A Liberal MP has challenged Prime Minister Mark Carney's endorsement of American strikes on Iran, as the government sidesteps questions over whether the campaign violates international law. Carney and Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand were in India for a visit focused on diplomacy and trade when the U.S. and Israel launched their major attack on Iran on Saturday. Both wrote...
The opposition leader's first interview on The Bridge is a fascinating one to quote the Toronto Star. Done late last week we are happy to run it today. For Janice Stein fans, she will be here tomorrow having given up her regular Monday spot for this week's feature interview. Tomorrow Janice will give us her thoughts on the continuing story...
Prime Minister’s Office says Carney raised transnational repression with Modi. Prime Minister Mark Carney and his Indian counterpart announced Monday what they’re a calling a “new partnership,” a series of multi-million dollar deals and a commitment to sign a free trade agreement by year’s end as the two look to turn the page on years of frosty bilateral relations marked...
“We are one family,” said Prime Minister Mark Carney, standing beside Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday, in a major development to reset relations that included an invitation for Modi to come to Canada. Carney’s office said Modi accepted the invitation, but there is no timeline for a visit. Shortly after, and for the first time after being asked...
Ongoing public service cuts—and the fear senior officials have about their own job security—are throwing a wrench into the Liberal government’s ability to receive evidence-based and fearless public policy advice, say some public policy experts who also say this advice should be coming from deputy ministers and not political staff. “Politicians will turn to that source [political staff] of advice...
A new national survey released today by Liaison Strategies shows the Liberal Party of Canada, led by Prime Minister Mark Carney, holding a double-digit lead. If a federal election were held today, the Liberals would secure 43% (-2) of the decided and leaning vote, maintaining a significant 10-point advantage over the Conservative Party, which stands at 33% (no change). The...
The positive movement in consumer confidence has been primarily driven by perceptions that the Canadian economy will get stronger in the next six months. The proportion of Canadians who believe things will get better has increased from 17 to 26 percent in the past four weeks. This has coincided with a series of trade meetings initiated by Prime Minister Carney.
Mark Carney wasted no time in backing U.S. military action to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. It was a quick decision to pick a side but also to pick from a menu. It is hard to claim that preventing Iran from getting the bomb is the cause for this war.
Pierre Poilievre says he would rather work with Prime Minister Mark Carney to fight Donald Trump than plunge the country into another election to choose which man is the better negotiator. The Conservative leader declared that choice in a 40-minute podcast interview with former CBC anchor Peter Mansbridge, featuring some fascinating glimpses into how Poilievre intends to shift his tone...
Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe is applauding a move by India's government to strike a deal with Canada on uranium. Moe is in New Delhi, where he watched Prime Minister Mark Carney ink the deal with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Both Germany’s TKMS and South Korea’s Hanwha submitted their final bids to win a lucrative contract to build Canada’s next generation of submarines ahead of the March 2 deadline. CTV News has learned how the proposals will be evaluated and details about what the bids will contain. Tens of billions of dollars in economic incentives are attached to the bids...
This week, the world will converge in Toronto for the annual Prospectors & Developers Association of Canada (PDAC) convention, the largest mining conference in the world. At a moment defined by geopolitical instability, fractured supply chains, and surging demand for critical minerals, Ontario is emerging as the world’s reliable partner.
If the PM were to call an election now, he would almost certainly be punished. Despite some stellar polling, what certainly feels like a collapsing opposition leader and the foundations of some policy wins, Mark Carney must not give in to those advising him to go the polls to secure his majority.
I’ve recently spent a week working in Ottawa. Keeping in mind that I work in public policy and am surrounded by political junkies, on one of those days not one but five separate people raised Quebec sovereignty with me unprompted. Clients. Colleagues. Even housemates. The anxiety is real.
Back in 2011, the popularity in Quebec of then New Democratic Party Leader Jack Layton helped trigger an unprecedented Orange Wave that saw the NDP win 59 seats (out of 75) in a province that had never been fertile electoral ground for the NDP. Tragically, Layton passed away from cancer less than four months later. In the 2015 federal election...
Canada’s response to the U.S.–Israeli strikes on Iran exposes a fault line at the heart of our foreign policy. We invoke international law and the “rules based international order” when adversaries engage in unlawful actions, but abandon those same rules entirely when it’s the Americans — whose current government 60 per cent of Canadians now see as a threat —...
In Iran, Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu have opted to play regime change roulette. They are wagering with the lives of civilians in Iran, Israel, and the Gulf countries. They risk embroiling American and Israeli forces into yet another forever war, a military operation with no clear objectives and no way to truly win. And they do so with no...
Prime Minister Mark Carney was forced to admit an unpalatable truth Saturday, that despite his declaration that the old order had been irreparably ruptured it was still very much intact.
As I write this late Saturday morning, news is still coming in about the joint U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran. The targets reportedly included senior regime figures and missile infrastructure. Iran has responded. World leaders are trading statements. The situation feels fluid and dangerous. Prime Minister Mark Carney has reacted in a way that is far different than how...
Is it too late for Pierre Poilievre? The Conservative leader gave an impressive speech this past week to the Economic Club of Canada in Toronto in which he laid out a Conservative strategy for dealing with the erratic and very anti-Canadian U.S President Donald Trump. “Canada cannot control the decisions of foreign presidents,” Poilievre said. “But we can control the...
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre tried to get back in the game this past week. Poilievre did that with a speech in Toronto on Thursday that actually mentioned President Donald Trump by name. More notably, he mentioned Trump in a critical way. Poilievre has been under increasing criticism for his reluctance to go after Trump and his administration for both the...
I paid for my Sunday morning beers one at a time during the men’s gold medal Olympic game. I wanted to be able to walk out of the bar immediately if the Americans won the game, which is what I did as soon as Jack Hughes put the puck past Jordan Binnington. I was in a little bar in the...
Alberta might be landlocked but the province is sinking in a sea of red ink — and red faces. An embarrassed United Conservative government admits its new deficit-riddled budget unveiled Thursday breaks the province’s own law against running deficits — a law the UCP introduced in 2023 when the government was flooded with oil-generated revenue and buoyed by an $11.6 billion surplus.
The premier defector from, and debunker of, the “Green Terror,” which holds that climate change is an existential challenge to the continuation of life on earth, is probably Bjorn Lomborg, president of the Copenhagen Consensus Centre and former director of the Danish government’s Environmental Assessment Institute. He has been a prominent climate change skeptic for years, and has roiled the...
There will be no Ceausescu moment, no “at long last sir have you no decency” turning point, no dramatic climax in which the tyrant’s power suddenly evaporates: That instantaneous, simultaneous crystallizing of long-inchoate doubts, wherein those who feared him lose their fear, and those who believed in him lose their faith. Life rarely supplies the needs of narrative, and if...
What happens when Canada needs bold action but the global figure most closely associated with political radicalism is the man Canadians hate the most in the entire world? Welcome to the conundrum facing Pierre Poilievre and Canada’s Conservatives. Lots of lights on Canada’s national dashboard are blinking red, but the country is fearful of the kind of radical disruption represented...
Donald Trump spent nearly two hours this week proclaiming that everything is going great for the United States under his watch. In this same week, the president is getting a united rebuttal from Canada — no, things are not that great on this front. Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is the latest to lay down that marker, and a strong one...
There were two speeches inside the speech on Canada-U.S. relations that Pierre Poilievre gave Thursday. One was intended to make him sound like a grown-up. The other was to make him sound different than Mark Carney. The first part was the kind of political repositioning that Mr. Poilievre has long needed.
Prime Minister Brian Mulroney often remarked that the two principal challenges facing any Canadian Prime Minister were national unity and managing relations with the United States. Mulroney excelled at both, which contributed significantly to his back-to-back majority election victories. Today, Prime Minister Mark Carney faces daunting challenges on both of these files and, so far, his prescriptions for success are...
Expect to hear a lot over the next few days about the delicate dance Mark Carney is supposedly attempting as he travels to India to promote trade amid lingering suspicion that India’s government is linked to violent crime in this country. It’ll be a bit like the delicate dance Carney was said to be engaging in last month when he...
Danielle Smith has a problem. Her government is heading toward a deficit projected, before Thursday’s budget, at $10-billion. This is only partly because it overestimated oil revenues, with oil prices now projected at roughly $5 to $10 a barrel lower than forecast in last year’s budget. It is because the government set spending at levels that could only be sustained...
I have a pretty high tolerance for political spin. You kind of have to when you’ve spent years in the House of Commons and on the ground here in Alberta. But a recent opinion column published right here on this platform claiming “moderates are fleeing” the Conservative Party crossed the line from standard spin straight into fiction. It’s a perfect...
For the past two years, much of his rhetoric has revolved around the idea that Canada is broken. That elites have failed. That gatekeepers have blocked growth and made life unaffordable. It has been sharp and oppositional, sometimes deliberately so. This speech was different. It felt calmer and more reflective. He reached back to Marcus Aurelius and the founding of...
The NDP should have a singular focus for the short- and medium-term: finding a way back to official party status. Everything else can come later. In fact, everything else will only come later if the NDP is once again a party with at least 12 seats in the House of Commons. That official party status will unlock desperately needed funds...
You might not remember the days when then-prime minister Justin Trudeau went to India to reset relations, but if you close your eyes, you might just be able to conjure an image of Mr. Trudeau in Bollywood outfits. That was in 2018. Mr. Trudeau’s predecessor, Stephen Harper, announced free-trade talks with India’s prime minister in 2010. They never came close...
Prime Minister Carney is headed to India, Australia, and Japan as part of Canada’s ongoing efforts to shore up trade. While Australia and Japan are uncontroversial trading partners, Canada’s relationship to India is more problematic. Carney’s entire trip occurs against an alarming backdrop: rampant extortion in Canada; a guilty plea in a murder-for-hire plot in the US that once again...
Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand said Canada would like to see a diplomatic solution to the war in Iran, even as Canada has expressed support for the U.S. military attack that killed Iran's leader on Saturday. Anand, speaking to reporters in New Delhi after Prime Minister Mark Carney abruptly cancelled his scheduled news conference Monday, would not say whether Canada...
During his short tenure as Canada's interim parliamentary budget officer, Jason Jacques endured accusations of partisanship, criticism over his message delivery and, in the end, praise for representing an institution now ranked first among its international equals. Appointed in September by Prime Minister Mark Carney to sit in the chair until a permanent parliamentary budget officer (PBO) could be appointed...
Conservative leader emphasizes all-party committee proposal during podcast interview. Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre says Canada should not have an election before it reviews the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA) this year, and is instead calling for the Carney government to set up an all-party committee on the matter. "I think that being united will be a real force going forward. We have...
The competition to build the Canadian navy's next fleet of submarines is heading into a new phase after a deadline for both finalists to submit their final proposals to the federal government on Monday. Canada is planning to buy a fleet of up to 12 conventionally powered submarines with the hope of having the vessels in the water by 2032...
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre said he’s open to meeting with U.S. leaders if it will help Canada’s efforts to end the continuing trade dispute. Mr. Poilievre also said he “can’t stand” U.S. President Donald Trump’s talk about Canada becoming the 51st state, doesn’t like Mr. Trump’s tariffs and doesn’t like the way he’s treating Canada. “At various times, I’ve been...
It's Sunday night and I'm updating this before the newsletter launches Monday morning. The world is still absorbing the U.S. lead airstrikes on Iran. There are still more unknowns than knowns. Like you, I'm watching and reading and listening to see what the next phase of this will look like. I have a deep, professional distrust of those who say...
With Canada’s endorsement of American and Israeli air strikes on Iran, past Liberal foreign ministers and former international law practitioners are signalling alarm over what they call the federal government’s indifference to international law. On Feb. 28, the United States and Israel launched air strikes on Iran, which led to the killing of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and other...
Calls for an independent investigation into the shooting in Tumbler Ridge, B.C., where eight people, including six children were shot last month, are growing. Federal Conservative MP Bob Zimmer, who represents the community in northeastern B.C., says the mourning families need answers around various aspects, including the shooter's mental health and access to guns, as well as the role of...
Iranian-Canadian communities are greeting news of the death of Iran’s supreme leader with jubilation, according to Liberal MP Ali Ehsassi. Ehsassi, whose Willowdale riding in Toronto has a significant Iranian-Canadian population, was in the crowd at a large protest against the Iranian regime in Richmond Hill on Saturday when news of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s death was made public.
National Defence is refusing to disclose how it analyzed competing fighter jet bids after a Swedish media report suggested the evaluation was weighted against Saab's Gripen E. Citing confidential sources, the Swedish business publication Affarsvarlden reported that Ottawa added a risk coefficient to its analysis that significantly undermined the Gripen's test scores because it was still a new series aircraft.
Canada continues to grapple with the fallout of the ongoing conflict in Iran after the United States and Israel launched a major attack on the Middle Eastern country that left the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei dead. Prime Minister Mark Carney says Canada supports the U.S. action in Iran, but Canada will not get directly involved in the conflict. On...
Up to 18 Canadian military personnel were on exchange with U.S. in Bahrain and Qatar at time of attack. It is highly likely that members of the Canadian military, on exchange with the United States, were involved in the planning and co-ordinating of airstrikes on Iran, says a former senior Canadian general. Prime Minister Mark Carney has said he supports...
Canada is aiming to sign a comprehensive trade deal with India this year, Prime Minister Mark Carney told a business audience in Mumbai Saturday. "We are now negotiating a comprehensive economic partnership agreement, with the intention to double two-way trade by 2030. Our goal, to be clear, is to sign that agreement by the end of this year," Carney said...
Prime Minister Mark Carney said he supports the U.S. action in Iran, but Canada will not get directly involved in the conflict after American and Israeli militaries launched an attack on the Middle Eastern country that left its leader dead. "We have not been party to the military build-up to this or the military planning of this, so it is...
Finance Minister François-Philippe Champange says the federal government is once again “exploring” a formal free-trade deal with India, and that the South Asian country also sees “a lot of benefit” to deepening ties with Canada. In an interview with CTV Question Period airing Sunday, host Vassy Kapelos asked Champagne directly whether he, as finance minister, wants a formal free-trade deal...
Canada's energy minister says the country is poised to become one of the world's biggest suppliers of liquefied natural gas, exporting as much as 100 million tonnes per year. Tim Hodgson delivered that optimistic outlook to a parliamentary committee earlier this month, noting that countries such as Japan, South Korea, China and India all want Canadian gas. "If we deliver...
Prime Minister Mark Carney said while he has had discussions with U.S. President Donald Trump about the possibility of strikes in Iran over “recent weeks,” he does not expect Canada to take a military role in any continued escalation, after the U.S. and Israel launched strikes on Iran, Saturday. Carney made the comments in Mumbai as part of a fireside...
Canada's support for U.S. strikes against Iran could come with security risks as the regime looks to retaliate against perceived enemies abroad, say experts, who also note the political gamble of betting on an attack with uncertain aims and outcomes. Prime Minister Mark Carney said the government backs American military action on Saturday to stop Iran from obtaining a nuclear...
The B.C. Conservative Party says nine candidates have advanced to the next phase of the race to replace former leader John Rustad, but one of the candidates who did not make the cut says the party must remain "grounded in genuine Conservative principles." A release from the Official Opposition says it has approved the applications of MLA Bruce Banman, MLA...
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who reigned as Iran’s supreme leader for the past 36 years, was killed in a sweeping U.S. and Israeli attack on the country Saturday. He was 86.
Some Iranian Canadians are expressing their support for foreign intervention in Iran after the U.S. and Israel launched a major attack on the Middle Eastern country, sending missiles into Iran overnight. Iranian Canadian filmmaker Ezra Soleh welcomed the attack, saying the people of Iran have had enough of "a regime that has been massacring people, killing people by the thousands."...
PM also says Canada not participating militarily and wasn't part of military buildup. As U.S. President Donald Trump charges ahead with a major attack on Iran, Prime Minister Mark Carney says Canada supports at least one component of the American mission: destroying Iran's nuclear program. "Canada supports the United States acting to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and...
U.S. and Israel launch an attack on Iran, as U.S. President Donald Trump confirms 'major combat operations' are underway.
As the Canadian government prepares to review the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA) this summer — a deal the U.S. president is signalling he’s prepared to abandon — Japan’s ambassador is reminding Canada just how high the stakes are for a key component of Ontario’s economy.
As some Sikh Canadians, intelligence community members and Liberal MPs push back on the government official’s claim that India is no longer actively carrying out foreign interference, India’s High Commissioner to Canada insists it was “never” a problem in the first place. “It never happened,” Dinesh K. Patnaik told journalists about accusations of foreign interference multiple times on the sidelines...
'Canada supports the United States acting to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.' As the United States and Israel launched a major assault on Iran, Prime Minister Mark Carney’s office said on Saturday that Canada supports the attempt to stop Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon and urged Canadians in the country to shelter in place. “Canada supports the United...
Conservatives are capitalizing on the recent drop in public support for immigration, but risk being seen as too MAGA adjacent, say observers. Meanwhile, the immigration minister's own colleagues question her handling of the file.
Canada is asking some of its staff in Tel Aviv to relocate as Israel and the United States launched strikes on Iran early Saturday. “We have asked non-essential staff to relocate from Tel Aviv because of the heightened security situation,” said Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand, who made the comments from Mumbai, India, just before news broke that Israel launched...
The U.S. and Israel launched an attack Saturday on Iran, with the first apparent strike happening near the offices of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Iranian media reported strikes nationwide, and smoke could be seen rising from the capital. U.S. President Donald Trump said in a video posted on social media that the U.S. had begun “major combat operations in...
ChatGPT developer banned Tumbler Ridge shooter's account but didn't flag it to police. Artificial Intelligence Minister Evan Solomon says OpenAI's recent commitments to adjust its policies in the wake of the shooting in Tumbler Ridge, B.C., do not go far enough and plans to meet with CEO Sam Altman. "While we note their willingness to strengthen law enforcement referral protocols...
WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Donald Trump, whose fierce denunciation of military adventurism abroad fueled his unlikely rise to the top of the Republican Party, risks becoming ensnared by that very type of conflict.
LAREDO, Texas (AP) -- A month after ICE agents sent the young Ecuadorian mother and her 7-year-old daughter to a sprawling detention center 1,300 miles from their Minnesota home, they were finally free.
LEESBURG, Va. (AP) -- Gathered at a resort in suburban Virginia, House Democrats this week were acting like a party on the verge of reclaiming power as they drafted policy blueprints and spoke confidently about election victories in November.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Republican Rep. Kevin Kiley has seen the political ground shift beneath him this past year, the boundaries of his California district upended by the nation's partisan redistricting war.
Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand said Canada would like to see a diplomatic solution to the war in Iran, even as Canada has expressed support for the U.S. military attack that killed Iran's leader on Saturday. Anand, speaking to reporters in New Delhi after Prime Minister Mark Carney abruptly cancelled his scheduled news conference Monday, would not say whether Canada...
“We are one family,” said Prime Minister Mark Carney, standing beside Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday, in a major development to reset relations that included an invitation for Modi to come to Canada. Carney’s office said Modi accepted the invitation, but there is no timeline for a visit. Shortly after, and for the first time after being asked...
Prime Minister’s Office says Carney raised transnational repression with Modi. Prime Minister Mark Carney and his Indian counterpart announced Monday what they’re a calling a “new partnership,” a series of multi-million dollar deals and a commitment to sign a free trade agreement by year’s end as the two look to turn the page on years of frosty bilateral relations marked...
With Canada’s endorsement of American and Israeli air strikes on Iran, past Liberal foreign ministers and former international law practitioners are signalling alarm over what they call the federal government’s indifference to international law. On Feb. 28, the United States and Israel launched air strikes on Iran, which led to the killing of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and other...
Prime Minister Mark Carney said he supports the U.S. action in Iran, but Canada will not get directly involved in the conflict after American and Israeli militaries launched an attack on the Middle Eastern country that left its leader dead. "We have not been party to the military build-up to this or the military planning of this, so it is...
A year ago, it was not obvious that Canada–India relations could be pulled back from the brink. Diplomatic expulsions, public recriminations, and allegations of foreign interference had frozen one of Canada’s most consequential Indo-Pacific partnerships. Yet since Prime Minister Mark Carney and Prime Minister Narendra Modi met on the margins of the G7 summit in Kananaskis last June, a different...
Rather than sorting applicants by racial category, universities should focus on ensuring that all prospective students, regardless of race, have the academic preparation needed to compete fairly.
A collection of SubStack publishing within Canadian public affairs.
Prime Minister Mark Carney has finally revealed his plan to turn Canada into a weapons-exporting global mega-power. “In total, the Defence Industrial Strategy is an investment of over half a trillion dollars in Canadian security, economic prosperity, and our sovereignty,” he announced this week, promising to create over 125 thousand “high-paying careers” building weapons and otherwise supplying the Canadian military...
Cuba has been plunged into darkness. Schools, hospitals and essential services are hit by rolling 12-hour blackouts. Foreigners, including Canadians, have fled. Even worse, infant mortality is climbing.
Lisa Banfield, common-law wife of the man who meticulously slaughtered 22 people six years ago, recently published a memoir of her life-on-eggshells with a controlling killer.
The opposition leader's first interview on The Bridge is a fascinating one to quote the Toronto Star. Done late last week we are happy to run it today. For Janice Stein fans, she will be here tomorrow having given up her regular Monday spot for this week's feature interview. Tomorrow Janice will give us her thoughts on the continuing story...
Two leaders, two visions, two itineraries. Prime Minister Mark Carney is once again travelling abroad to strengthen Canada's trading relationships with fellow middle powers like India, Japan and Australia. How much sway does Canada hold in this new geopolitical era? Anne-Marie Slaughter, former Obama-era senior U.S. State Department director, joins The House to weigh in on this middle-power moment. And...
Pierre Poilievre is getting generally pretty good reviews for his major speech yesterday outlining his vision for Canada-U.S. relations. Before a pretty Conservative business audience in Toronto, he also went after Donald Trump -- something he hasn't done in the past with so much vigour. It wasn't just what he said but the way he said it. Chantal Hebert and...
Peter Mazereeuw interviews Valeriy Kostyuk, the executive director of the Canada-Ukraine Foundation, about his work raising donations and sending everything from power generators to surgical teams into Ukraine as it tries to fight off the Russian invasion.
