t remember: Justin Trudeau leaves, Donald Trump arrives, 51st state, Pierre Poilievre collapses, Mark Carney appears.

And Carney – who had never run for high public office before, had never chaired a cabinet meeting, had never participated in televised leaders’ debate – did better than anyone (especially Poilievre) expected. But he had a secret weapon, didn’t he? Carney had two words that made him Prime Minister, and saved the Liberal Party of Canada from a fourth-place finish in the election.

“Elbows up.”

The Liberals bet the house on those two words, and it paid off, big time. They put them in online ads. They put them in speeches. They put them in ads, and ran them over and over and over, featuring Carney and beloved Canadian ex-pat Mike Myers at a hockey rink, somewhere in Anytown, Canada.

The scene: Myers looks surprised to run into a Prime Minister at a hockey rink. Carney asks if Myers lives in the States. Myers says yes, but adds that “I’ll always be Canadian.” Skeptical, Carney then quizzes him on Mr. Dressup, Howie Meeker, Saskatchewan’s capital, Toronto’s seasons and the Tragically Hip. Myers gets them all.

“Wow,” says Carney, smiling the smile he reserves for those love-sick moments when he actually calls Trump a “transformative” president. “You really are Canadian.”

Myers: “But let me ask you, Mr. Prime Minister, will there always be a Canada?”

Carney: “There will always be a Canada!”

Myers: “All right! Elbows up!” Carney says it, too, and then they (weirdly, this isn’t the pandemic anymore, fellas) touch elbows.

Thusly, “elbows up” elected Mark Carney Prime Minister, kept the Grits in power, and defeated Pierre Poilievre in the election and his own seat. Two words did all that. Impressive.

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