Prime Minister Mark Carney and Quebec's incoming opposition party leaders pledged Tuesday to work with the sovereigntist Parti Québécois as it prepares to form a government with a minority mandate. On his way into a cabinet meeting on Tuesday, Carney told reporters he spoke with Quebec premier-designate Paul St-Pierre Plamondon after Monday's provincial election. St-Pierre Plamondon has promised to call...
The federal government is turning up the heat on the U.S. owner of Stelco Holdings Inc. over impending layoffs at the Hamilton-based steel plant. Industry Minister Melanie Joly sent a letter to Stelco president Paul Simon on Monday laying out her "extreme disappointment" over the company's plan to lay off 500 workers in response to U.S. tariffs and other market...
The federal Liberal government has tabled new legislation to turn its Defence Investment Agency into a Crown corporation -- a major revamp of the plan created just months ago. Bill C-40 will create an entity called the "Canadian Corporation for Defence Investment," which will report to a new associate minister of national defence dealing with procurement. The federal government says...
Fewer than 3 dozen submissions to registry received before deadline. Meetings between advocates of Alberta separation and American government officials don't have to be included in Canada's new foreign influence registry because they took place before the registry went into effect, says Canada's foreign influence watchdog. Speaking to reporters after appearing before a parliamentary committee on Tuesday, Anton Boegman said...
Police say Prince Edward Island's elections authority has asked them to investigate contributions made to the province's Progressive Conservatives last year. RCMP spokesperson Scott Ferris says Elections P.E.I. approached the police force in August. He said in an interview that investigators have been reviewing the file and it's not clear when they might finish.
“Toronto’s mayoral election is shaping up as a two-candidate race. Olivia Chow holds a citywide lead over Brad Bradford and draws her strongest support from Toronto-East York, where she exceeds 60%, while also leading in Scarborough. One in five report still being up for grabs. Beyond the ballot, nearly eight in ten residents say Toronto is their preferred place to...
The latest snapshot of the BC election by Mainstreet Research shows the BC Conservatives leading and quite likely in majority territory. Among decided and leaning voters, the BC Conservatives lead the BC NDP by just under 8 points, 44.7% to 37.2% with the Green at 11.2%, One BC at 5.7% and Centre BC Party at 1.1% rounding out the field.
Quebec Conservative Leader Éric Duhaime was perhaps the night's biggest winner
The British Columbia Conservatives plan to repeal the province's no-fault auto insurance system, in a major policy proposal revealed by a leaked letter from the party's interim leader to lawyers and insurance executives. Lorne Doerkson says in the letter that if elected on Oct. 24, the Conservatives would bring in legislation to restore accident victims' rights to sue, under a...
Outgoing Quebec Premier Christine Frechette has resigned as leader of the Coalition Avenir Quebec.
Four years ago, as the Coalition Avenir Québec rolled over the competition to win 90 of the National Assembly’s then 125 seats, the Parti Québécois looked like a spent force. The sovereigntist “party of a generation” had its worst election result since its founding in 1968 by René Lévesque – the ruffled, chain-smoking everyman who charmed baby-boomer francophones – taking...
Alberta separatists are fond of pointing to Quebec’s sovereignty movement as a model. If those guys can get so much by holding a knife to the throat of the rest of the country, goes their thinking, then why shouldn’t we do the same? It’s a lousy comparison overall, given the fundamental differences between Alberta and Quebec (such as, for e.g....
Alberta’s forthcoming referendum on independence is a clear and meaningful threat to Canada’s safety, integrity, and prosperity. But a few of the other questions on Premier Danielle Smith’s democracy-o-rama — ten ballots, all to be hand-counted, with mayhem all but guaranteed at this point — might be even more dangerous. That’s because they deliberately invite a particular conversation around immigration...
The Alberta referendum on separation is less than two weeks away and it appears most Albertans have decided they want to remain in Canada; not just by a simple majority but overwhelmingly. That’s a relief. Now those voters just have to turn out to cast a ballot. In a recent poll, 72 per cent of Albertans said they wanted to...
The Carney government’s proposed labour law reforms target a serious problem: the increase in disruptions to critical industries such as airlines, ports and railways. Ottawa is taking heat from labour advocates, but the changes are a sensible measure to rebalance the interests of federally regulated employers, employees, and the public. In recent years, Canada has seen an upsurge in labour...
Canadians now have disturbing proof that the referendums of 2026 and beyond are nothing like the ones that have come before. A Globe and Mail investigation into American involvement in Alberta’s looming referendum shows that the U.S. is far more than a spectator and confirms that its interest may not be entirely in keeping our federation intact.
Separatists have been coy about how they’d work with Trump to dismantle Canada. Now they’re facing tough questions, and so they should. We’re lucky to live in a country where people can argue for ideas as radical as separatism. But our cultural politeness shouldn’t keep us from carving up such bad ideas, aggressively, in the public square...
It should come, perhaps, as no surprise that some in Alberta’s separatist movement are happy to sell out the province, swapping the authority of the Canadian government for domination by MAGA overlords in the United States. They do, after all, have no loyalty to Canada. But you’d think, in an ideal world, they’d have some loyalty to Alberta – and...
Let’s get a little dystopian. There is a non-zero chance that United States President Donald Trump tries to cancel the mid-term elections, wherein 100 per cent of the House and one-third of the Senate are up for election and re-election.
Pierre Poilievre has to feel robbed by the universe – and also like some cosmic gang of thugs keeps returning to make sure his pockets truly contain nothing but lint. He was supposed to be the next Prime Minister, with the 20-point lead and command on the public mood to prove it. Then everything exploded, the banker stepped neatly into...
I wrote a book thirty years ago about the three questions posed by the great Rabbi Hillel more than two thousand years ago: “If I am not for myself, who will be for me? But if I am only for myself, what am I? And if not now, when?” I have returned to those questions on countless occasions since, and...
Donald Trump, we know, poses an existential threat to Canada. And Canada, proclaims Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, poses an existential threat to Quebec. On Monday, Quebecers will go to the polls to elect a new provincial government. They are, more than most of the rest of Canada, freaked out by the threat emanating from south of the border and supportive of...
As a former prime minister of Canada, staying silent on the upcoming referendum on Alberta secession is not an option. But I wish it were. I love my country, and I love my province. I do not wish to pit one against the other. I believe that is how most Albertans feel. Despite the efforts of a few on each...
Like many people, you may be under the impression that the Conservatives lost the 2025 election. Lately, however, that interpretation has come under challenge. According to this new interpretation, the Conservatives actually won. The country has a Conservative Prime Minister, and his name is Mark Carney. According to political scientist Stewart Prest, Mr. Carney heads “the most conservative Liberal government...
The first day of October was a big one for Alberta. At the same time an Alberta-born astronaut was getting launched into space, Mark Carney and Danielle Smith were unveiling plans for a new pipeline here on Earth. An even bigger day looms later this month, when the province votes on whether to hold an independence referendum, and that pipeline...
More than merely the loss of an able, fair-minded MP, it looks like the Conservative party's reach is ebbing
The news that Conservative MP Scott Aitchison will resign at the end of this year, which will make him the eighth MP to exit the Conservative caucus in one year, has roused the recurring question of just how much more Pierre Poilievre’s hold on his party’s leadership can endure. It’s like watching a frayed rope bridge swinging over a river...
It could have been worse for Pierre Poilievre — at least Scott Aitchison is not leaving the Conservative caucus to join Mark Carney’s Liberals. But Aitchison, a one-time leadership opponent of Poilievre’s who has represented Parry Sound—Muskoka for nearly seven years, is the kind of Conservative that Carney has been attracting. He’s a man over 50 in Ontario and polls...
It’s bad form, in writing, to mix your metaphors. But this summer, speaking to an array of people in and around the Carney government, there were two I kept hearing used to describe how things work in Ottawa these days, both of them apt. One is the ancient parable of the blind men and the elephant. Each man touches a...
Until Mark Carney came along, the Liberals never had a prime minister from the province of Alberta. Mr. Carney was born in 1965 in the Northwest Territories and spent his first six years there. But his formative years – the next 12 – were lived in Edmonton. Young Mark delivered the Edmonton Journal newspaper. His father Bob was a deputy...
Less than a week before the October 5th Quebec general election, the Parti Québécois (PQ) remains clearly ahead in the polls and, according to recent seat projections, has a shot at winning a majority of the National Assembly’s 127 seats with only around 30% of popular support. This outcome is likely despite the fact that a large majority of Quebecers...
Leading figures in the push for Alberta separation are celebrating the election of Quebec premier-designate Paul St-Pierre Plamondon. Jeff Rath said Tuesday that St-Pierre Plamondon's election victory could change the political dynamic of Canada, especially since the premier-designate has already shown his willingness to support Alberta's separatist movement. "For the first time in Canadian history, we have a government in...
Tim Gitzel, 64, leans forward as he names mining companies Canada has lost. “Inco, Falconbridge, Noranda,” he says, counting off his fingers. “I can keep going. People say, ‘Oh wow, that’s too bad,’” says the chief executive of Cameco. Yet when the Saskatoon-based uranium giant flipped the script, acquiring 49 per cent of Westinghouse Electric, a legacy U.S. nuclear giant...
Quebec Sen. Richard Martel is back in the opposition caucus after joining the Conservative Senate group today. Sen. Leo Housakos, the opposition leader in the Senate, says Martel is a "natural fit" in a statement issued today. Martel left the House of Commons in July when Prime Minister Mark Carney appointed him to the Senate but had not identified which...
Prime Minister Mark Carney is returning to Turkey later this month as he seeks to boost trade and defence ties with a country with rising importance. Carney was in Turkey for the NATO summit in July, and his office says he will again visit the country from Oct. 21 to 23. He will start in Ankara to meet with President...
The Parti Québécois has won a minority government, completing a dramatic political comeback and paving the way for an eventual third sovereignty referendum. The party captured 59 seats after the votes were counted late Monday, falling short of the 64 needed to form a majority in Quebec's legislature. The Coalition Avenir Québec, which has governed the province for the past...
Political party OneBC says former Conservative legislator Brent Chapman and his wife, Kerry-Lynne Findlay, have been subjected to a "torrent of threats and abuse from insiders." Chapman announced last month that he was joining OneBC to run as a candidate in the Oct. 24 election after Findlay resigned as the Conservative party leader amid a caucus revolt. But Chapman's name...
- Conservative members of Parliament are calling for a boost to Canadian diesel production to one million barrels per day as the price for the fuel continues to soar. Fuel prices have increased globally in recent months as wars in Iran and Ukraine impact world oil supplies. Statistics Canada reports diesel prices across the country in August were up between...
Canada’s federal political landscape remains relatively stable, with the Liberals maintaining a lead in national ballot support and a stronger overall party index than their competitors. Mark Carney continues to be the most widely preferred choice for prime minister. Economic issues remain Canadians’ foremost concern, while concern about cost-of-living pressures is on the rise.
Billed as one of the largest social programs in Canadian history, some patients of the national dental care plan are still facing significant barriers accessing care, or once they’re in the chair, being able to afford it.
Parti Quebecois Leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon had his work cut out for him after the 2022 election. His party won only three seats in 2022 and watched as the Coalition Avenir Quebec won a second majority government, presenting itself as a "third way" between federalism and sovereignty. Four years later, the leader of the separatist party was able to bring...
Former federal Conservative minister Chris Alexander says he is quitting the race to become the next mayor of Toronto as advance voting begins in the city's municipal election. Alexander says he decided to drop out after a recent poll showed he doesn't have a clear path to victory. The veteran politician and diplomat says he is not endorsing any other...
The committee has rewarded Carney’s style of coalition-building in the past. When the Nobel Committee announces the winner of the 2026 Peace Prize later this week, it will choose from 287 candidates, including 79 organizations. The list is top-secret, but it’s safe to assume at least one name is on it: Prime Minister Mark Carney. That would have sounded fanciful...
Canada plans to turn its new agency for speeding up purchases of military gear into a Crown corporation, three sources say – a transformation that will give the organization and chief executive Doug Guzman far more authority in decision-making. Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government created the Defence Investment Agency to streamline the procurement of military purchases worth $100-million or more...
Outgoing Conservative MP Scott Aitchison won’t say whether Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre should remain on as leader. In an interview with CTV’s Power Play with Vassy Kapelos on Monday, Aitchison was asked multiple times whether Poilievre should continue to lead the party, and he would not provide a direct answer.
Parliamentarians returned to Ottawa on Monday and Opposition MPs' had their sights trained firmly on the government's 243-page economic and labour bill. Prime Minister Mark Carney and Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre also squared off in question period Monday over whether the government has done enough to prioritize Canadian materials in its sweeping infrastructure agenda. Key to that agenda is the...
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith's office is distancing itself from one of her party presidents who met in Calgary with U.S. Republican strategists looking to assist the province's separation movement. Smith's spokesperson Sam Blackett, in a statement Monday, said the premier "is not affiliated with these individuals' activities and has no knowledge of these alleged meetings." Blackett added, "She also opposes...
Prime Minister Mark Carney will "play an active role" in setting the agenda for Ottawa's new AI advisory council. A spokesperson for the Prime Minister's Office says the new group, announced Friday, will take an "all of government" approach to advising on AI. The advisory council includes AI pioneer Yoshua Bengio, as well as a experts in economics, business and...
Defence Minister David McGuinty has a new chief of staff. Dana O’Born is set to take over at the helm of the office tomorrow. Several Liberal sources told iPolitics the news and soon after publication of our initial story, McGuinty’s confirmed O’Born would take over as chief of staff on Oct. 6. O’Born has spent the past ten years at...
American officials have privately confided “concerns” with U.S. President Donald Trump’s aggressive stance towards Canada, MPs on the House of Commons’ foreign affairs committee were told Monday. Niall Cronin, the director general of Global Affairs Canada’s North America bureau, told MPs that Canada has a network of diplomats that spend a considerable amount of time arguing Canada’s side of the...
Jessica Fallis initially feared getting doors slammed in her face canvassing for Alberta’s New Democratic Party in Calgary-Shaw during the 2023 general election campaign that propelled the United Conservative Party to its second majority. But door-to-door canvassing for the NDP in the far south Calgary riding was a lot easier in the recent byelection, Fallis says. “Some of the [voters...
Two Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) members based in Toronto have been removed from their military duties after being arrested on charges relating to kidnapping, organized crime and the theft of firearms and weapons, the Department of National Defence confirms. Sachintha Fernando and James Moreau were arrested on Aug. 11, 2026, according to Laura McIntyre-Grills, a spokesperson for DND. Both Fernando...
Chief Justice Richard Wagner says Canada's democratic institutions need protection in the face of unrelenting pressures. Wagner said in a speech today the world feels increasingly uncertain due to deepening polarization, the non-stop pace of events and the rapid emergence of artificial intelligence. He said when seas grow rough an anchor keeps a vessel from drifting, and democratic institutions play...
The Conservative MP tasked with leading his party's efforts to convince Albertans to stay in Canada says he is concerned by reports of separatists going to Washington and offering up fresh water and oil in exchange for American support. Dane Lloyd said no one has the right to promise away Albertan resources and he will not condone any of the...
Quebec's business community is taking notice as polls show the Parti Quebecois seizing a firm lead with the provincial election in full swing. PQ Leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon has pledged to hold a referendum within his first mandate, though not before U.S. President Donald Trump leaves office. Sebastien Lachaine, Quebec director at lobbying firm Sussex Strategy, says the uncertainty heralded...
Since assuming office a year and a half ago, Prime Minister Mark Carney has repeatedly promised that his government would “build Canadian and buy Canadian.” But American-controlled multinational corporations have dominated the most lucrative federal contracts under Carney’s leadership, a Toronto Star analysis of government data shows. The share of government contract dollars going to U.S. companies also increased...
Liberals lead 46% to 28% as Conservative support reaches its lowest level in Liaison tracking since March 2025. Carney approval returns to 66%. The latest Liaison Strategies Weekly Federal Tracker shows the Conservatives at 28% among decided and leaning voters, their lowest support in the series dating back to March 2025. The Liberals hold at 46%, giving them an 18-point...
Revelations about talks in Washington where Alberta separatists suggested exchanging water and oil for U.S. support, and in Calgary where separatists met secretly with Republican strategists, have sparked an outcry from federalists – and a call for legislative change. Corey Hogan, Calgary’s lone Liberal member of Parliament, said on Sunday that Canada needs to consider overhauling its laws to address...
Parliamentarians are back in Ottawa where debate is set to continue on the government's 243-page economic and labour bill, with plans to introduce legislation focused on national defence and security procurement. The government's key piece of economic legislation, Bill C-39, proposes measures to create a one-year timeline for federal project decisions, create zones of "national interest" where certain projects are...
Internal evaluations reveal gaps in winter soldiering, medical prep and equipment. A series of internal Department of National Defence documents suggest Canadian troops were ill-prepared and occasionally ill-equipped for the harsh conditions they faced last winter during a major training exercise with American forces in Alaska. The evaluation reports, obtained by CBC News, show the military has a lot to...
With the federal budget coming later this fall, some lobbyists and stakeholders are raising concerns about the limited access to senior cabinet ministerial and PMO officials, blaming “risk averse” staffers who fear for their ministers’ ouster in a future cabinet shuffle. “The stakes are high. Perhaps the ministerial offices are thinking, ‘Wait a minute, we don’t want to make a...
BALTIMORE (AP) -- President Donald Trump on Tuesday touted a $3.7 billion investment by the military technology company Anduril to build components for nuclear-powered submarines at a Baltimore-area shipyard.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The primary Senate Republican super PAC is sending reinforcements to deep red South Carolina as President Donald Trump prepares to travel there to boost Sen. Darline Graham.
For Michelle Tietjens, the pain of loss often hits hardest at the start of each day, when the realization dawns all over again that she'll be facing it without her husband.
The shrapnel hit Army Lt. Col. Arturo Lincon's body like shattered glass.
Prime Minister Mark Carney is returning to Turkey later this month as he seeks to boost trade and defence ties with a country with rising importance. Carney was in Turkey for the NATO summit in July, and his office says he will again visit the country from Oct. 21 to 23. He will start in Ankara to meet with President...
Canada and the European Union plan to link next-generation payment systems to enable faster cross-border transactions, according to a draft joint statement prepared for a summit between Ottawa and Brussels later this month. This will help remove obstacles to business and investment between the two jurisdictions, according to the statement, an early version of a summit communiqué that was viewed...
A pilot stabbed another pilot and then apparently tried to crash to aircraft carrying dozens of Israelis on Wednesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said. Passengers and crew staged a dramatic intervention to subdue the attacker and the plane eventually made an emergency landing in Saudi Arabia. The FlyDubai flight travelling from the United Arab Emirates to Israel landed safely after...
Prime Minister Mark Carney appealed to common values like democracy and reliability when he called for deeper trade and defence ties at the European Parliament earlier this month. But some experts say with the rise of far-right parties on the continent, key European allies may not always share those values — and Canada should keep that possibility in mind as...
One of U.S. President Donald Trump's trade advisers is threatening repercussions for Canada if it "interferes" in the upcoming midterm elections — though it's not clear what he anticipates the country would do to impact the vote. Peter Navarro, who has lashed out at Canada in the past, made these latest remarks during a talk at an economic conference in...
Amid U.S. President Donald Trump’s on-again-off-again trade war, trade diversification has been the talk of the town. But for a country like Canada, which has long felt the gravitational pull of the enormous U.S. market, diversifying trade will be no easy feat. It also shouldn’t be the goal in and of itself. As the first part of the IRPP’s new...
Canada’s aim to diversify and grow its exports will inevitably mean a significant focus on building deeper and more beneficial linkages with the Asia-Pacific. In this report, we show that Canada’s diversification challenge cannot be fully solved by merely substituting one large market with many small ones, nor by assuming that supply chains can quickly or easily be re-wired. To...
Canada has spent thirty years pretending that internal free trade can be achieved through polite first ministers’ meetings, press conferences, action plans, and the creation of agencies.
A collection of SubStack publishing within Canadian public affairs.
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...
Artificial intelligence has moved from a promising general-purpose technology to an increasingly consequential layer of economic, social and public infrastructure. It is already raising productivity, expanding access to expertise, accelerating scientific discovery and creating new ways to deliver services. At the same time, AI systems are implicated in fraud, manipulation and cyberattacks and unreliable results and misinformation. The most capable...
The PQ win the Quebec election with a promise to call a referendum at some point in their mandate. What does this do to Canada's united approach against Donald Trump? And what signal does it send to Alberta voters as they edge closer to their referendum later this month? Rob Russo and Althia Raj are here to discuss.
It took Danielle Smith (basically) a year to get her new West Coast pipeline from Ottawa - a massive project with a price tag between 35 to 44 billion dollars. Alberta is pushing for construction to start in less than a year. That timeline is a big test for Carney, because it will be the first project to use the...
Celebrated author Naomi Klein joins the show to talk about how Mark Carney's response to Trump's trade war echoes themes in her book The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. We also discuss her latest work "End Times Fascism: And the Fight for the Living World.
A secret meeting with Republican strategists near an airport hanger, and talks of access to Alberta water and royalties from oil. These are some of the revelations from a Globe investigation looking into some separatists courting American support in their pursuit of independence. Carrie Tait, a reporter in the Globe’s Calgary bureau, Globe investigative Grant Robertson and Globe international correspondent...
