Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is shuffling his deck, sending Elon Musk-style letters to his shadow ministers asking them to prove their worth. Monday’s email was referred to by one Conservative as “DOGE-like” — a reference to Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency,” which sent emails to U.S. federal government workers last year demanding that they list their past week’s accomplishments or...
The prime minister will secure a majority government if his Liberals win two of the three byelections. Premier Doug Ford is appealing for political “certainty” in Canada ahead of contentious trade negotiations with U.S. President Donald Trump. Ford, in Texas on a trade mission to promote Ontario, stressed “it was the right move” when he called an early Ontario election...
Financial institutions from Canada, China discussed monetary policy and other topics. Although Chinese tariffs on Canadian pork products remain in place after a visit to China by Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne, he says the important task is relationship-building — and it's not realistic to expect immediate solutions. "You cannot just expect in one meeting that you resolve everything," Champagne told...
Telecommunications association says ask goes 'beyond normal business operations.' The Liberal government's second attempt at giving police and spies easier access to Canadians' information includes what's anticipated to be costly demands on a range of private businesses to to change how they manage their data. But the government says it doesn't yet know how much the companies — or Canadian...
As gasoline prices keep ticking higher toward $2 a litre and diesel sits near $2.50, there is little relief for Canadian drivers as the global energy crisis grows with no end in sight to the Iran war. The conflict continues to choke transit through the Strait of Hormuz, cutting off roughly 20 per cent of the world's oil and natural...
Survey of 3,000+ Residents across the Québec City and Toronto Corridor. Capturing Public Opinion in the Early Stages of the Project
The latest Ontario survey from Liaison Strategies shows a tightening provincial race, with the Progressive Conservatives holding a narrow three-percentage-point lead over the Ontario Liberal Party. The survey finds the PCs at 39% support, followed by the Liberals at 36%, the NDP at 18%, and the Greens at 5%. The survey also reveals widespread public opposition to recent government moves...
On March 2, when Pierre Poilievre sat down for a podcast interview with former CBC anchor Peter Mansbridge, he jokingly noted that Mansbridge had called him Mr. Poilievre. “You’re the leader of his majesty’s loyal opposition,” said Mansbridge, explaining his formality.
Now that the federal New Democrats have selected Avi Lewis as their leader, Canadians know the leadership offering that they will be presented by the major parties in the next campaign. Now the race is on between the parties to try to frame the ‘ballot question’ of the next campaign – whenever that may be. But at this moment, given...
Amid Liberal infighting and NDP disarray, Premier Doug Ford is hoping to win Scarborough Southwest for the Progressive Conservatives in a byelection expected this summer. With the stunning departure two months ago of New Democratic MPP Doly Begum to run for Prime Minister Mark Carney’s federal Liberals, Ford has been closely watching developments in the riding.
Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne said the Canada-China relationship is at a unique moment in time as he wrapped up a full day of meetings with top Chinese officials Friday in Beijing. The day saw the two countries sign a joint statement to deepen financial-sector ties. Mr. Champagne led a delegation of Canadian business leaders to China this week, which included...
There has been a lot of debate in recent weeks about the province’s decision to take over the City of Toronto’s role in the agreement governing Billy Bishop Airport and to acquire the city-owned lands at the airport. Some have asked why the province would take such a step. The answer is that Billy Bishop is a critical piece of...
I have an urgent request for Prime Minister Mark Carney: please come to Vaughan, Ont., to meet with our Jewish community. As Vaughan’s mayor, I want you to know that Jews here feel angry, scared, defiant, tired, shocked and beleaguered. Who can blame them? I’ve lived my entire life in this country, but I have never before witnessed the shocking...
The whiff of corruption hangs over Queen’s Park. We can smell it thanks to Ontario’s freedom-of-information system. It’s this system that has exposed the Ford government to the harsh light of scrutiny and revealed all manner of meddling and shady dealings. Perhaps annoyed at having been caught in flagrante delicto so many times, Premier Doug Ford now wants to dismantle...
The outpouring of emotion and praise for Stephen Lewis on news of his death came from every quarter, and deservedly so. At each stage of his life, Stephen made an impact and touched people with his clear moral direction and unequalled rhetorical power. As Ed Murrow once said of Winston Churchill, Stephen Lewis mobilized the English language and sent it...
On Sunday, after his runaway victory in the federal New Democratic Party’s leadership race, Avi Lewis linked his own anti-Zionist views to an ancestor’s opposition to the creation of a Jewish state in the Middle East. “My great-grandfather was a leader in the [Russian anti-Zionist] Jewish Labour Bund,” said Mr. Lewis, who noted that it was founded in 1897, five...
Alberta’s new legislation limiting “ideology” in classrooms is its own type of ideological flag – which is ironic, since one of the changes proposed by Bill 25 is to prohibit, with limited exceptions, the display of all flags other than Canada’s and Alberta’s. This Bill 25 flag, also known as the “Act to Remove Politics and Ideology from Classrooms and...
Alberta separatists aren’t just enthused by the fact they have apparently surpassed the necessary 177,000 signatures to force their referendum onto ballots — they’re also celebrating when they reached the target. Stay Free Alberta claimed that accomplishment a week before a judge in Edmonton hears a First Nation’s injunction bid against the citizen’s initiative on April 7, arguing that the...
If you want to know what Alberta Premier Danielle Smith really believes, you have to listen to her when she’s amongst her fellow travellers. We were afforded that opportunity last weekend, when Smith graced the Cornerstone Forum, a confab of conspiratorial alternative media personalities, with her presence. There, she echoed suspicions that Ottawa is preparing to round up pastors for...
Aaron Gunn wants a national energy program. He’d never describe it that way, of course, but the MP for North Island-Powell River is just the latest in a long line of Conservative politicians to unintentionally argue for the revival of Pierre Trudeau’s signature energy policy. With gas prices spiking above $2 per litre in his province, Gunn tried to blame...
There’s a scene in Prime Minister, the acclaimed documentary about Jacinda Ardern, where the former New Zealand prime minister is captured in a private moment: raw, unguarded, visibly carrying the weight of leading a country through catastrophe.
For more than two decades, I’ve travelled regularly to China. Prime Minister Mark Carney’s dramatic reboot of bilateral relations has increased both the frequency and the potential outcomes of my trips. I was present for the Prime Minister’s dinner event in January in Beijing. I’m back in Beijing this week, as is Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne. Mr. Carney has also...
Somewhere, James Laxer is shedding a wistful tear. Along with Mel Watkins, Cy Gonick and others, Mr. Laxer led the radical Waffle faction within the federal NDP in the late 1960s and early 1970s, whose mission was to pull the party sharply to the left. They advocated for nationalization of major industries, strict limits on foreign ownership, sharply higher taxes...
Avi Lewis is a truly unconventional politician. He has managed to make himself a champion of young Canadians, which is quite a feat given that he’ll be in his 60th year in May. They provided a lot of energy to his campaign but also tend to vote less and that could prove a challenge. Under his leadership, the NDP will...
In all the reflections pouring in at the passing of Stephen Lewis, you’ll be hard-pressed to find – notwithstanding his left-side politics, with which many differed – a negative word. It is testimony to his stature as a humanitarian giant. On the global stage, Canada never produced a more eloquent standard-bearer for social justice than Mr. Lewis. I first had...
Federal Liberals, who hoped the government’s pipeline pact with Alberta was a public relations effort that would never see the light of day, should brace for its approval — including, possibly, with public money. Three Liberals privately suggested to the Star that Prime Minister Mark Carney may put federal money behind a new pipeline to the west coast — despite...
If the Carney government was looking for a fool-proof roadmap on how to rein in large online platforms from knowingly causing harm to their users — including children — the recent judgments from California and New Mexico provide some excellent guidance. First, a jury in New Mexico found Meta, the owner of Facebook and Instagram, liable for misleading its users...
The question “Cui bono – who gains?” was a Roman judicial construct popularized by Cicero. Lenin made it famous in his 1913 article in Pravda on Russian society, “Who Stands to Gain?” The question has served for centuries as a starting point for evaluating strategic options. The prediction of unintended consequences has often served as a check point on the...
Prime Minister Mark Carney is not oblivious. He knows, as any reasonable person would, that it looks terrible for one of his MPs to try to undermine an expert witness on forced labour in China during a parliamentary committee meeting. Last week, Liberal MP Michael Ma grilled Margaret McCuaig-Johnston, a senior fellow at the University of Ottawa, about whether she...
It’s back to the future for the NDP — and then some. Last weekend the party elected 58-year-old filmmaker Avi Lewis as party leader. During his campaign, Lewis pledged to impose a wealth tax, stop oil and gas exploration, implement national rent control, and set up public grocery stores. Ed Broadbent, the NDP leader who wanted to nationalize banks back...
Some Liberals, Conservatives and even New Democrats may be tempted to believe that the new NDP leader, Avi Lewis, is too far out there on the left to be a serious electoral threat. That underestimation may be a mistake. I’ve heard some serious people say over the course of the NDP leadership that a Lewis victory would spell the end...
Whenever and wherever U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents showed up in Minneapolis this past winter, citizens pulled out their whistles – warning away the targets of U.S. President Donald Trump’s violent masked paramilitaries. Demonstrators attempted to block ICE from carrying out its work, while others served as witnesses, videotaping the agents to show their behaviour to the world...
The federal NDP, now run by cis male Avi Lewis, showed us two kinds of crazy at their leadership convention on the weekend. First, there was social crazy, with arguments over whose victimized identity deserved time at the mic. Delegates who have identified with the same gender assigned at birth — “cis” people — didn’t have much chance. Then came...
The federal NDP convention in Edmonton in 2016 was the scene of two fascinating events: the unceremonious dumping of Tom Mulcair as party leader and a rhetorical clash between Alberta Premier Rachel Notley and the supporters of a broad statement of principles known as the Leap Manifesto. Notley, less than a year into leading the first NDP government in Alberta's...
There are moments that reveal a nation’s character more clearly than any policy platform or political speech. One such moment came in the summer of 1972, when Idi Amin decreed the expulsion of Uganda’s entire Asian population, and the fate of thousands of terrified families hung in the balance. Discussions between Aga Khan IV and Pierre Elliott Trudeau – two...
With the easy part over, newly minted NDP Leader Avi Lewis knows his real challenge is just beginning. He inherits a divided party, a split Parliamentary caucus and provincial wings opposed to his agenda. The Alberta and Saskatchewan parties want nothing to do with him. Saskatchewan’s NDP Leader Carla Beck wrote to tell him Saturday that she won’t meet with...
Can Avi Lewis’ brand of left-wing populism win over Canadian voters? It’s what he and the NDP are hoping will happen, but as Lewis takes the reins of his party, he’s already causing division.
A leaked transcript of a meeting between Indigenous leaders and British Columbia Premier David Eby, about his plan to suspend the province's Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act, or DRIPA, shows them accusing him of "absolute betrayal" and colonialism. Speaker after speaker in the 17,000-word transcript of Thursday's meeting, obtained by The Canadian Press, criticize Eby's handling of...
The next phase of Middle East conflict between the United States, Israel and Iran could involve other countries or NATO members to demonstrate a united front against Tehran’s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, says Canada’s former top diplomat. Peter Mackay, who served as former prime minister Stephen Harper’s first foreign affairs minister, told CTV News Channel on Thursday that...
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre says the party has always opposed the Liberals’ high-speed rail project, despite an earlier course reversal on a vote regarding measures to accelerate the expropriation of land. Poilievre this week called on Prime Minister Mark Carney to cancel the project, which has been estimated to cost between $60 billion to $90 billion.
First on the Joe Rogan Experience and next on Steve Bartlett’s Diary of a CEO, the Conservative leader fleshed out his political thinking in ways he rarely does in Canada. Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre — a longtime critic of mainstream media in Canada — has for the second time in a row urged Canadians to give him a good listening...
British Columbia Premier David Eby says he will stake his government on suspending sections of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act for up to three years, calling it the "least invasive" way of mitigating its potentially sweeping and unintended impact on the province's laws.
The man who announced he was seeking the Conservative nomination in Pierre Poilievre's former riding of Carleton in February now says he's dropping out of the race. Blair Turner, a police officer from the Ottawa area, ran for the Tories in Ottawa South in the federal election last April and lost to Defence Minister David McGuinty. Poilievre lost the seat...
The Conservative critic for Indigenous Services is echoing calls for Prime Minister Mark Carney to apologize to Grassy Narrows First Nation after he said he could "outlast" a protester raising concerns about mercury poisoning in her community. Conservative MP Billy Morin says Carney acted arrogantly and should apologize to the community for laughing at their frustrations. Chrissy Isaacs, a Grassy...
President Donald Trump said Thursday Pam Bondi is out as his attorney general. Trump in a social media post named Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche as the acting attorney general, though three people familiar with the matter have said he has privately discussed Lee Zeldin, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, as a permanent pick. It marks the end...
It’s a flashpoint in the hotly contested race to become the provincial Liberal candidate in Scarborough Southwest. Where do you live?
The Supreme Court of Canada will not hear an appeal challenging the constitutionality of Canada's first-past-the-post electoral system. The system, set out in the Canada Elections Act, sees the candidate who receives the most votes in a given riding become the member of Parliament. Fair Voting BC and the Springtide Collective for Democratic Society argued in court that the first-past-the-post...
It should not have ended this way. It should have ended with a national celebration of an amazing, vibrant, and still young woman who managed to surmount all the challenges in a mostly male world; who managed to storm through a mostly male engineering school right up to the day she graduated summa cum laude ; who managed to get...
The Canadian economy is expected to see modest growth this year, but the ongoing war in the Middle East and continued trade uncertainty are among the risks to that projection.
The CEOs of Canadian insurance and asset management companies Manulife and Sun Life both say they see opportunities for growth in the Chinese market in areas like health care and investment advice as part of Canada’s push to diversify its exports. Sun Life CEO Kevin Strai
The federal government should consider a one-to-two-point increase in the GST and slower growth in non-defence spending to finance a massive jump Canada’s military budget, according to a new report from the C.D. Howe Institute. “Some combination of tax increases, spending cuts, or taking on more debt is required,” wrote authors Colin Busby and Nicholas Dahir. The analysis warns that...
The Conservatives are calling on the Liberals to give Canadians some relief at the pumps by suspending federal taxes on gas and diesel for the rest of the year. Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre said Thursday that lifting the fuel excise tax, clean fuel standard and GST surcharges from gas and diesel would save consumers about 25 cents a litre. That...
Stellantis NV is discussing options for building electric vehicles in Canada with its Chinese partner, Zhejiang Leapmotor Technology Co., according to people familiar with the matter, a sign of how quickly the auto industry is being reshaped after Canada opened the door to companies from the world’s largest car market. The talks are in an early stage, said the people...
One senator said the Liberals’ march towards a majority in the House is also motivating discussions around the future of the Senate, raising the possibility that Prime Minister Mark Carney will appoint the leader of the government in the Senate to cabinet.
Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand will join multi-nation talks hosted by the U.K. on Thursday on finding diplomatic options to reopen the Strait of Hormuz trade corridor. Anand says all countries involved should know Canada will not hesitate to help secure the strait once there is a ceasefire, but the Liberal government has not decided yet on specific measures. The...
Prime Minister Mark Carney said Tuesday he's still committed to delivering incentives to help Canadians go green, something he promised during his bid for the Liberal leadership a year ago. Carney promised during the leadership campaign to re-fund the government's Greener Homes Grant program and to explore offering discounts to low- and medium-income homeowners who make energy-efficient retrofits.
The RCMP is clarifying previous comments from Commissioner Mike Duheme, saying the police organization is aware of incidents of intimidation and harassment by foreign states, but is unable to identify current criminal links. “What we can say is that the RCMP is aware of complaints of intimidation and harassment against certain communities across Canada. The RCMP, and the broader Government...
Internal documents show the federal government pushed for travel rules that cut airlines more slack around paying compensation to passengers, despite resistance from Canada's transport regulator. In 2023, the Canadian Transportation Agency drafted regulations that would scrap some reasons the airlines could use to deny customers compensation for flight delays or cancellations when they were required for safety purposes.
Trump made the claim on his Truth Social website. U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday claimed that Iran's president wants a ceasefire in the Mideast war. "Iran’s New Regime President," he wrote on Truth Social, apparently referring to Masoud Pezeshkian, although there has been no regime change in Iran, "much less Radicalized and far more intelligent than his predecessors, has...
Avi Lewis may be flush off a convincing victory within his party, but a new poll suggests the new NDP leader has a steep hill to climb with the broader electorate with more people thinking the party is irrelevant than relevant. Article content Not quite a third of Canadians believe that the left-leaning party is even relevant, never mind if...
Challenges in Venezuela include ongoing safety concerns, an unstable government, massive investment required. When U.S. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum travelled to Venezuela with oil and mining executives last month, he was trying to pitch them on the opportunity that exists in that country’s neglected oil and gas fields. Then last week at a conference in Houston, he again tried to...
The Liberals have more than 30-per-cent support in the province, but trying to capitalize on those numbers without a good reason for an election would come at a cost, says Liaison Strategies' David Valentin. Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Liberals are holding steady in Alberta and enjoying a close and historically significant second place in one of the federal Conservatives’ last...
Champagne says his trip builds on Carney’s visit with Chinese President Xi Jinping in January. Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne is on a trade mission to China, an attempt to woo a crucial trading partner as Canada looks to shore up friends and strengthen the country’s economy. The visit by Champagne builds on a meeting between Prime Minister Mark Carney and...
Experts say Stephen Lewis awakened the Canadian public's consciousness to the HIV-AIDS pandemic raging in Africa, and they credit him with galvanizing the political will to stop standing idle. Lewis, who dedicated his life to advocating for social justice, died on Tuesday at the age of 88. Dr. Adrienne Chan, who has worked in the HIV sector for over two...
The Liberal government’s voluntary gun buyback program for soon to be outlawed weapons will likely miss its mark. More than 2,500 models of assault-style weapons will be banned in October, but the deadline to apply for compensation expired on March 31. Not including administrative costs, the federal government has set aside $248.6 million to compensate gun owners. The amount allows...
Prime Minister Mark Carney told a closed-door fundraiser crowd Monday night that floor-crossing MP Michael Ma represents “Liberal values,” after the former Conservative politician drew controversy over comments about forced labour in China. In video obtained by Global News, Carney told the crowd at the GTA fundraiser that the Liberals were “glad” to welcome Ma to their ranks after the...
Provincial rules around alcohol and the federal government's "Buy Canadian" policy have been flagged in a new report citing several trade irritants between Canada and the U.S. The annual document prepared by the Office of the United States Trade Representative said market access barriers imposed by provincial liquor control boards "greatly hamper" exports of U.S. wine, beer and spirits to...
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Pam Bondi is out of her job after failing to deliver criminal cases against President Donald Trump's political enemies.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Thursday accused China of "bullying" by detaining or holding up dozens of Panama-flagged ships -- though for a short period of time -- after the Central American country seized control of two critical ports on the Panama Canal earlier this year from a subsidiary of a Hong Kong-based company.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has asked the Army's top uniformed officer, Gen. Randy George, to step down, the Pentagon said Thursday, as the United States wages a war against Iran.
President Donald Trump said Thursday Pam Bondi is out as his attorney general. Trump in a social media post named Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche as the acting attorney general, though three people familiar with the matter have said he has privately discussed Lee Zeldin, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, as a permanent pick. It marks the end...
President Donald Trump said Thursday Pam Bondi is out as his attorney general. Trump in a social media post named Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche as the acting attorney general, though three people familiar with the matter have said he has privately discussed Lee Zeldin, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, as a permanent pick. It marks the end...
Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand will join multi-nation talks hosted by the U.K. on Thursday on finding diplomatic options to reopen the Strait of Hormuz trade corridor. Anand says all countries involved should know Canada will not hesitate to help secure the strait once there is a ceasefire, but the Liberal government has not decided yet on specific measures. The...
Trump made the claim on his Truth Social website. U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday claimed that Iran's president wants a ceasefire in the Mideast war. "Iran’s New Regime President," he wrote on Truth Social, apparently referring to Masoud Pezeshkian, although there has been no regime change in Iran, "much less Radicalized and far more intelligent than his predecessors, has...
Canada "condemns" Israel's "illegal" invasion of Lebanon as a violation of territorial sovereignty, Prime Minister Mark Carney said Tuesday. Using stronger language than his government has used to date, Carney also called for a ceasefire to end the worsening conflict as Israeli ground troops move deeper into the country. "It's an illegal invasion," the prime minister said. "It's a violation...
U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran have driven up prices, darkened the outlook for the world economy, sent global stock markets reeling and forced developing countries to ration fuel and subsidize energy costs to protect their poorest. Ongoing strikes and counterstrikes on Persian Gulf refineries, pipelines, gas fields and tanker terminals threaten to the prolong the global economic pain for...
The controversy around Liberal MP Michael Ma’s comments on forced labour in China is an early test of how Prime Minister Mark Carney’s China policy is being put into practice — and whether it can remain pragmatic without drifting into equivocation, accommodation or self-censorship. Carney’s recalibration — toward a more interest-based approach aimed at stabilizing ties with Beijing while widening...
A collection of SubStack publishing within Canadian public affairs.
Prime Minister Mark Carney’s office wants to bust up a monopoly. I think I’m the target. Let me explain. The Privy Council Office (PCO), home of the prime minister and cabinet, has been flooded with complaints about its failures to comply with the Access to Information Act.
Canadian troops may be only days away from deploying to the Middle East to aid the U.S.’s and Israel’s war on Iran. The latest indication is a joint statement expressing concern about Iran’s restriction of oil tankers through the narrow Strait of Hormuz signed by Prime Minister Mark Carney and NATO allies late in the week.
Canadians who have neglected to pay their taxes to the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) have been coming forward in droves to take advantage of new amnesty rules.
Mark Carney juggles risk and reward as the Liberals chase closer China trade ties despite blowback over his human rights comments. Pierre Poilievre's push to derail Alto's high-speed train plan. Plus, Avi Lewis's uphill battle to convince Canadians they still need the NDP.
Quebec's secularism law, Bill 21, prohibits certain public servants from wearing religious symbols while on the job. It was passed in 2019 with a pre-emptive use of the notwithstanding law - a section of the Charter that protects legislation from court intervention if the legislation goes against other freedoms.
This live event was recorded on March 30 at StFX & hosted by The Brian Mulroney Institute of Government.
There was a time when immigration was seen as not only important to Canada but something that was a major part of what made Canada great. Has that time passed, why and at what cost? Former Harper cabinet minister James Moore and former Trudeau senior advisor Gerald Butts have their thoughts on those questions in this, their latest "conversation".
