After weeks of campaign promises, political attacks and gaffes, it’s decision day in B.C.’s 2026 snap election. Will voters reward David Eby’s gamble with a renewed B.C. NDP mandate, or hand the B.C. Conservatives the reins for the first time in nearly 100 years? Will the fate of either party rest on a handful of ridings that are too close...
For anyone looking, it was right there in bold text: white on blue, a message affixed to the front of the lectern Alberta Premier Danielle Smith used to speak two days after her province overwhelmingly rejected the pursuit of separatism. “Stronger Alberta within a United Canada,” the text read. It was a new formulation of a familiar refrain for Ms...
Canada’s parliamentary budget officer is raising concerns over Canada’s debt levels, with the federal government set to table its budget in a little over a week. The PBO released her latest economic forecast on Tuesday, which is projecting slower growth in the country’s real GDP forecast, and laying the blame at the feet of the U.S. tariff war on Canada...
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith says the matter of separatism is settled within her party and she doesn’t need the support of those who want the province to leave Canada. Smith says she told members of her United Conservative Party on Wednesday that they should support the will of the majority of Albertans who have voted to stay in Canada, or...
After three days spent fostering tighter economic and political ties with Turkey, Prime Minister Mark Carney is on his way home to Ottawa. Carney closed out his trip earlier this morning by visiting one of Istanbul's many great cultural landmarks, the Kariye Mosque, accompanied by his wife, Diana Fox Carney. The mosque was once a Byzantine church and is renowned...
The last and final snapshot of the 2026 BC Provincial election shows the BC Conservatives poised to win a majority Government tomorrow. The BC Green Party will play spoiler on Saturday and prevent David Eby and the NDP from an opportunity to return after this election. The BC Conservatives lead with 42.9% ahead of the BC NDP 37.2% and the...
The opposition Conservative Party of BC heads to tomorrow’s provincial election in British Columbia as the frontrunner, a new Research Co. poll has found. In the online survey of a representative provincial sample, 44% of decided likely voters would back the BC Conservatives (= since a similar poll conducted in mid-October, while 40% (-2) would support the governing BC New...
Mark Carney’s government was perhaps an hour old when he first laid out an intimate shared narrative of Canada and Europe that he has returned to and refined, again and again. “The ceremony we just witnessed reflects the wonder of a country built on the bedrock of three peoples: Indigenous, French and British,” he said as he began his first...
Lots of finger-pointing as the week comes to an end -- Danielle Smith tells separatists to get out of her party; Pete Hoekstra tells Canadians to stop interfering with Washington politics, while Mark Carney seems to be taking the "take a valium" approach. Quite the week for Chantal and Bruce to sum things up on this week's Good Talk.
U.S. President Donald Trump is lifting some tariffs on Canadian exports at the end of this month, but adding tariffs to dozens of new products, including Canadian garbage and sewage. As the trade war with Canada becomes a ballot box issue in key races ahead of November's midterm election, Maine Sen. Susan Collins, a Republican, said Friday nine categories of...
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.
Referendums tend to raise as many questions as they answer. And so it may be for the 10-part questionnaire that Alberta Premier Danielle Smith put to her province — although with a series of no's Albertans have seemingly foreclosed on a number of possibilities. "I am well aware that not every grievance Alberta has with Ottawa has been resolved," Smith...
Danielle Smith wanted to walk into the coming first ministers meeting armed with the tools to start prying open this country’s lock on the Constitution. Alberta voters didn’t give her those tools. With almost all the votes counted, the referendum results show that all of Smith’s proposed constitutional reforms have been rejected. On Senate abolition and on giving the province...
It wasn’t all bad for Danielle Smith Monday night. True, Albertans voted massively to “remain” a province of Canada, thus depriving her of the bad cop for whatever good-cop, bad-cop routine she might have hoped to play with the rest of the country. And yes, Albertans voted to reject all four of the constitutional proposals the Premier had also put...
Pete Hoekstra, U.S. President Donald Trump’s ambassador to Canada, is apparently ticked off that no one took his warning about alleged Canadian meddling in the U.S. midterm elections seriously. So he had his embassy issue a profoundly unserious “fact sheet” this week backing up his claim. It’s tempting to brush off the document — a list of nine “FACTS” in...
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.
The decisive, pro-remain result of 75% in the Alberta referendum has prompted two questions, one in that province and the other in Ottawa. The Alberta question is whether Premier Danielle Smith can remain in office after telling separatist members of her United Conservative Party (UCP) to “join a different party” if they can’t accept the referendum results. “The United Conservative...
Using her toughest words yet, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith decreed to United Conservative Party members Wednesday: get on the federalist train or get off the platform. No candidate, provincial board or constituency association board member would be permitted to publicly argue for anything other than a stronger Alberta within a united Canada, she said. But a parsing of Smith’s words...
Amid all the attention paid to her mildly salacious revelations about Justin Trudeau, Chrystia Freeland has been saying stuff that’s much more relevant to our current moment. At every tour stop to promote her new book “Unreliable Boyfriend: An Insider’s View of Dealing with a Chaotic Superpower, Plutocrats, and Other Complicated People,” the former federal cabinet titan has been going...
A spectre is haunting the United States — the spectre of Canada. At least, that’s according to the American embassy in Ottawa. In a new memo published Wednesday afternoon, the U.S. has directly accused Canada of meddling in their domestic affairs.
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...
One of the striking things about the Alberta referendum campaign was the media frenzy it triggered: wall-to-wall coverage, over-the-top headlines that declared Confederation was at stake. The outcome was never in doubt. As every poll testified, the result would be a rout. The hard-right separatists had about as much chance of victory as Eddie the Eagle winning the ski jump...
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.
Havana is urging Ottawa not to drop its public opposition to the decades-long U.S. embargo as Washington ramps up pressure on countries supporting Cuba. "We are confident that Canada will stay with us, as they have done in the past," Cuban Ambassador to Canada Rodrigo Malmierca Diaz told The Canadian Press. "The blockade and this intensification is, in practice, killing...
Assembly of First Nations National Chief Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak is feeling the weight of the moment as she approaches something her predecessors sought for years: a sit-down meeting with the prime minister and premiers. "I look at some of our former leaders that had to really push and pull just to open these doors, and I wish they could see...
Separatist leaders affiliated with the Alberta Prosperity Project say the group’s two most prominent members – Jeffrey Rath and Mitch Sylvestre – were fired by the organization six weeks ago, but the news was kept quiet to avoid derailing the referendum campaign. In a Thursday night social-media post, Tanya Clemens said the APP’s board, of which she says she’s a...
Canada is showing up at this year's international nature summit in Armenia with pledges to protect swaths of land bigger than most countries. But it's also facing criticism for advancing major projects that put those protections in jeopardy. Environment and Climate Change Minister Julie Dabrusin spoke to CBC News about the work she hopes to advance in Yerevan and responded...
British Columbians go to the polls today in an early election called by NDP Leader David Eby in the biggest gamble of his political life. The five-week campaign saw the major parties fight over issues from health care to housing, the province's record deficit and the increasing cost of living. Polls open at 8.a.m. and close at 8 p.m. in...
Despite Alberta's decision to remain a province of Canada rather than hold another referendum, anger is still simmering at the surface, says Preston Manning. The former Calgary MP and leader of Canada's Reform party, which later morphed into the Conservative Party of Canada, doesn't believe that the issues that prompted Alberta's referendum have been solved.
Industry Minister Melanie Joly says new federal investments announced Friday are a first step toward reducing the Canadian aluminum sector's dependence on the United States. Joly, who is also the minister responsible for economic development in Quebec, made the comments in La Baie, Que., where she announced more than $193 million in federal funding for projects at four Rio Tinto...
PM criticizes 'whoever' decided to limit Ukraine's ability to track Russian strikes. Prime Minister Mark Carney on Friday criticized a decision to restrict Ukraine's access to Elon Musk's military-grade satellite network, saying the move is costing lives. "I search for the right adjective to describe whoever took this decision, or a group of people took this decision, against a country...
A senior federal adviser says the Liberals are poised to release a new national security strategy -- the first such policy in more than two decades. David Morrison, senior diplomatic and international affairs adviser to Prime Minister Mark Carney, says the strategy will look to bolster Canada's defences against an array of security threats.
Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem may have boxed himself into an interest-rate hike next week after his hawkish commentary convinced traders a hike is all but certain.
Canada and the U.S. are close to a trade deal, according to U.S. President Donald Trump. Asked about progress toward a deal with Mexico, Trump said during a scrum with reporters in Washington that his administration is “very close” to a “very good” deal. “The same thing with Canada. Canada’s working very hard to make a deal with us. And...
Prime Minister Mark Carney said he is “disappointed” in ongoing allegations from U.S. Ambassador to Canada Pete Hoekstra, who is accusing Canadian politicians of interfering in the upcoming U.S. midterm elections. “There is no merit to these claims, so I’ll call it out that way,” Carney said while speaking to reporters in Istanbul on Friday. “I’m disappointed that their envoy...
Prime Minister Mark Carney says there is "no merit" to American claims that Canadians might be interfering in U.S. politics ahead of November's midterm elections. Officials in the Trump administration, including U.S. Ambassador to Canada Pete Hoekstra, have claimed Canadian politicians are interfering in the democratic process south of the border. Hoekstra said earlier this month that the administration is...
Prime Minister Mark Carney said Friday a Canadian company has a real shot at winning a lucrative tender to supply nuclear energy to Turkey — a prospect he said was remote a year ago. Carney was meeting with Turkish business leaders in Istanbul Friday, a day after he announced a new strategic partnership between Canada and Turkey to deepen co-operation...
National Defence plans to install 47 sensor stations across the North starting as early as next summer to bolster Norad's surveillance and early warning abilities, according to recently published regulatory filings. The planned installations would start in Yukon near the Alaskan border and follow along the Arctic coast across the Northwest Territories, reaching as far out as Alert, Nunavut, the...
Prime Minister Mark Carney is defending Canada's decision to seek closer ties with Turkey as the country is accused of infringing on LGBTQ+ rights. Carney is in Turkey for a three-day trip to strike a new strategic partnership for deeper economic and social ties with the NATO ally. A joint statement released Thursday with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan stated...
It's the last full day of campaigning in British Columbia's election ahead of final voting day Saturday, when most ballots will be counted by hand. Elections BC has confirmed that votes cast on election day will be tallied manually, in a departure from 2024, when electronic tabulators were used to count paper ballots for the first time in a general...
A union representative for a beef processing plant south of Calgary is warning of worsening labour shortages if immigration policy proposals that narrowly passed in Alberta's referendum are enacted. "These are tough and high turnover jobs with few candidates lining up to fill them," said Faduma Ahmed, with the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 401 at Cargill's abattoir in...
Canada's deepening ties with Europe could help fill some of the massive gaps left behind as the United States pulls back from foreign aid and embraces a "transactional" approach, says the secretary of state for international development. "When we put all our heads together, I think the opportunities are endless," Randeep Sarai told The Canadian Press. He said this effort...
After a record fiscal 2025, customs officers on track to search even more devices. Searches of electronic devices such as phones and laptops of travellers entering the United States are up more than 32 per cent this year and are on track to set a new record, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection data obtained by CBC News. The...
The move, which could come as soon as Friday, would remove tariffs on some agricultural and forestry goods but could raise levies on other products The U.S. is expected to remove 50% tariffs on some Canadian products in a bid to help Maine Sen. Susan Collins and other Republicans in the upcoming midterm elections, according to people familiar with the...
While a new fact sheet from the United States Embassy in Ottawa listing examples of Canadian interference with America’s upcoming midterm elections is being called “absurd” by one former MP, one Senator says the U.S. has a point—“to some extent.” “I, frankly, couldn’t see any activity by [Industry Minister] Mélanie Joly or any other Canadian official that even remotely looked...
Prime Minister Mark Carney is betting that a promise to deepen Canada's economic and social ties with Turkey will help reset relations between two countries that haven't always seen eye to eye. Canada is forming a three-year "strategic partnership" with Turkey aimed in part at securing a free-trade agreement, Carney announced Thursday after an hour-long meeting with Turkish President Recep...
The Canada—U.S. trading relationship is never going back to what it used to be, and U.S. tariffs are a reality of the future even if the continental trade pact is renewed, says Prime Minister Mark Carney‘s lead trade negotiator Janice Charette. The goal now is to get the lowest tariff rates possible on the widest possible range of goods, she...
Canadian officials haven’t ruled out the possibility of a snap trade deal with the United States ahead of next month’s midterm elections, according to sources with direct knowledge of the talks. Though they cautioned that the hope remains faint.
A former Alberta cabinet minister says Premier Danielle Smith won't survive fallout from the separation referendum, while an independence organizer says she still has his support for now. Legislature member Peter Guthrie, who was removed from Smith's United Conservative Party caucus after criticizing the government over a health-care procurement scandal, now leads the upstart Progressive Tory Party of Alberta. He...
Canada's top soldier Gen. Jennie Carignan says she's "heartbroken" by the tragedy at Canadian Forces Base Wainwright that left four soldiers dead and dozens injured. Officials at a briefing in Edmonton say 27 remain in hospital and 13 are in critical condition. Canadian Forces Provost Marshal Brig.-Gen. Vanessa Hanrahan says 30 military police are on the ground investigating but the...
A company hoping to launch rockets from southern Newfoundland says it has signed a $20-million contract with the Department of National Defence. In a news release, Nordspace says the 10-year agreement gives the federal department priority access to a dedicated launch pad at the company's Atlantic Spaceport Complex, which is under construction on Newfoundland's Burin Peninsula. Nordspace says the money...
Culture Minister Marc Miller says while he shares concerns about how long the government's new digital regulator will take to set up, he's unable to say exactly when that will happen. In an interview with The Canadian Press, Miller said the government is moving as quickly as possible on digital safety bill C-16, which includes a ban on social media...
The Conservatives are calling on the government to implement temporary resident exit tracking, boost collaboration with the provinces and further reduce permanent residency admissions in the coming immigration levels plan. Conservative immigration critic Michelle Rempel Garner outlined these and other demands in a press conference today, and blamed government policy for a rise in anti-immigrant sentiment in recent years.
FORT MYERS, Fla. (AP) -- President Donald Trump on Friday told a rally for candidates in South Florida that U.S. warships returning from the Middle East could stop over in Cuba on their way back from the Iran war, his latest suggestion of taking an interventionist approach to the nearby country.
Republican Vivek Ramaswamy on Friday defended his campaign's ad featuring the estranged mother of Democratic rival Dr. Amy Acton in the closely watched race for Ohio governor.
PHILADELPHIA (AP) -- President Donald Trump on Thursday accused LeBron James of disrespecting the United States after the NBA star appeared to continue his warmups while the national anthem was performed before Philadelphia's season opener on Tuesday.
MIAMI (AP) -- Lawyers for the BBC and for Donald Trump were tussling in court Thursday over whether former special counsel Jack Smith should be deposed in the president's $10 billion defamation case against the broadcaster -- a possibility that Trump strongly opposes.
Havana is urging Ottawa not to drop its public opposition to the decades-long U.S. embargo as Washington ramps up pressure on countries supporting Cuba. "We are confident that Canada will stay with us, as they have done in the past," Cuban Ambassador to Canada Rodrigo Malmierca Diaz told The Canadian Press. "The blockade and this intensification is, in practice, killing...
PM criticizes 'whoever' decided to limit Ukraine's ability to track Russian strikes. Prime Minister Mark Carney on Friday criticized a decision to restrict Ukraine's access to Elon Musk's military-grade satellite network, saying the move is costing lives. "I search for the right adjective to describe whoever took this decision, or a group of people took this decision, against a country...
Prime Minister Mark Carney said Friday a Canadian company has a real shot at winning a lucrative tender to supply nuclear energy to Turkey — a prospect he said was remote a year ago. Carney was meeting with Turkish business leaders in Istanbul Friday, a day after he announced a new strategic partnership between Canada and Turkey to deepen co-operation...
Prime Minister Mark Carney is defending Canada's decision to seek closer ties with Turkey as the country is accused of infringing on LGBTQ+ rights. Carney is in Turkey for a three-day trip to strike a new strategic partnership for deeper economic and social ties with the NATO ally. A joint statement released Thursday with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan stated...
Prime Minister Mark Carney is betting that a promise to deepen Canada's economic and social ties with Turkey will help reset relations between two countries that haven't always seen eye to eye. Canada is forming a three-year "strategic partnership" with Turkey aimed in part at securing a free-trade agreement, Carney announced Thursday after an hour-long meeting with Turkish President Recep...
In a previous commentary, I suggested that the Bank of Canada replace its near-term inflation targeting framework (maintaining two per cent inflation over a horizon of approximately two years) with a macrofinancial stability framework. This new regime would focus on ensuring price stability over a longer-term horizon, allowing policy interest rates to “lean” against financial booms and busts. In this...
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...
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...
Alberta voted decisively to stay in Canada. Stéphane Dion and Janet Annesley welcome the result. But both view the referendum a “sad exercise”? Former Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Stéphane Dion and Alberta energy and public affairs adviser Janet Annesley join hosts Edward Greenspon and Allan Gregg in back-to-back conversations about what the vote exposed and what comes next. Can Ottawa address...
American officials are alleging Canadian electoral interference in the U.S. midterms, what’s behind the latest missives from the Trump administration? And as Alberta Premier Danielle Smith asks separatists in her party to accept their loss or leave, will they listen? The National Post’s Stuart Thomson and Tonda MacCharles of the Toronto Star discuss. Then, as British Columbia heads to the...
At Issue this week: Alberta Premier Danielle Smith says her party is committed to Canada but will UCP separatists play ball? B.C. stares down a close provincial election race after David Eby's big gamble. And, what to make of U.S. accusations that Canada is meddling in midterm elections.
As Canada looks to rely less on the United States, it’s looking across the Atlantic to build closer ties with Europe. There’s even talk of Canada becoming the European Union’s first associate member.
