The framers of the American constitution did not lack for inspirations as they set about their work. They had read their Locke and Montesquieu. They had studied the histories of the Roman and Venetian republics. They were deeply committed to the idea of the sovereignty of the people. And atop their new republic, they put a king. The British monarchy...
Danielle Smith — not satisfied with dragging her province through an illegitimate referendum on independence — has now decided to endanger democracy itself in Alberta to serve her own venal ends. It would almost be funny if it wasn’t so dangerous. There genuinely seems to be no bottom Smith won’t merrily dig through as she tries to become the first...
It’s a “subterfuge.” The Carney government is “fibbing,” even “lying,” or at any rate playing a “numbers game.” It is “cooking the books.” What has provoked this torrent of accusations of governmental deceit? Why, the recent federal budget, of course. And quite rightly, too: all those hundreds of billions of dollars in borrowing stowed away off-budget, those suddenly and mysteriously...
It should come as no surprise that Mark Carney’s government — the most corporate one we’ve seen in some time — is reaching into the private sector for executives to help get its major national projects off the ground. All of those who have complained for years that Ottawa should be run more like a business are certainly seeing those...
Since the federal election in April 2025, Pierre Poilievre has lost eight caucus members through a combination of resignations and floor crossings, including Parry Sound-Muskoka MP Scott Aitchison, who will officially resign his seat by the end of the year. The Conservatives have lost all seven by-elections in the 45th Parliament, apart from the one Poilievre won himself, Battle River-Crowfoot...
Canada’s ability to build faster depends not only on approving major projects, but also on whether the regulatory system allows businesses to produce the materials, components, and technologies those projects require.
The federal Liberals' gamble on EV subsidies has been a tax on the government’s ignorance, billed to long-suffering taxpayers
I spent budget day running between two events. In the afternoon I was moderating a panel at SaaS North. In the evening I rushed to a KPMG alumni event, which was either horribly scheduled or perfectly scheduled, depending on how you feel about a room full of accountants on budget night.
Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government has taken the unusual — if not unprecedented — step of not defending its federal jurisdiction before the Supreme Court, deciding instead to abide by an Alberta Court of Appeal ruling that found its updated environmental-impact assessment law still unconstitutional. “It’s totally flabbergasting,” said Anna Johnston, a staff lawyer at West Coast Environmental Law. “They...
Prime Minister Mark Carney’s second budget came down last week, and one overriding criticism seems to be that the lead was buried. Though both the prime minister and Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne set the frame as “masters of our destiny,” critics have complained it is not obvious that they connected enough dots for people to feel that way. That may...
For all the talk about how the Liberal government has been trying to “kill” the oil and gas industry, it sure seems to be thriving these days. In the third quarter alone, Canada’s four biggest oilsands companies raked in over $12.6 billion in profits, more than triple what they generated over the same period in 2025. Much of this is...
LAST YEAR, KÉMY ADÉ, a post-doctoral research fellow and guest teacher at McMaster University, applied for permanent residence to Canada. Her application made her, in the words of her immigration lawyer, “a prime candidate.” Adé is a health scientist specializing in immunology of aging—precisely the highly skilled immigrant Canada competes to attract.
Prime Minister Mark Carney has a problem. He promises that Canada can become more economically independent. He wants to accelerate major projects and expand energy exports. He's pledged to build housing for the homeless, pipelines for petroleum, and army bases in the Arctic. All good things, all long overdue, and all projects that could, at first blush, bring Canadians together...
On Friday afternoon, which is the unofficial time for governments everywhere to publish information they hope no one will pay much attention to, Canada’s federal government came out with some news: It has decided to again loosen restrictions on the hiring of low-wage temporary foreign workers. The government didn’t frame it quite like that, of course. Instead, it announced what...
When Mark Carney entered the Liberal leadership race in January 2025, he was seen as smart and polished. But he wasn’t a politician, we thought. He had never knocked on doors for a living, nor had he sat through Question Period. He was a former banker, a technocrat, and a businessman who spoke in basis points. Next to Conservative leader...
Did the U.S. just leave Canadian Conservatives behind? Americans just voted out the Republican hatred and corruption. “We saw historic firsts—for Gay, Black, Hispanic, Indigenous, Muslim, and Palestinian representatives. It was a total rejection of the MAGA war on ‘Woke’” wrote former NDP MP Charlie Angus in his Substack on Nov. 5. Hungary, Serbia, and Brazil all had “Trump-like” governments...
When he’s the incumbent, he’s a loser. He lost the House in his first mid-term outing in 2018, lost the Presidency in 2020, and the Senate, the House and a half dozen Governors in 2026. The best thing that could happen for the Republican Party is if Trump spent the next couple of years being less of a lightning rod...
“Where are the girls? Where are the girls?” It was the first thing economist Armine Yalnizyan said to my colleague Susan Delacourt and me outside the budget lockup on Thursday. “You look at the front cover, it’s electricity,” she noted of the photo of transmission lines on the printed budget. “You look inside, where are the humans? All of the...
Everyone seemed to have the same take on the federal budget unveiled this week. That is, no one could figure out quite what it was. It certainly wasn’t a belt-tightening exercise, but the $151.5-billion in new spending over five years didn’t suggest a clear policy narrative about what it was trying to accomplish, either. On top of that, many of...
How full of itself does a government have to be to call its annual budget “Masters of our destiny”? Seriously.
So, farewell then, federal budget. Not only a mainstay of economic policy-making, you were a critical element of democratic accountability for many decades, the day each year when the federal government levelled with Canadians about how much it intended to spend, how much to tax, and how much to borrow on their behalf.
The 500-plus-page budget that has now landed before Canadians is not exactly a piece of literature — but it is coming from a government with some literary aspirations. Mark Carney’s government is leaning on themes of culture and identity with Budget 2026, hoping that it tells a story of Canadian pride and patriotism at this moment in the country’s history.
Old habits die hard in the Liberal party. Prime Minister Mark Carney declared on Thursday, after his latest budget was tabled, that “we’ve got spending under control.” By the standard measurement of fiscal sustainability, that is true. The debt-to-GDP ratio is forecast to tick gently downward over the budget’s five-year time horizon.
"Maitre chez nous" — "master in our own house" — was a rallying cry of Jean Lesage's Quiet Revolution, a period of rapid modernization and reform in Quebec in the 1960s. Mark Carney first tried it out a year and a half ago in the shadow of Donald Trump's America and a newly anglicized version — "masters of our destiny"...
The Canadian military currently has thousands of drones at its disposal. “It’s not enough,” a senior commander admits. The Carney government wants to add some zeros to that number: It wants one million drones, at least. And in Thursday’s budget, it is committing $2.3 billion to get there.
Officially, Mark Carney’s government is saying that the Republicans’ stunning losses in the U.S. midterm elections are the Americans’ own business. But this government also knows that there’s a clear line connecting the midterms to the budget being unveiled in Canada on Thursday — and that’s the affordability crisis.
There is no sugarcoating the results of the midterm elections in the United States for President Donald Trump and his administration. This was an astonishing and vast repudiation of the president. When Republicans lose in South Carolina, North Carolina, Mississippi, Texas, Kansas, Iowa, and Georgia solidifies as a blue state, it is impossible not to affirm that a judgment has...
By the standards of American elections, this was an earthquake. The two-party system is so entrenched, and American voters’ political identities so immovable, that shifts in the balance of power in any given election tend to be muted. So the Democrats’ gains last night are, in this context, historic. When all the votes are counted, they will probably emerge with...
Austin, Texas may have sounded like a street party as the results came in last night, but even in Canada, if you listened closely enough, you could almost hear the collective sigh of relief. Nobody who was rooting for a win by the Democrats wanted to trust the polls or the predictions of a “blue wave” after the traumatic experiences...
In his 2016 election campaign, Donald Trump made a remarkable observation. “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose supporters.” At a rally in Tennessee last month, he demonstrated that his attitude hadn’t changed. He told his audience, “I could say the stupidest things, and you clap.” Throughout the midterms campaign he...
American streets are being patrolled by murderous secret police. The constitutional order and the division of powers have broken down. Some major media outlets have become sycophantic devotees of the ruling party, and others are following suit. A sitting U.S. president has amassed billions of dollars in ill-gotten gains from brazen and scuzzy quid pro quos.
In the end, Canada didn’t have to interfere in the 2026 midterms to register our preference for an outcome. Americans did it for us. To compare the reasons for Tuesday’s midterm election result to any previous midterm election result is as pointless as comparing Donald Trump’s presidency to any previous presidency. Yes, there are statistics and charts and local issues...
Prime Minister Mark Carney has just called six byelections for early December. The results could have a determining effect on Pierre Poilievre’s future as Conservative leader. They could also provide the first clues as to whether the belligerent tone of the minority Parti Québécois government is finding favour with voters.
Mark Carney doesn’t seem like much of a prankster, but you could forgive Liberals who supported Justin Trudeau’s policies for feeling as if the prime minister is endlessly pulling their collective leg. Changes of direction are everywhere. The consumer carbon tax is gone. A new oil pipeline is on the way and major resource-development projects are on track to receive...
Watching the governor of the Bank of Canada field questions from MPs at the House of Commons finance committee was like viewing an episode of Star Trek: Next Generation, in which Jean-Luc Picard grapples with the Prime Directive. This general order prohibits Starfleet personnel from interfering with the natural development of primitive alien civilizations.
Opposition parties banded together this week in a futile attempt to hear more expert testimony on Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Building Canada Strong Act, C-39, after dozens of witnesses warned MPs the bill is deeply flawed, and more than 100 individual Canadians and groups urged amendments or begged the government to change course on legislation that will impact labour rights...
Around the world, borrowing costs are rising, growth is only middling, economic risks are tilted to the downside and, after six years of global shocks, most countries’ fiscal buffers are depleted. The IMF’s recent conclusion from all this is that governments need to rein in their spending and borrowing. This week’s federal budget should not take the view that Canada...
Winston Churchill once said that history would be kind to him because he intended to write it. And he did, producing 13 volumes of memoirs over the course of his long life. More than a decade after leaving the Prime Minister’s Office, Stephen Harper’s memoirs have finally landed with a thump — all 656 pages of them.
It truly is quite astonishingly hypocritical that the same people who have made careers railing against the way Alberta is under-represented by population in the Senate seem to get quite huffily defensive over the tabling of new electoral districts that would leave urban Albertans meaningfully under-represented compared to rural ones. Earlier this year, Alberta’s Electoral Boundaries Commission unveiled a new...
