Prime Minister Mark Carney and Ontario Premier Doug Ford both disputed the suggestion of Canadian interference in the U.S. midterms, after the U.S. embassy in Canada released a list of quotes from Canadian politicians which it claims indicate "plans to influence American politics." Industry Minister Mélanie Joly is quoted five times in the list the embassy released Wednesday. It includes...
Prime Minister Mark Carney said he spoke with U.S. President Donald Trump Wednesday morning, adding when asked specifically that they discussed “issues around trade.” With the highly consequential U.S. midterm elections fast approaching and amid a protracted trade war, Canada has yet to reach a new trade deal with the Americans. “We discussed a wide range of things, wide range...
Former U.S. president Bill Clinton considers Mark Carney a longtime friend and called the prime minister “about the most well qualified leader in the world.” Clinton made the remarks Tuesday evening during a campaign event in Florida for David Jolly, the Democratic nominee for governor.
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith says if members of her United Conservative Party can't get behind a pro-Canada position they should hand in their memberships. In a social media video Wednesday, Smith said her party can't afford to be split over the issue and risk losing next year's provincial election to the Opposition NDP. Her comment comes after Albertans voted in...
Prime Minister Mark Carney did not rule out Wednesday giving Alberta more authority over immigration along the lines of a deal Ottawa signed with Quebec in the early 1990s. When reporters outside the weekly Liberal caucus meeting on Parliament Hill asked the prime minister if Ottawa could reach an agreement on immigration powers with Alberta similar to the one with...
The latest BC snapshot by Mainstreet Research shows the Greens on the rise, and the NDP down. Although this may be simple ballot confusion, the BC Greens now sit at 14.6% with the BC NDP down to 36%. The BC Conservatives continue to lead with 41.7%.
A new Liaison Strategies Toronto survey finds Brad Bradford at 49% and Mayor Olivia Chow at 47% among decided and leaning voters, with 3% choosing someone else. That reverses Chow's five-point advantage in the previous survey, although the latest two-point gap does not establish a clear lead. Liaison surveyed a random sample of 1,000 Toronto residents from October 18 to...
If Canadians focused solely on recent commentary from union leaders and their lawyers, they’d be forgiven for thinking the current Liberal government has been engaged in a long battle against workers’ rights, culminating in a final charge against the right to strike.
Prime Minister Mark Carney and Ontario Premier Doug Ford unveiled an $8.7-billion joint plan on Parliament Hill Wednesday to help tariff-affected industries in the province battered by the trade war. Ford called it “transformative” and said the top priority is to protect manufacturing in a range of industries. A new “joint steel action fund” that includes $3.5 billion in funding...
Some government websites have been taken down temporarily as a precaution against a security risk, says Artificial Intelligence Minister Evan Solomon. In a social media post, Solomon says the websites went dark to protect government systems and Canadians' information following guidance from the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security.
Growing up in Huntsville, Ont., I learned early that community is not an abstract concept. It has faces and names. This was not simply something I observed; it was my lived experience. Months before my 16th birthday, determined to chart a path different from the one my parents had envisioned for me, I left home. I had no plan.
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith is like the arsonist who tries to play the hero because they helped put out the flames of a fire that they started. Don’t be fooled, she’s anything but a hero. She set things in motion towards the potential breakup of Canada, then fought against her own referendum question. She doesn’t deserve any credit. That goes...
I believe the correct word is debacle. As in, “comprehensive failure, humiliating defeat, fiasco.” The secessionist campaign that Albertans have, in their wisdom and their mercy, dispatched to the hereafter is far from the only victim of the grotesque pantomime of democracy – 10 questions, none of them of any legal or practical effect – the province’s Premier saw fit...
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith fed a stray cat, in hopes that it would go away. But stray cats don’t do that. They eat until their bellies swell, then saunter away to go sleep it off. The next morning, however, they’ll come back for another meal, screeching by the side door until someone appears with a plate. And then, the next...
The separatists lose huge and now it's how Danielle Smith plays the cards she has in this game of high-stakes political poker
Similar levels of support launched secessionist parties in Quebec and Scotland decades ago, and both are in power today
Plenty will be claiming victory now that Alberta has voted against separatism, but the days and weeks ahead will show what’s been lost too with this democracy gambit. The decisive majority — over 75 per cent with most polls reporting — is a clear win for Mark Carney, whose stock in Alberta has only climbed throughout the referendum campaign. The...
The referendum results in Alberta should mark a turning point for the relationship between not just Alberta and the government in Ottawa, but for Alberta and all of Canada. Canadians outside Alberta have watched and overwhelmingly hoped that the remain side would win. And, I think it is safe to say, that Canadians were both relieved and rejoiced to see...
Alberta will remain part of Canada — for now. Ballots are still being counted on the province’s 10 referendum questions, but as it stands, voters rejected the separatist option by roughly three to one. On the other nine questions, they appear to have given Premier Danielle Smith a slim-to-moderate victory, setting the scene for future showdowns with Ottawa over immigration...
Canadians owe an enormous debt of gratitude to Albertans today. Yes, it may seem as though all they did was answer a much more expensive poll in precisely the same way they’ve been answering polls for months. But this time, they expressed their view with such effort and in such numbers that they averted a national disaster. “Maple Leaf Love...
Albertans have spoken, rather loudly. Roughly three-quarters of voters chose to remain in Canada. The binding referendum some had hoped to trigger will not happen. At least not anytime soon.
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s investment envoy, Kirill Dmitriev, posted one of those AI-generated memes on social media over the weekend and it speaks volumes about the new world order taking shape before our eyes. It shows a Russian bear and an American eagle, side by side, facing off against a British lion and a European flag. It included this caption...
The media has paid scant attention to two narratives that raise uncomfortable questions about Prime Minister Mark Carney. One concerns what role he may have played in ending Justin Trudeau’s leadership of the Liberal party and the other relates to the sudden reversal of his long-standing concern about man-made climate change.
Nothing is more important in this country’s public life than events unfolding in Alberta. Separatism is once again knocking on Canada’s door. At least some people understand the profound and negative change that separation would bring. Hundreds of doctors have said they would leave the province if it were to become an independent country.
Screw it: let’s just buy Stelco. I know: cue the choruses of bullshit from the Trumpian, maple MAGA crowd about Liberal communism, and a chill on investment, and blah blah blah.
New agreements with Europe will not build resilience unless SMEs can navigate the rules, finance the move and use the access Mark Carney negotiates.
Alberta is staring down the snout of “a big lie,” argues Patrick Lennox. A colossal deception has led to Monday’s pre-referendum vote, which offers Albertans two choices: “Remain a province of Canada” or “hold a binding provincial referendum on whether or not Alberta should separate from Canada.”
“This bill has been subject to a wild disinformation campaign,” Liberal MP Shannon Miedema declared in the House of Commons last week. The Halifax MP accused opposition members of lying about Bill C-39, Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Building Canada Strong Act, telling them the bill does not do things it does.
The Alberta premier is acutely aware that another split on the right could lead to the UCP's downfall
Four days before the latest test of this 159-year-old Confederation — a nation that has given the world both insulin and Céline Dion — Mark Carney went to Calgary to make the case for carrying on. "Canada isn't perfect, but we are the best," he said. "And we are getting better." A day before Carney arrived, Naheed Nenshi, the leader...
A few months ago, I was talking to Michael Wernick, the former clerk of the Privy Council, and we wandered onto the subject of Alberta’s secession vote. Mr. Wernick – now the Jarislowsky Chair in public management at the University of Ottawa – said something that’s been stuck in my brain ever since. Say the referendum delivers a stout margin...
Tax reform is one of those issues that confounds conventional political wisdom. The conventional wisdom, to which most politicians subscribe, is to move cautiously, incrementally, ploddingly – to do “nothing by halves/ Which can be done by quarters.”
Canada's largest federal public service union says 120,000 workers will take part in nationwide strike votes starting next month after contract talks with the federal government broke down. The Public Service Alliance of Canada says voting will take place from Nov. 16 to Jan. 22. The union and Treasury Board have been in contract negotiations for a year and a...
Prime Minister Mark Carney says Ottawa will "not budge" from its goal of making immigration intake numbers sustainable and the federal government is "getting them to that level now." Carney says he's been in talks with the provinces about getting immigration "to the right levels" as well about how new Canadians can be most effectively distributed across the country and...
Mark Carney’s trip to Türkiye Wednesday marks the first ever bilateral visit to the country by a Canadian prime minister. Carney will sit down with Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Ankara Wednesday, before heading to Istanbul for a series of business meetings. His office is not releasing who else he plans to meet with ahead of the trip. While...
The Liberal government says while its proposed digital safety legislation might affect freedom of expression, the bill itself is consistent with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Bill C-34 would ban social media access for kids under 16 and experts have warned it is likely to face a constitutional challenge. The government included the analysis in a Charter statement, a...
When Wallace and Harrison McCain decided in the 1960s to export french fries from tiny Florenceville, N.B., they opted to skip the relatively close American market, a mere 17 kilometres away. Instead they looked east, 5,400 kilometres to the United Kingdom, which became their beachhead into Europe and eventual global expansion.
Former Alberta MLA plans to target those ridings, others in launching a federal party along lines of the Bloc Québécois. The vote for separation in Alberta was stronger in rural areas where Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives have some of their safest seats — which an upstart federal party now intends to target. As of Tuesday afternoon with almost all votes counted...
BMO is expanding its focus on defence as the government looks to spend more in the sector as part of its broader build Canada agenda. Darryl White, BMO Financial Group CEO, said that the lender is "responding to the signal" from Canada's federal government amid commitments to raise defence spending. White said the bank has a long history of operating...
Premier Doug Ford and Prime Minister Mark Carney will roll out new measures Wednesday to support Canada’s steel and auto sectors hard hit by the tariff war, the Star has learned. The two leaders, who will be joined in Ottawa by their respective finance and industry ministers, are expected to outline a support package that one source said is not...
Finance minister's spokesperson says work is ongoing to create fund. Nearly six months after announcing plans to create a sovereign wealth fund, the federal government is still not sure when it will be launched, or how exactly it will work. In April, Prime Minister Mark Carney said Canada will launch its first-ever national sovereign wealth fund, with seed funding of...
Carney visits Turkey, courting a powerful NATO ally despite fresh concerns about human rights. Prime Minister Mark Carney departs for Turkey on Wednesday for a three-day visit with a strategically important NATO ally whose economic and defence industries have become increasingly attractive to Ottawa. The trip includes meetings with President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in Ankara and business leaders in Istanbul...
Canada is not advocating for Americans to vote one way or another on Nov. 3, but presenting the facts and how they are affecting both sides of the border, says former Canada-U.S. IPG chair Wayne Easter. Former diplomats and an ex-parliamentarian say Canadian officials are doing what they should to raise concerns about the effect United States President Donald Trump...
Premier Danielle Smith will take questions today for the first time since Albertans overwhelmingly rejected separation in Monday's referendum. Smith said she voted to stay in Canada, but said she had little choice but to call the referendum to quash a burgeoning and divisive debate over Alberta's role in Confederation. About three-quarters of voters marked an X to say yes...
A source familiar with the plans says the two leaders will be joined in Ottawa by their respective finance and industry ministers to unveil a support package designed to help businesses and workers navigate ongoing trade disruptions.
Danielle Smith says Albertans have spoken in Monday's referendum and that as long as she is premier, separation is a dead issue. Smith, in a TV address to the province, says there will be no more referendums on separation as long as she is in charge. And she says separation will not be used as a tool to fight Ottawa...
Bruised but not yet broken, Alberta’s separatist movement is turning its attention toe Premier Danielle Smith and the governing United Conservative Party. As results continued to trickle in early Tuesday morning, the separatists’ defeat proved even more decisive than months of public polling predicted — with 75.7 per cent of Albertans voting to remain in Canada, and just 24.3 per...
President Donald Trump’s man in Ottawa blamed Prime Minister Mark Carney for straining relations between the two countries, saying a prosperous relationship is “under attack” in Canada. U.S. Ambassador to Canada Pete Hoekstra, no fan favorite north of the border, made the remarks Tuesday at a space conference in Gatineau, Quebec, where he also criticized Canada’s approach to the relationship...
Stalemate drags on as Trump's Jan. 1 auto tariff threat looms. The Canada-U.S. trade war is poised to grind on for the foreseeable future, as sources tell CBC News hope of a deal before the American midterm elections has completely faded. According to three sources with knowledge of the situation, Canadian government officials have been informing industry groups over the...
Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne will table the federal budget on Nov. 5, he announced in the House of Commons on Tuesday. The fall budget, which provides Canadians with the federal government’s economic blueprint, will be the second under Prime Minister Mark Carney. Last month, Carney said his government is on track to balance its operating budget by 2027-28, one year...
A day after Albertans voted to reject separatism, Prime Minister Mark Carney said he favours pursuing pragmatic "common solutions" with the provinces on issues under federal jurisdiction. Carney cautioned on Tuesday that pursuing constitutional changes can be a "difficult" and drawn-out process and said disputes in areas like immigration can be resolved without constitutional amendments. "What I favour is working...
While Albertans roundly rejected separation in Monday's referendum, results remain decidedly closer on the other nine questions as counting continues. Votes were still being tallied as of Tuesday afternoon, but the yes vote was leading on eight of the nine referendum questions, including all five on immigration-related proposals. Those questions asked whether Alberta should have more say on who comes...
Donald Trump has backed down on a threat to ban Bombardier Inc. plane sales in the United States, part of a broader cooling of rhetoric from the U.S. president after tempers flared and tariffs rose amid an earlier escalation in the trade war. Speaking at a campaign rally Monday night, Trump said he's changed his perception of the Montreal-based business...
Information Commissioner Caroline Maynard has been informed that Canada’s access-to-information law will be updated in the coming months, though the scope of the changes has not yet been disclosed.
Defence Minister David McGuinty said no changes have been made to military training procedures as of now, following a deadly fire at CFB Wainwright that killed four soldiers and sent 39 others to hospital during a training exercise on Saturday. Ahead of a cabinet meeting on Parliament Hill on Tuesday, McGuinty was asked whether he had directed any changes to...
Prime Minister Mark Carney says the federal and provincial governments should work together to get immigration down to sustainable levels before Alberta takes steps to do so on its own. Albertans cast their ballots on a slate of referendum questions Monday, and while the question around separation drew the most attention, there were nine others that cover a range of...
Alberta business groups are cheering the decisive win for the "stay" side in Monday's referendum, but say more work lies ahead in getting the province a fair shake within Confederation. Early returns show about 76 per cent of voters chose for Alberta to remain in Canada, while 24 per cent voted to hold a second, binding referendum on separation. The...
Defence Minister David McGuinty says 33 members of the Canadian Armed Forces remain in hospital after a deadly fire swept through a training ground at the military base in Wainwright, Alta., on Saturday. McGuinty was in Wainwright on Monday, where he visited both the base and CAF members who are recovering in a local hospital. The minister says he will...
Prime Minister Mark Carney says it was "a great result for Canada" when Albertans chose unity in the referendum vote on Monday. Carney said he spoke to Alberta Premier Danielle Smith early Tuesday about the results and charting a path forward. In the historic referendum, Albertans voted in overwhelming numbers to remain in the country that made Alberta a province...
Prime Minister Mark Carney says there are 50 investigators on the ground probing how one of the worst peacetime tragedies unfolded at an Alberta military base. On Saturday, four soldiers were killed during a scheduled training exercise at Canadian Forces Base Wainwright, Alta. Thirty-nine military members were hospitalized, with 19 people in critical condition.
Albertans have chosen. The majority of those who cast their ballots in the province’s historic referendum voted in support of staying in Canada rather than pursuing separation. In a closely watched and highly consequential election – and with results still coming in – around 76 per cent of voters said Alberta should remain part of the country, while about 2...
The number of ballots cast in the first three days of advance voting in the British Columbia election is down about 8 per cent compared to 2024. Elections BC says there were about 440,000 votes cast from Friday to Sunday, compared to almost 480,000 for the first three days of advance voting last election, which set a record for total...
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) -- Vice President JD Vance said during a campaign visit to Ohio on Wednesday that he is "disgusted" by the Republican pushback against an ad by Vivek Ramaswamy that features the estranged mother of his Democratic opponent in the governor's race, Dr. Amy Acton, and raises questions about her traumatic childhood.
The U.S.-Ukraine alliance is careening toward a possible breaking point, with Moscow strengthened by President Donald Trump's recent rejection of new Russia sanctions and Kyiv undermined by disruptions in satellite support for its drones during the war.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islander adults have become more disillusioned with President Donald Trump and Republicans as the Nov. 3 midterm elections approach, according to a new AP-NORC/AAPI Data poll, giving Democrats a substantial edge on major issues like the economy and health care.
Rallies organized by the No Kings network opposed to President Donald Trump were held Saturday in cities and communities across the U.S., with an aim of getting people out to vote early in the midterm elections.
Prime Minister Mark Carney and Ontario Premier Doug Ford both disputed the suggestion of Canadian interference in the U.S. midterms, after the U.S. embassy in Canada released a list of quotes from Canadian politicians which it claims indicate "plans to influence American politics." Industry Minister Mélanie Joly is quoted five times in the list the embassy released Wednesday. It includes...
Mark Carney’s trip to Türkiye Wednesday marks the first ever bilateral visit to the country by a Canadian prime minister. Carney will sit down with Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Ankara Wednesday, before heading to Istanbul for a series of business meetings. His office is not releasing who else he plans to meet with ahead of the trip. While...
Carney visits Turkey, courting a powerful NATO ally despite fresh concerns about human rights. Prime Minister Mark Carney departs for Turkey on Wednesday for a three-day visit with a strategically important NATO ally whose economic and defence industries have become increasingly attractive to Ottawa. The trip includes meetings with President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in Ankara and business leaders in Istanbul...
Canada is not advocating for Americans to vote one way or another on Nov. 3, but presenting the facts and how they are affecting both sides of the border, says former Canada-U.S. IPG chair Wayne Easter. Former diplomats and an ex-parliamentarian say Canadian officials are doing what they should to raise concerns about the effect United States President Donald Trump...
President Donald Trump’s man in Ottawa blamed Prime Minister Mark Carney for straining relations between the two countries, saying a prosperous relationship is “under attack” in Canada. U.S. Ambassador to Canada Pete Hoekstra, no fan favorite north of the border, made the remarks Tuesday at a space conference in Gatineau, Quebec, where he also criticized Canada’s approach to the relationship...
Canada cannot afford to treat citizenship as paperwork to process rather than a covenant worth keeping.
The federal government’s internal accountability regime continues to grow more complex. Public service leadership is detached from policy implementation and socialized to avoid risk. Public servants should be evaluated on the rules they remove and services delivered. Those with delivery experience should be rotated periodically into roles that establish internal processes and policies. Improving the federal accountability regime requires simplifying...
Amid U.S. President Donald Trump’s on-again-off-again trade war, trade diversification has been the talk of the town. But for a country like Canada, which has long felt the gravitational pull of the enormous U.S. market, diversifying trade will be no easy feat. It also shouldn’t be the goal in and of itself. As the first part of the IRPP’s new...
A collection of SubStack publishing within Canadian public affairs.
Prime Minister Mark Carney’s ad-lib brought down the house at Thursday night’s Forever Canadian rally in Calgary. “They’re a little touchy down there at the moment,” he added, to roars from a crowd of about 5,000.
RCMP officers who responded to the April 2020 mass murders in Nova Scotia will receive bravery medals from Governor General Louise Arbour. An announcement is expected “imminently,” says an Arbour spokesperson. The medals follow 23 awards for excellence quietly distributed last year by RCMP Commissioner Mike Duheme to RCMP members and employees who managed the grisly incident, in which 2...
Prime Minister Mark Carney has finally charted a course out of the morass that is 24 Sussex Drive, the official residence of Canada’s prime ministers since 1951. Carney’s June announcement of a private-sector competition to “modernize” the decrepit building, abandoned in 2015 and later put into mothballs, was welcomed by heritage advocates as an end to a political impasse. A...
David Herle, Scott Reid, Jordan Leichnitz, and Kory Teneycke provide insights on the latest in Canadian politics.
Alberta has decided its fate remains within a united Canada. More than 75% of voters in Monday's historic referendum struck down the idea of separating from the country, a result Prime Minister Mark Carney says he's 'thrilled' about. As the results continue to roll in for the other nine questions, however, the conversation surrounding the province's future is far from...
The votes are still being counted, but it's clear Albertans, in large numbers, favour remaining in Canada over a second referendum on separation. But on the nine other questions, it's also clear that many Albertans want change in how the country operates. Althia Raj and Rob Russo discuss how Ottawa is likely to respond to what some might argue is...
After a historic referendum, Albertans have voted to remain in Canada. When we recorded this episode, just over a third of the votes had been counted, and 76 per cent of them were in favour of staying. CBC Alberta reporter Jason Markusoff joins Jayme to break down what the result means for the future of the independence movement and for...
