Alberta's journey toward holding a fall referendum vote on separation took a bizarre turn Wednesday straight into a roadblock. It occurred when the governing United Conservative members of a bipartisan legislature committee introduced a motion to formally ask Premier Danielle Smith and her cabinet to initiate an Oct. 19 provincewide referendum on Alberta's status in Confederation. The motion was expected...
If development gets bogged down in B.C., PM says his government will be 'spending more time elsewhere.' In B.C. to meet with the province's premier who is skeptical of another oil pipeline, Prime Minister Mark Carney said the world is in the throes of an "energy crisis" and Canada must do its part to supply it with the natural resources...
Prime Minister Mark Carney and British Columbia Premier David Eby have agreed to enter negotiations on B.C.'s economic priorities and Ottawa's role in national development projects. Carney met with Eby in a closed-door meeting in Vancouver Wednesday, shortly after the prime minister spoke to B.C. business leaders at a separate event where he outlined prerequisites for a possible pipeline championed...
Conservative MP and parliamentary foreign affairs committee vice-chair, Michael Chong says China is attempting to “move the goal posts” by trying to prevent Canadian officials from visiting Taiwan. Chong, who is also the Conservative foreign affairs critic, is in Taiwan this week to meet with Taiwanese officials, including Lai Ching-te, president of the Republic of China Taiwan. Several delegations of...
The government didn't enforce the federal standard on Alberta's industrial carbon price as a gesture of co-operation with the province, Federal Environment Minister Julie Dabrusin said Tuesday. "Fighting with our provinces, being tied up in courts … we're working to be in really a true co-operative federalism," Dabrusin told The Canadian Press when asked why Ottawa didn't enforce the federal...
The latest Capital Tracker from the Ottawa Compass and Liaison Strategies shows Mayor Mark Sutcliffe leading among decided and leaning voters in an early Ottawa mayoral ballot, while Tim Tierney would enter the race in double digits. Among decided and leaning voters, with Tierney included on the ballot, Sutcliffe leads with 37%, followed by Jeff Leiper at 32%, Alex Lawson...
Economic concerns continue to dominate, with jobs and inflation at the forefront. Strained relations with the United States remain closely tied to this uncertainty. The Liberals maintain their lead over the Conservatives, with Mark Carney remaining as the preferred choice for prime minister, suggesting a largely stable political landscape shaped by persistent economic pressures.
A pro-Canada independence referendum question may head for approval Wednesday. The separatists hate the question and threaten revenge. The proponent, Thomas Lukaszuk, is engaged in his own political brawl with the UCP. On Tuesday, Premier Danielle Smith was considering a televised address to the province, probably on Thursday, to talk about a referendum.
Is Alberta premier Danielle Smith’s strategy for getting a bitumen pipeline to B.C.’s northwest coast about to reach its breaking point? Sure, she’s got two Memorandums of Understanding (MOU) with Prime Minister Mark Carney that pave the way for the pipeline but there’s still a lot of terrain to cover before it becomes a reality. And the thing that could...
Two of Alberta Premier Danielle Smith's longtime cabinet ministers are stepping down. In letters posted on social media Wednesday, Finance Minister Nate Horner and Hospitals Minister Matt Jones both said they are leaving their posts after deciding not to seek re-election in the October 2027 general election. "When the premier offered me this cabinet role, I told her it was...
Conservative MP Michael Chong said his meeting with Taiwan's President Lai Ching-te on Wednesday was a way to assert Canadian sovereignty in the face of Beijing's warnings to lawmakers in this country that such visits are inappropriate. "I thought it was important to make it clear that we are not going to take direction from a foreign government about where...
Canada’s selection as home to the new Defence, Security and Resilience Bank affirms our country’s credibility with its allies and its leadership at a time when defence, security and economic resilience is critical. Nova Scotia was one of the first to raise our hand in support of Canada’s bid.
The prime minister is starting to collect evidence to help Canada reclaim its status as one of the world’s most investible, mining-friendly jurisdictions.
I recently taught an intensive course to Queen’s University graduate students on the origins of the current crisis in the relationship between Canada and the United States, after teaching a similar course at the Munk School in Toronto. It’s been a great experience, and fun to be back in the classroom. My stay in Kingston included an enjoyable visit with...
It is possible you have never heard of the Permanent Joint Board on Defence. It meets just once or twice a year – these days not even that – to provide Canadian and American military leaders with the opportunity for a full and frank exchange of views on bilateral defence issues. But it is far from the only instrument of...
This weekend, the U.S. paused its participation in an organization most Canadians have likely never heard of: the Permanent Joint Board on Defence. It was established in 1940, following U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s pledge that the U.S. would defend Canada if it were attacked, and Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King’s promise that “enemy forces should not be able...
Ottawa’s second crack at passing its big lawful access bill is going much worse than its first one did. Assailed by privacy advocates, Big Tech and bigwig Republicans in the United States, the Carney government faces a tough slog in trying to modernize the legal tools cops and spies use to do their jobs in the digital era. This is...
The moment when Canada moved from Britain’s orbit into America’s can be dated precisely to Aug. 17, 1940. That was the day when Canadian prime minister William Mackenzie King and U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed the Ogdensburg Agreement that defined the principle of the joint defence of North America
The night before the 1968 federal election, prime minister Pierre Trudeau attended the annual St. Jean Baptiste Parade in Montreal. A mob of enraged Quebec separatists began hurling bottles and rocks at him. As most of the other dignitaries scurried for cover, security tried to hustle the PM off to safety. Mr. Trudeau brushed them off, shot the rioters a...
National security — an elastic legal concept — has become associated with international trade thanks to Donald Trump, who has been using it as an excuse to apply wide-ranging tariffs under his administration’s trade policy. While largely a subsidiary trade issue for decades, national security is now top-tier in global trade relations at several levels. First, there is the scope...
I’M TRYING TO FIGURE out what Prime Minister Mark Carney thought he was doing at this year’s Global Progress Action Summit. The Global Progress Action Summit is an annual gathering of Canadian Liberals, United Kingdom Labour figures, United States Democrats, and assorted compatible figures from other countries. Carney spoke at this year’s summit on Saturday in Toronto, which took place...
Everything should be adjusted for inflation and population growth. This is something I always think of when looking at comparative stats. When I saw a few days ago that Canadian personal insolvencies had hit a level we hadn’t seen since 2009—the era of the global financial crisis and the so-called Great Recession—I immediately thought about this. And it turns out...
We live in an age of uncertainty and disorder. Prime Minister Mark Carney has called this a hinge moment. Long-term relationships have been ruptured. For policymakers, however, unpredictability is the norm. The current risks are long-term and complex (wars, international relations, climate, inequality, technology) but they also have significant short-term impacts (confidence, affordability, employment).
A Pollara poll from April had support for Alberta separatism at 27 per cent, the highest level recorded in five years of tracking. A recent CBC News poll showed that 57 per cent of UCP members would vote for Alberta to separate from Canada. This means Smith is dependent on separatists to remain leader.
Alberta’s separatist sentiment has borrowed heavily on what you might call Quebec envy. But make no mistake, the direction it is taking now veers far from the well-worn Quebec separatist path. Though Alberta’s discontent in the federation goes back a long way, it was only in the past decade or so that it sharpened into a focus on getting Alberta...
The idea that Canada might one day join the European Union is having a moment. It’s not hard to see why. Canadians are looking for deeper ties with stable, liberal democracies which share our values and have strong institutions. EU membership for a North American country is fanciful but it’s just not in the cards. What we can do is...
Prime Minister Mark Carney is quietly bringing-in sweeping reforms to the pesticides law, making it more difficult for the government to ensure that the air you breathe, the water you drink and the food you eat is safe from dangerous toxins. Buried in two omnibus financial bills are provisions that overhaul the Pest Control Products Act. They change the health...
What are voters to make of a political party that can’t properly manage a riding nomination? The Ontario Liberals are the latest to pose that question implicitly — and not for the first time — to the electorate. Nate Erskine-Smith, a departing federal Liberal MP and presumed candidate for the provincial party’s leadership, alleges all manner of skulduggery in the...
Prime minister says he hopes Albertans see a 'Canada that works.' On Friday morning in Calgary, Mark Carney and Danielle Smith shook hands, then signed and posed with official copies of an "implementation agreement for the Canada-Alberta memorandum of understanding," an eight-page document bound up in profound questions of climate change, resource development, economic sovereignty and national unity. "Today is...
Premier Danielle Smith is confident. On the pipeline deal with Mark Carney she believes she speaks for most Albertans
Smith may have set up this province for decades of economic gains
The “plan” to approve a pipeline, which was detailed by the federal and Alberta governments on Friday, is a perfect example, not of federal-provincial co-operation, but of why Canada can’t build infrastructure. Rather than being subject to market demand, the decision to build or not to build is being driven entirely by politics.
Alberta and Ottawa just did something nobody expected, and it actually matters. For years, the story of Canadian climate policy has been a familiar one: Ottawa sets ambitious targets, Alberta pushes back, and the country lurches forward with neither the unity nor the urgency the moment demands. Today, that story finally has a new chapter.
The Political Pulse panel breaks down Prime Minister Mark Carney’s energy agreement with Alberta – and the political compromises that come with it.
Good news from the West: the prospect of a referendum on independence for Alberta this fall continues to collapse under the weight of its own absurdities and contradictions.
Two questions burn at the top of Canada’s economic agenda: how to accelerate growth, and how to mobilize the capital to fund it. Increasingly, the answer to both hinges on something we have long taken for granted: electricity. More and more, Canada’s economic agenda is pinned to projects that require abundant, cheap and low-carbon electricity. Critical minerals mining and processing...
Prime Minister Mark Carney is calling Israel's treatment of people aboard an intercepted flotilla "abominable" and "unacceptable," and says Ottawa is seeking assurances about the safety of Canadians involved.
Canada will spend just over $1 billion to host the World Cup this summer, the federal budget watchdog said Wednesday. That sum includes money from all levels of government. The federal government's contribution is expected to be $473 million. The $1.066 billion total averages to $82 million per game for the 13 games that will be played in Toronto and Vancouver.
Defence chief hailed as an 'exceptional' leader and candidate for key alliance post. The Liberal government is nominating Canada's top military commander to be the next chair of the NATO military committee when the post becomes vacant next year. Defence Minister David McGuinty announced the candidacy of Gen. Jennie Carignan on Wednesday and said she'll continue in her current role...
More than a year after Prime Minister Mark Carney declared that the “old” defence relationship with the United States was “over,” some signs have emerged about a new path forward, but Canada remains closely tied to historic Canada-U.S. military relations. In the Defence Industrial Strategy last fall, Canada signalled a pivot away from its reliance on U.S. arms exports, but...
Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe says his province will begin talks with the federal government around how to find a “workable place” when it comes to the question of charging an industrial carbon tax. “We’re open to the discussion about finding a place where that would work for the industries that are employing people here,” he told National Post on Tuesday...
A small change to Canada’s lobbying rules has led to a big drop in free trips for members of Parliament, a CBC News analysis found — however many MPs continue to head to destinations like Taiwan, China and India courtesy of foreign governments and groups not registered to lobby. Duff Conacher, co-founder of Democracy Watch, praised the change but said...
Canada's foreign service cuts are disproportionately affecting positions based abroad, with those rotational positions being eliminated at three times the rate of those for Global Affairs staff based in Canada. Data obtained by The Canadian Press also shows an even larger drop in foreign workers hired at missions overseas, just as the Carney government seeks deeper diplomatic and trade ties...
Canada cannot work if "separatist premiers" get all of the attention of the federal government, B.C. Premier David said Tuesday. Eby said that is the message he'll relay to Prime Minister Mark Carney, when they meet Wednesday after Carney's meeting with Alberta Premier Danielle Smith last week announcing pipeline promises to the West Coast and a lower carbon tax for...
Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Tony Wakeham has invited Quebec back to the bargaining table, after a panel concluded a framework energy agreement with Hydro-Quebec was not in his province's best interests. In a report made public Tuesday, the three-person panel appointed months ago by Wakeham outlines a series of concerns with the non-binding framework agreement signed in 2024 by the...
Alberta's Opposition says the decision by Premier Danielle Smith's United Conservatives to schedule a last-minute committee meeting suggests the government might be looking for a new way to get a separation question on a fall referendum. A bipartisan legislature committee headed up by the UCP is to meet Wednesday to discuss a pro-Canada petition put forward by former deputy premier...
Windsor Mayor Drew Dilkens says he doesn’t want Canada to accept a bad trade deal just to open the Gordie Howe International Bridge. The new bridge is slated to open in “spring 2026,” according to bridge officials. U.S. President Donald Trump and high-ranking Canadian politicians have indicated trade renegotiations are what’s keeping the bridge closed. “We’ve fulfilled our end of...
Prime Minister Mark Carney was on site at Quebec’s Matawinie Mine site Tuesday to break ground on a project billed as the biggest graphite mine in the G7. According to Carney, the mine is expected to eventually pump nearly $2 billion into the economy and add 1,000 jobs, with annual production expected to hit more than 106,000 tonnes of natural...
Prime Minister Mark Carney has shrugged off a surprise move by the United States to suspend for review a bilateral defence board that predates the Cold War. "It has a long heritage but I wouldn't overplay the importance of this," Carney told a news conference in Quebec on Tuesday, when asked about the surprise development. "We have many aspects of...
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre’s longtime chief of staff Ian Todd is retiring, marking the latest of several recent departures of senior staffers in his office. In a note sent to Conservative caucus members and Poilievre’s office, Todd said he would retire from his position at the end of this Parliamentary session. The House of Commons spring session is scheduled to...
It was a relatively quiet week on the polling front, but the new numbers that were published have pushed the Liberals to their highest point in The Writ’s Vote and Seat Projection. The Liberals are projected to be leading in 227 ridings across the country, a gain of three since last week and they highest the party has been in...
The Snowbirds are entering a final chapter. After more than five decades in the skies, the federal government has confirmed to CTV News that the Canadian Forces’ iconic aerobatic team will fly its last season with the aircraft that made it famous. Defence Minister David McGuinty will announce Tuesday at Canadian Forces Base Moose Jaw that Canada will retire and...
Canada's annual inflation rate rose to 2.8 per cent in April, Statistics Canada said on Tuesday, in large part due to soaring prices at the pump. Energy prices overall rose a whopping 19.2 per cent year-over-year in April, following a 3.9 per cent increase the month before. Statistics Canada said the cost of gasoline specifically rose even quicker, and was...
Elbridge Colby’s post casts shade on Prime Minister Mark Carney’s growing spotlight, minimizes Canada’s defence spending and targets its partnerships.
Less than a week after winning last year’s election and just days before he was set to meet with U.S. President Donald Trump, Prime Minister Mark Carney was looking for art to hang on his office walls. Staff who arrived at the National Gallery of Canada that Saturday morning had been instructed to dress casually: sport coats and dress pants...
A panel appointed by the Newfoundland and Labrador government says a proposed energy deal with Hydro-Quebec is not in the province's best interests. In a report expected to be released Tuesday, the three-person panel outlines several concerns with the non-binding framework agreement to share power from Labrador, which was signed by the provinces' hydroelectric utilities in 2024. In particular, the...
Canada's wine sector is worth more than $10 billion a year and the industry says a few tweaks -- like scrapping domestic trade barriers -- could add billions of dollars more to the national economy. A new report from Deloitte, commissioned by the Wine Growers of Canada, says the key is getting Canadians to buy at least 51 per cent...
Canada’s finance minister said the country’s planned sovereign wealth fund will be designed to allow citizens to contribute to major nation-building projects, but isn’t intended to reduce their tax burdens.
A businessman appointed to the board of a provincial investment agency by Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has said he is an accredited accountant for more than a decade despite not having those qualifications, an investigation by The Globe and Mail has found. Financial statements obtained by The Globe show that Sam Jaber, who owns multiple accounting and tax preparation businesses...
US Ambassador Pete Hoekstra says he was ‘not aware’ American-made app he previously promoted was used to help Alberta separatist group. Donald Trump’s top envoy to Canada says he was unaware a voter identification app that he previously endorsed and promoted was used by an Alberta separatist group at the centre of a major Canadian political scandal.
In our latest Spark Insights nationwide survey (3450 cases, online, May 10-14) we found Carney government approval at 67%, similar to our results in April. A majority in every part of the country indicates approval, the lowest level being 61% in Alberta, and the highest in Quebec at 73%.
Canada's defence minister is set to make an announcement today at the home base of the Canadian Forces Snowbirds team. David McGuinty's visit to 15 Wing Moose Jaw in Saskatchewan comes amid speculation about the future of the aerial acrobatic squadron. Opposition Conservative member of Parliament Fraser Tolmie raised the issue of the team's future earlier this month.
Aside from being a member of Parliament, Jamil Jivani has no official roles in Pierre Poilievre’s Conservative party. Elected to the House of Commons in a 2024 byelection, he possesses less political experience than most of his caucus colleagues.
Wassim Boughadou is wanted by the RCMP for terrorism. He insists he is “absolutely” willing to fly home from Turkey to surrender to police. But the Montreal-born 34-year-old claims he can’t because Global Affairs Canada won’t let him. “I am in a limbo,” he wrote in a text message, part of a cache of documents obtained by Global News that...
Cody Sibley was born and raised in Louisiana, but he always felt his family shared strong ties to Canada thanks to his Acadian ancestors from Nova Scotia. Sibley said that as an eighth-generation descendant of Acadians, his family's roots could be traced back to "generation zero," Agathe Doucet, who was baptized on Jan. 19, 1710, in Nova Scotia. He said...
China's embassy in Canada says a Canadian MP's visit to Taiwan crosses a "red line" at a time when Ottawa is attempting to rebuild its relationship with Beijing. Conservative MP Michael Chong is in Taiwan this week to meet with Taiwanese officials and assert Canadian sovereignty after China's ambassador to Canada warned MPs against travelling to Taiwan in an interview...
WASHINGTON (AP) -- A former federal prosecutor in Florida sent to her personal email account a special counsel report from the investigation into President Donald Trump's hoarding of classified documents despite a judge's order that it was to remain sealed, according to an indictment made public on Wednesday.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Two police officers who helped defend the U.S. Capitol from an attack by a mob of Trump supporters sued on Wednesday to block anyone -- including Jan. 6, 2021, rioters -- from receiving payouts from a new $1.776 billion settlement fund for people who claim to be victims of politically motivated prosecutions.
NEW YORK (AP) -- On his very first time hosting "The Late Show" back in 2015, Stephen Colbert ripped into Donald Trump while gorging on Oreos, likening his inability to resist the cookies to his inability to resist going after the then-presidential candidate.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The YOLO caucus is in session.
Prime Minister Mark Carney is calling Israel's treatment of people aboard an intercepted flotilla "abominable" and "unacceptable," and says Ottawa is seeking assurances about the safety of Canadians involved.
China's embassy in Canada says a Canadian MP's visit to Taiwan crosses a "red line" at a time when Ottawa is attempting to rebuild its relationship with Beijing. Conservative MP Michael Chong is in Taiwan this week to meet with Taiwanese officials and assert Canadian sovereignty after China's ambassador to Canada warned MPs against travelling to Taiwan in an interview...
A Canadian MP is on route to Taiwan to assert “Canadian sovereignty” in the face of what he called is a warning from China’s ambassador to Canada against members of parliament visiting the island. Conservative MP Michael Chong will meet with Taiwanese leaders next week. China’s embassy has already condemned the trip, arguing it contravenes a “red line for China-Canada...
A Canadian MP has arrived in Taiwan to meet President Lai Ching-te in defiance of a recent warning from China’s ambassador against further trips to the self-governed island by Parliamentarians from Canada. Beijing considers the democracy of 24 million people a breakaway province despite the fact China’s governing Communist Party has never ruled the territory since it took power more...
The prime minister’s comments about rebuilding an international order “out of Europe” hints at a bold insight and potential plan from a man who is emerging as an architect of the global reordering. No sooner were the words out of Prime Minister Mark Carney’s mouth than one French news magazine dubbed them “a breath of fresh air from Canada.” “It...
The resurgence of protectionism internationally and trade tensions between Canada and the United States have brought the issue of borders in international trade back to the forefront. While at one time many envisioned a future in which national borders would cease to be a significant economic factor, the current situation very much suggests otherwise.
Coal is often treated as a relic of the past – dirty, declining, and politically toxic. Yet globally, it remains indispensable, the backbone of electricity systems in Asia and the primary input for global steelmaking.
When the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms came into force in 1982, many warned that it would undermine the foundations of Canada’s system of parliamentary democracy and usher in a new age of judicial supremacy. For a time, those concerns appeared overstated. Canadian courts exercised a degree of restraint, and the basic contours of Westminster parliamentary governance remained intact...
A collection of SubStack publishing within Canadian public affairs.
“Despite the ongoing conflict between Hezbollah and Israel which has resulted in thousands of deaths and injuries…Lebanon moved forward with the ban on antipersonnel landmines,” said the Ottawa-based group Mines Action Canada in a statement, celebrating the new addition.
Canada’s privacy laws are supposed to protect ordinary citizens from unwarranted intrusions into their personal lives. But they can also protect pedophiles. Dead pedophiles. Dead pedophiles from America.
If you want to sound wise these days, just blame the crazy state of the world on polarization. If you want to sound really wise, say that fighting polarization needs to be part of the political agenda and be sure to blame social media and Donald Trump (although not necessarily in that order) for the current chaos. Despite it being...
Althia Raj is on holidays this week and the host of West of Centre, friend and colleague Kathleen Petty joins us from Calgary. There is so much happening in Alberta these days and almost all of it has national implications from referendums to pipelines. So today is designed to get a much better feel from on the ground. Rob and...
Late last week, Prime Minister Mark Carney and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith announced a new energy agreement that paves the way for a new pipeline to the West Coast. It includes an industrial carbon pricing deal, and is contingent on the approval of the Pathways project— a proposed carbon capture, utilization and storage facility.
In the past week, there were ceasefires announced in Russia/Ukraine, Iran and Lebanon. But did that stop the fighting in any of those locations? Dr. Janice Stein from the Munk School at the University of Toronto joins us for her weekly conversation about our changing world.
