As American President Donald Trump addresses the union this evening, Canadians may have some interest in the chosen topics, which will likely reference the Supreme Court’s recent decision to strike down his tariffs, and even Canada’s heartbreaking losses in the Olympic hockey tournament, both men’s and women’s. If Trump’s speech is anything like his first year, Canadians will likely be...
In a week that featured a focus on US tariffs and an MP defection, last week was not a great week for Pierre Poilievre. He now trails Mark Carney in the preferred PM tracking by 31 points. The Liberals have opened a lead in the Nanos tracking outside of the margin of error for the research: LPC 41, CPC 34, NDP 11.
The costs of the program have ballooned from $226 million in 2019 to $1 billion in 2025. A Conservative motion to restrict health-care benefits to failed asylum claimants was tabled in Parliament on Tuesday, with the projected cost of a federal health program for refugees expected to increase to $1.5 billion by 2030. “Under the Liberals, the Interim Federal Health...
The Liberal government’s newest MP — Conservative defector Matt Jeneroux — will travel with Prime Minister Mark Carney on his upcoming trip to India, Australia and Japan. Carney’s office announced Tuesday that Jeneroux will join the prime minister on the three-country trip in his capacity as “special advisor on economic and security partnerships.” Jeneroux was given that title last week...
Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe is once again joining Prime Minister Mark Carney on a trade mission. The trade mission is set to depart on Thursday and continue to March 7. Moe is part of the Canadian delegation set to attend meetings in New Delhi and Mumbai, according to the Prime Minister's Office. It's not the first time that Moe and...
As American President Donald Trump addresses the union this evening, Canadians may have some interest in the chosen topics, which will likely reference the Supreme Court’s recent decision to strike down his tariffs, and even Canada’s heartbreaking losses in the Olympic hockey tournament, both men’s and women’s. If Trump’s speech is anything like his first year, Canadians will likely be...
In a week that featured a focus on US tariffs and an MP defection, last week was not a great week for Pierre Poilievre. He now trails Mark Carney in the preferred PM tracking by 31 points. The Liberals have opened a lead in the Nanos tracking outside of the margin of error for the research: LPC 41, CPC 34, NDP 11.
This week, Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre released a video about the preferential treatment of asylum seekers in Canada. In it, he states that six million Canadians can’t get access to a family doctor and specialist wait times average 30 weeks. Then, he drops the kicker: rejected asylum claimants, who have never paid taxes, get free “deluxe supplementary heath care” such...
In the high-stakes political poker game that is federal politics, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre just dished out a resounding “tell.” Experienced poker players define a “tell” as a gesture, habit, expression or twitch that gives away the relative strength of his or her hand. Poilievre’s tell comes via an unprovoked video posted on social media Monday morning calling for major...
Parti Quebecois Leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon says his party's fourth consecutive byelection victory is a sign that Quebecers are ready for profound change. PQ candidate Marie-Karlynn Laflamme won the byelection in the Chicoutimi riding on Monday with more than 45 per cent of the vote, compared to about 26 per cent for second-place Conservative Catherine Morissette.
With the appointment of former top bureaucrat Janice Charette, Prime Minister Mark Carney has bucked tradition by picking a chief negotiator for Canada-United States trade who doesn’t have an abundance of trade experience. In the past, chief trade negotiators have had extensive experience with the technical side of trade policy, having served in Global Affairs Canada’s (GAC) trade policy bureau...
While the terrible tragedy at Tumbler Ridge prevented Prime Minister Mark Carney from attending this year’s Munich Security Conference, echoes of his recent Davos speech could be heard throughout the meeting halls, hallways, and bars of the Bayerischer Hof Hotel. I was there again this year as a Canadian parliamentarian and Senate committee chair, so some of those conversations were...
When it comes to where Canada is positioned regarding U.S. President Trump’s tariff and trade policies, it seems increasingly clear that time is on Canada’s side. That is a difficult thing to assert when I know that our business and investment interests, consumer confidence, trade-dependent firms and their workers are all craving stability in the Canada-U.S. relationship on trade and...
The headline that caught my eye late last week was this one: “Look how much Canadians hate the United States now.” It was on Politico and it was propped up by the results of a major new poll that suggests a “lasting chill” has settled over relations between our two countries.
Lost in the controversy around the substance of the referendum questions that Alberta Premier Danielle Smith will put to voters next fall has been that the timing is nearly as striking. Less than three months ago, via a memorandum of understanding, Prime Minister Mark Carney gave Ms. Smith many of the concessions on energy and environmental policy – among them...
Danielle Smith isn’t blinking on her immigration stand. And she is not prepared to let things slide when utter and vile crap comes of the mouths of her political opponents.
Danielle Smith is getting desperate. She knows the provincial budget will be revealed Thursday and all indications are that it will have a whopper of a deficit: $5.2 billion to nearly $8 billion. Last year Alberta had an $8.3 billion surplus. She could just blame it all on low oil prices, which Alberta has no control over, yet still dictates...
Three weeks after a convention in Calgary seemed to put their leadership issues to rest, Conservatives again find themselves with a problem, and its name is still Pierre Poilievre. The Tory boss sailed through the required review of his performance with an overwhelming 87 per cent vote of approval. One would think so solid an endorsement would ensure Poilievre’s command...
The 6-3 majority U.S. Supreme Court decision on the unlawful nature of President Donald Trump’s emergency act tariffs suggests democracy is still alive in the Great Republic. Friday’s decision reaffirmed the basic constitutional principle about the separation of powers between Congress and the president, clarifying that Trump has no authority on his own to impose tariffs using the International Emergency...
After announcing months ago he’d be exiting politics last fall to focus “entirely” on his family — who live in Victoria — ex-Conservative Edmonton MP Matt Jeneroux flew to the airport just south of his riding on Wednesday to announce his new allegiance to the Liberals.
The Conservative Party of Canada is now in a pickle. The recent leadership review in Calgary, Alta., produced an overwhelming endorsement of Pierre Poilievre. It was a somewhat inscrutable result. Delegates gave the man who led them to defeat in the last election, and who lost his own seat, a support level of just over 87 per cent. Political parties...
When one of Pierre Poilievre’s Conservative MPs, Jamil Jivani, travelled to Washington to meet with Trump administration officials, he chose to chastise Canadians for having an anti-American “hissy fit” in an interview with MAGA site Breitbart News. It’s hard to imagine a more harmful piece of public relations for the Conservatives. And it is a golden opportunity for Mr. Poilievre...
To understand Premier Danielle Smith’s headline-grabbing and controversial attack on federal immigration policy last Thursday, you have to look ahead to the Alberta provincial budget being unveiled this Thursday. It’s going to be a doozy. A doozy of a government fiscal deficit, to be precise. We don’t know yet how much, but the current 2025-26 budget is expected to run...
On Jan. 9 in Saskatoon, Trevor Dubois died after an altercation with security at the Royal University Hospital. Dubois was receiving chemotherapy, and a security guard thought he had an imitation gun and so Dubois was restrained to the point of unconsciousness. He died. The 36-year-old was from Muskoday First Nation. His friends talked about his infectious laugh, and his...
The walls of Parliament shook this week with yet another floor-crossing of Edmonton MP Matt Jeneroux to join Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Liberal caucus. This wasn’t just a procedural shift in the halls of Parliament, it is a stark symbol of a new, unsettling reality in Conservative politics. While floor-crossing is a historical reality and, let’s be honest, Liberals have...
As we mark the fourth anniversary of Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, a few points strike me as most important. The first is that this war has been — its geopolitical, political, and military characteristics aside— a battle of truth vs. lies. President Vladimir Putin has never accepted Ukraine’s separate identity, borders, national identity, language, culture, or sovereignty. Putin articulates...
Politics is a business of addition but this week New Democrat leadership candidates demonstrated they’re focused on subtraction. Gone are the prospects of forming a government. Former leader Jack Layton’s 2011 orange wave, with 103 seats and a presence in every region of the country, may go down as the unfulfilled beachhead.
George Orwell’s dystopian vision of the future, 1984, was supposed to be a warning about the dangers of dictatorship and the loss of objective truth, not a guidebook on how to achieve it.
The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday issued a rare rebuke against a White House that has otherwise seemed unbound by law, nixing Donald Trump’s tariffs via statement of fact: “The President enjoys no inherent authority to impose tariffs during peacetime.” Revel in this rare bit of good news, Canada — but not for too long. This, for Trump, is a...
It doesn’t take much to see how badly Premier Danielle Smith’s broadside against immigrants in Alberta could go.
On Friday, ahead of the big Canada-Finland hockey game, friend-of-the-Donald Wayne Gretzky was asked, and not for the first time, to say something – anything – about the pain caused by his pal’s actions against our country. Acknowledge some truths about who’s to blame. Say whose side he’s on. A couple of sentences, tops. It wasn’t much of an ask...
When Mark Carney announced Wednesday that Edmonton Conservative MP Matt Jeneroux would cross the floor to join his government, I thought of two recent rumours from the backrooms of Ottawa. The first rumour spread in November, when Nova Scotia MP Chris d’Entremont let slip that he was thinking about crossing the floor to the Liberals. When Conservative Deputy Leader Andrew...
“What grade would you give Trump for his first year, overall?” That’s the question the Angus Reid Institute asked 1,612 Canadians, in a poll conducted late last month. Two-thirds of respondents gave U.S. President Donald Trump an F. Another 8 per cent gave him a D. Just 6 per cent gave him an A. But breaking down the results by...
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Friday that President Donald Trump exceeded his authority by using emergency powers to implement tariffs. Our Pulse Panel is here to offer their perspectives on what this ruling signifies for both Canada and the future of CUSMA.
Prime Minister Mark Carney promised another $2 billion in military aid and more sanctions on Moscow on Tuesday, as Ukraine marked four years since Russia launched its full-scale invasion "Four years on, Russia is failing militarily, strategically and economically, and we are in it for the long term," Carney told reporters before the weekly cabinet meeting on Parliament Hill. "Russia...
Hyundai Motor Co. has proposed building hydrogen fuel-cell infrastructure in Canada as part of South Korea’s bid for a contract to build a new submarine fleet, according to an executive at Hanwha Ocean Co. Hanwha Defence Canada Chief Executive Officer Glenn Copeland said Hyundai briefed Canadian officials during their recent visit to Korea, presenting early plans for three or four...
As Prime Minister Mark Carney heads to India this week for trade talks, police have warned a Canadian Sikh leader about a “credible threat” to his life. Moninder Singh, who heads the Sikh Federation of Canada, said a member of the Vancouver Police Department delivered the caution on Sunday. The tip about the threat came from a confidential informant, the...
Alexandre Boulerice says he's mulling run with pro-independence left-wing party. Quebec NDP MP Alexandre Boulerice said Monday that he's seriously considering running for Québec Solidaire in this year's provincial election. French-language media had first reported last week that Boulerice was looking into running for the progressive sovereignist party this fall. "Right now I have a mandate. I am a federal...
Jocelyne Bourgon, who led the country’s public service during the deep cost-cutting of the mid-1990s as the first female clerk of the Privy Council, is urging current leaders to learn from the past as they aim to reshape the federal bureaucracy. Spending should be reined in by eliminating lower priority programs, rather than relying on attrition and across-the-board cuts that...
A Crown corporation alerted Canada's international trade minister about the sale of artillery ammunition to the U.S., some of which was destined for Israel, CBC News has learned. The CEO of the Canadian Commercial Corporation (CCC), which oversees international arms transfers, wrote a letter to Dominic LeBlanc on March 20, 2025. "As a trusted industry partner, General Dynamics Ordnance [and]...
People opposed to the federal government's firearms ban and compensation program are planning a rally Saturday in Quebec City to accuse Ottawa of unfairly singling out law-abiding gun owners. The event will come about six weeks into the sign-up period for gun owners to declare interest in a federal program offering them money for turning in or permanently deactivating firearms...
As Ottawa continues to vow it will send aid to Cuba at some point, the island nation's ambassador to Canada is set to testify before the House foreign affairs committee this afternoon. Ambassador Rodrigo Malmierca Diaz is scheduled to address the committee after it hears from the officials at Global Affairs Canada responsible for regional issues and humanitarian response.
Public trust in Canada's key institutions is on the rise as the country navigates unprecedented tensions with the United States, a new poll suggests. The annual CanTrust Index published by Proof Strategies -- which was conducted online and can't be assigned a margin of error -- surveyed 1,501 Canadians between Jan. 7 and 15. Canadians' trust in others and in...
British Columbia Premier David Eby says it "looks like" OpenAI had the opportunity to prevent the recent mass shootings in Tumbler Ridge, B.C., in which nine people died, as pressure piles on the artificial intelligence firm over its handling of interactions with 18-year-old shooter Jesse Van Rootselaar. Eby said Monday there would be a public accounting in which the company...
A staffer and volunteer for MP Nate Erskine-Smith, a presumed frontrunner in Ontario’s Nov. 21 Liberal leadership race, has been hit with $2,400 in fines for violations under the Canada Elections Act. The administrative monetary penalties against Andrew Goodridge were for failing to comply with political financing and reporting requirements.
NDP leadership hopeful Heather McPherson ruffled some feathers on Sunday evening when she appeared to shoehorn progressive virtue signalling into a social media post addressing the sprialling cartel violence in the Mexican tourist destination of Puerto Vallarta. Article content “Many Canadians, especially members of the 2SLGBTQIA+ community, are in Puerto Vallarta, where violence has quickly escalated. A shelter-in-place order is...
As officials in some parts of Mexico continue to urge tourists and locals to shelter in place to escape widespread violence, more than 26,000 Canadians in the country have registered with Ottawa. Global Affairs Canada says it has resolved technical issues that initially prevented Canadians from signing up with the department for safety advice. Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand is...
Artificial Intelligence Minister Evan Solomon has called representatives of OpenAI to Ottawa to discuss safety concerns after learning the killer in the mass shooting in Tumbler Ridge, B.C., was banned from using the company's ChatGPT platform months before the murders The company banned Jesse Van Rootselaar's account in June but said the activities on the account didn't meet the threshold...
Donation came less than a month before U.S. president's threat to block bridge's opening. The wealthy owner of a nearly century-old bridge connecting Michigan and Ontario gave $1 million US to a Trump-aligned political action committee (PAC) less than a month before the U.S. president unleashed an online tirade against a new, competing bridge, records show. Matthew Moroun, whose family...
The federal Liberals accepted a Conservative proposal Monday to put guardrails around proposed new cabinet powers as they debated the government's omnibus budget bill. The Liberal government's budget implementation legislation, Bill C-15, proposes to give federal ministers the ability to temporarily exempt individuals or corporations from some non-criminal federal laws -- an approach the government refers to as "regulatory sandboxes."...
There are currently more than 26,000 Canadians registered in Mexico as cartel violence hits the popular tourist area of Puerto Vallarta — and no plans for military or consular flights to assist Canadians getting out, Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand said. Anand said the federal government is working on plans to “assist,” but did not share further details and said...
Senators on the social affairs committee wants to see immigration-related sections in the government's border bill, C-12, removed or significantly modified by the Senate national security committee. The national security committee is responsible for tabling amendments, while the social affairs committee has conducted an in-depth study of the bill's immigration measures. That report, obtained by The Canadian Press, says the...
Days after former Alberta Premier Jason Kenney slammed prominent right-wing platform Juno News for hosting a white nationalist, it has now walked back plans to release a feature-length documentary-style film denying the atrocities of Canada's residential school system. The film, entitled DIG, was announced publicly in a Feb. 10 email sent to Juno News subscribers and was going to focus...
Canadians currently view the United States as more of a risk than a partner, according to a new poll that finds three-quarters dispute the idea that our southern neighbour is a trustworthy ally. A survey by Nanos Research for The Globe and Mail took stock of deteriorating Canadian opinions of the United States after U.S. President Donald Trump’s first year...
The Parti Quebecois is looking for its fourth consecutive byelection win today in the riding of Chicoutimi, north of Quebec City. The riding had been a PQ stronghold before Andree Laforest captured it twice for the Coalition Avenir Quebec, first in 2018 and again in 2022. Chicoutimi has been vacant since Laforest, a former cabinet minister, left provincial politics in September.
As a nation Canada might not be meeting its national climate targets, but the federal government is exceeding its own internal greenhouse-gas-reduction goals. In an update Monday, the government of Canada said carbon pollution from its operations is down by 42.5 per cent below 2005 levels. This exceeds Ottawa's 40 per cent reduction target and represents a slashing of 1.02...
Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Liberal government has eliminated thousands of positions from the public service, but no cuts have been made to political staff in ministers’ offices or in the Prime Minister’s Office. Some with expert knowledge in the mechanics of government say that, in the interest of fairness, civil service cuts should be matched with reductions in the PMO...
The Conservatives plan to put a motion before the House of Commons on Tuesday aimed at reviewing how health benefits are provided to asylum seekers and restricting who has access to those services. The planned text of the motion, which has been shared with The Canadian Press, says the cost of the Interim Federal Health Program has more than quadrupled...
A new national survey released today by Liaison Strategies reveals that the Liberal Party of Canada, led by Prime Minister Mark Carney, has extended its lead in the federal political landscape. If an election were held today, the Liberals would secure 45% of the decided and leaning vote, holding a commanding 12-point advantage over the Conservative Party, which stands at...
Unions and lawyers worry Canada may be deprioritizing reconciliation and slowing Indigenous communities' access to justice, as looming public service cuts appear to heavily target the Indigenous rights and relations portfolio at the Department of Justice. "Now is not the time to cut any support for this really important area of Indigenous consultation, Indigenous negotiation and rights," said lawyer Cynthia...
As the world marks four years since Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine on Tuesday, analysts say Moscow has contributed to global instability that will force Canadians to spend more -- and more quickly -- to defend their territory. "People need to understand why defence is extremely important right now, and why we're going to have to make sacrifices...
The High Commissioner of India to Canada says India “will take action” depending on the outcome of a court case involving four Indian nationals accused of murder in the killing of a prominent Sikh activist in British Columbia. Dinesh Patnaik said both countries are on “same page” that “if there is any evidence we have, we will give it to...
A U.S. Representative for Michigan is pledging more pushback in Congress to U.S. President Donald Trump’s “chaotic” tariffs, after the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday struck them down. In an interview on CTV Question Period Sunday, Debbie Dingell told host Vassy Kapelos that Trump’s tariffs are destroying long held U.S. relationships, including with Canada. “I want to be clear that...
New Ipsos polling suggests Canada is more united today than it was seven years ago, despite louder political rhetoric around separatism, particularly in Alberta. The data, drawn from the same Confederation Stress Test survey that previously examined separatist voting intentions, indicates that several measures that were rated as high have eased since 2019.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Democrats are betting that Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger's affordability-focused message, which helped her flip a Republican-held office last November, will resonate with the country when she delivers their party's response to President Donald Trump's State of the Union address on Tuesday night.
HOUSTON (AP) -- U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzales of Texas resisted growing calls Tuesday from fellow congressional Republicans to resign over a report of an alleged affair with a former staffer who later died after she set herself on fire.
President Donald Trump will deliver the first State of the Union address of his second term on Tuesday. Priorities for the Republican's administration have centered largely on the economy, immigration, crime, energy and national security.
President Donald Trump on Monday threatened countries around the world to abide by any tariff deals they agreed to despite the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that struck down many of his far-reaching taxes on imports. And he said he wants a global tariff of 15%, up from 10% he had announced immediately after the ruling.
With the appointment of former top bureaucrat Janice Charette, Prime Minister Mark Carney has bucked tradition by picking a chief negotiator for Canada-United States trade who doesn’t have an abundance of trade experience. In the past, chief trade negotiators have had extensive experience with the technical side of trade policy, having served in Global Affairs Canada’s (GAC) trade policy bureau...
Prime Minister Mark Carney promised another $2 billion in military aid and more sanctions on Moscow on Tuesday, as Ukraine marked four years since Russia launched its full-scale invasion "Four years on, Russia is failing militarily, strategically and economically, and we are in it for the long term," Carney told reporters before the weekly cabinet meeting on Parliament Hill. "Russia...
A Crown corporation alerted Canada's international trade minister about the sale of artillery ammunition to the U.S., some of which was destined for Israel, CBC News has learned. The CEO of the Canadian Commercial Corporation (CCC), which oversees international arms transfers, wrote a letter to Dominic LeBlanc on March 20, 2025. "As a trusted industry partner, General Dynamics Ordnance [and]...
As Ottawa continues to vow it will send aid to Cuba at some point, the island nation's ambassador to Canada is set to testify before the House foreign affairs committee this afternoon. Ambassador Rodrigo Malmierca Diaz is scheduled to address the committee after it hears from the officials at Global Affairs Canada responsible for regional issues and humanitarian response.
There are currently more than 26,000 Canadians registered in Mexico as cartel violence hits the popular tourist area of Puerto Vallarta — and no plans for military or consular flights to assist Canadians getting out, Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand said. Anand said the federal government is working on plans to “assist,” but did not share further details and said...
In January, Canada and China announced a new trade framework that will lift several Chinese tariffs on Canadian exports as well as Canadian tariffs on Chinese electric cars. Set to take effect March 1, the deal will significantly ease pressure on Canadian exports of canola, pulses and seafood. While the deal is welcome relief, significant damage was done. Saskatchewan’s canola...
From a snail in a bottle of ginger beer to cannibalism to revoking a liquor licence for helping fellow Jehovah’s Witnesses, many seminal law school cases are remembered for their extraordinary facts (Hutchinson 2010). Every so often, however, a case prescribes a legal test that is equally memorable, even when the facts of the case are not. The Supreme Court...
A collection of SubStack publishing within Canadian public affairs.
Prime Minister Mark Carney has finally revealed his plan to turn Canada into a weapons-exporting global mega-power. “In total, the Defence Industrial Strategy is an investment of over half a trillion dollars in Canadian security, economic prosperity, and our sovereignty,” he announced this week, promising to create over 125 thousand “high-paying careers” building weapons and otherwise supplying the Canadian military...
Cuba has been plunged into darkness. Schools, hospitals and essential services are hit by rolling 12-hour blackouts. Foreigners, including Canadians, have fled. Even worse, infant mortality is climbing.
Lisa Banfield, common-law wife of the man who meticulously slaughtered 22 people six years ago, recently published a memoir of her life-on-eggshells with a controlling killer.
Both the Liberals and the Conservatives suggested a few weeks ago that they would try to find ways to work together to advance the issues facing Parliament. We've heard that kind of talk before and nothing has happened, but what about now? A hint yesterday that maybe, just maybe, there could be progress. Rob Russo of the Economist and Althia...
While the U.S. won't use the word "blockade" it sure looks like that's what it's doing to anyone trying to ship oil into Cuba. The situation is dire and Cuba seems to be teetering on the edge of a humanitarian crisis. Should Canada help? Could it help? That's one of the topics for Dr. Janice Stein on her regular Monday...
A third Conservative crosses the floor. Tory Leader Pierre Poilievre runs damage control after one of his MPs goes off script on the trade war with U.S. President Donald Trump. And Ottawa wins a “psychological victory” after the U.S. Supreme Court strikes down Trump’s emergency tariffs. Chris Selley and Lorne Gunter join Brian to discuss how, with all these developments...
