Prime Minister Mark Carney has arrived in Armenia to take part in the European Political Community summit, a gathering touching on strategic co-operation in politics, security and infrastructure. Canada is the first non-European country to attend these meetings, which have taken place twice a year since they began after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The meetings include EU...
Colorado Gov. Jared Polis says Canada likely won’t gain much by waiting on the November midterms to ramp up trade negotiations with the U.S. administration, because it’s unlikely Congress will be able to put enough pressure on the president to make a difference. As the July 1 deadline to review the trilateral trade deal between Canada, the United States and...
Unions say the idea is short-sighted and unsustainable. The federal government says it may “reallocate” its co-working sites to help departments that are short on space meet the goal of having unionized employees report to the office four days a week starting July 6. “As part of the transition back to a four-day-a-week office schedule, various options are currently being...
In his roughly 20 hours in Yerevan, Prime Minister Mark Carney will have only a brief window to engage with Armenia's political leadership before the European Political Community summit — where Canada has been invited as a guest of honour — gets underway. Carney is expected to meet with Armenia's Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan just hours after landing at Zvartnots...
Canada's international trade minister says the government is looking to sign three major trade deals before the end of the year -- with Mercosur, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and India. Speaking with The Canadian Press this week, International Trade Minister Maninder Sidhu said Ottawa has teams of negotiators in different parts of the world almost every week. He...
Canadians’ views of the federal government remain largely positive, with a majority expressing satisfaction with the government led by Prime Minister Mark Carney. Among decided voters, 48% say they would vote for the Liberal Party of Canada if a federal election were held today, compared to 37% for Pierre Poilievre’s Conservative Party. The New Democratic Party and the Bloc Québécois...
The perceptions of British Columbians on the five contenders in the Conservative Party of BC’s leadership race have not changed dramatically over the past two months, and no candidate would award the party a significant advantage over the governing BC New Democratic Party (NDP) in a snap election, a new Research Co. poll has found. In the online survey of...
Is this it? Is this all a galaxy brain in control of a government within sight of 50 per cent in the polls can offer in the midst of a crisis? A bit of a nip here, a bit of a tuck there, but all-in-all keeping Canada on the same rotten economic trajectory?
There were several rounds of chatter over the summer and into the fall about whether the honeymoon was over for Prime Minister Mark Carney – and if not yet, when that moment would come. Elbows sagged; President Donald Trump went on blowing up like a puffer fish; tariffs were carving up certain sectors of the economy and regions of the...
There were high hopes when the Alberta government launch the Heritage Savings Trust Fund in 1976. As the federal government embarks on launching a national sovereign wealth fund, Ottawa could seek lessons from the handling of Alberta’s fund to help ensure it becomes a success. Alberta launched its sovereign wealth fund decades ago, but provincial governments regularly dipped their hands...
Political writer says she’s baffled Elections Alberta declined to investigate her complaint. A journalist says she warned Elections Alberta weeks ago about what she believed could be a massive privacy breach affecting millions of voters. But the agency says provincial legislation passed last year constrained them from investigating a complaint about voter information posted on a website belonging to a...
Canada is at a crossroads. In the coming days and weeks, the federal government will decide whether the country compromises its climate commitments or embraces a more sustainable path towards a greener future.
It’s alarming that Prime Minister Mark Carney, citing China as a “strategic partner,” has agreed to a secret deal on co-operating with Chinese police, given the highly controversial nature of these agreements in the past.
If one thing is clear from Prime Minister Mark Carney’s economic update this week, it’s that he’s taking progressive voters for granted. Headlines like “A Canada for All” sound nice. As do statements like: “the government is protecting the essential social programs that give Canadians a fair chance to get ahead — child care, dental care, and pharmacare.”
Last year, I supported the Conservatives in the federal election because the Liberal government of the previous 10 years had produced large net capital outflows, presided over Canada’s decline in the rankings of the most prosperous countries per capita, conducted a suicidal war on the petroleum industry, self-defamed the country for attempted genocide of First Nations, was a useless member...
Why would U.S. President Donald Trump approve a Keystone-like pipeline that could eventually transport a million barrels a day of Canadian oil to refineries in the U.S. Midwest or along the Gulf coast? Trump had four full years during his first term to reverse the suspension of Keystone imposed by his predecessor, Barack Obama. He never did. Does this mean...
July 1, 2026, is an important date for the future of the Canada-U.S. Mexico Agreement (CUSMA), but there is considerable confusion as to exactly what is supposed to happen on that date. Some think it is the final deadline for negotiations to save the agreement from termination. Others think it is the starting date for a complete renegotiation of the...
It’s been nearly a week, and we are still no closer to knowing what the Carney government means when it talks about setting up “Canada’s first sovereign wealth fund.” I don’t just mean what it would do, or how it would work, or what problem it’s intended to solve. I mean, quite literally, what is it? I suspect the government...
The economist John Maynard Keynes is reputed to have said, “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?” Still, this is a hard piece for me to write. I devoted several years of my life to helping create the Oil Sands Pathways to Net Zero Alliance and its carbon capture, use and storage (CCUS) project...
The time is coming for Prime Minister Mark Carney to overhaul his cabinet, and everyone in Ottawa has some idea how he might do it. Picking a cabinet is an increasingly difficult task. Prime ministers must ensure various regions, languages, identities, genders, loyalties and competencies are represented fairly. You need politicos, communicators and managers, and you need to instil the...
It’s official. The Great Pierre Poilievre Tone Experiment of early 2026 is over. After donning the mantle of the reasonable, Poilievre is back to his natural pugilistic self. And so is his team, with House Leader Andrew Scheer now accusing the (checks notes) National Post of being in the tank for the Liberals for the crime of (checks notes again)...
“In a crisis, fortune favours the bold,” Prime Minister Mark Carney said in a fireside chat video, posted online earlier this month. The Prime Minister laid out the foundation for his Canada Strong plan, which he promised would be transformative, comprehensive and ambitious. But if fortune indeed favours the bold, as Mr. Carney said, the forces of the universe will...
A pessimist could construe Donald Trump’s warning about American troop reductions in Germany as a less brazen modern equivalent to the non-aggression Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union in 1939. The U.S. president is involved in a spat with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz over his conduct in the war with Iran and has said the Pentagon is...
Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew is the country’s most popular premier. That’s unsurprising. He has a penchant for pursuing policies that tend to poll well and is known for having his finger on the pulse of the people. But while pursuing policies because they poll well may work some of the time — as with Kinew’s recent announcement to ban surveillance...
Oil briefly hit US$125 on Thursday after U.S. President Donald Trump said the Strait of Hormuz blockade would continue for months. It may seem odd to say that the oil spike caused by the war creates a dilemma for Canada, but the country must now make a difficult decision – and the United Arab Emirates’ departure from OPEC this week...
Prime Minister Mark Carney is riding a political high. He’s more popular now than he was when Canadians went to the polls one year ago, with polling firms showing record-setting approval ratings for the Liberal leader and the government in general. But roughly 10 years ago, similar things were said about Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his government at their...
As a royal, Charles’s history has been marked by promise unfulfilled and unending frustration. It’s been a life in an antechamber beset by controversy and scandal surrounding him or his wider family, all as he waited forever for the Crown – only to be greeted by cancer, for which he is still being treated, upon attaining it. It’s like Charles...
Nate Erskine-Smith is a politician in a pickle of his own making. Once again, he pines to be premier. Now, he has a four-step plan to get there.
The PM's economic transformation agenda needs to deliver some visible and impactful results in the next 12 to 18 months, or another line of vulnerability will open up. One year in as prime minister, and Mark Carney is arguably at the top of his political game. He just secured a majority government through some byelection wins and five floor crossings...
The real battle is inside the UCP. Alberta’s separatist drive isn’t really a fight for the future of Canada. It’s a battle for the United Conservative Party. The latest polling from Janet Brown, commissioned by the CBC, shows separatist support is stuck at 27 per cent, while 67 per cent will vote against leaving Canada.
It is a time-honoured parliamentary tradition for finance ministers to congratulate themselves on making more progress than can possibly be justified by the facts. François-Philippe Champagne was no exception, as he presented his government’s spring fiscal update in the House of Commons on Tuesday. He said his government is spending less, so that it can invest more, and added that...
Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne tabled the Spring Economic Update (SEU) in Parliament on April 28, 2026 – six months after the fall budget and on the one-year anniversary of the federal election; a symmetry between the political and financial cycles that underscored Prime Minister Mark Carney’s economic credentials.
Though loquacious by nature, the finance minister wasted relatively little time Tuesday getting to the relatively good news. "Mr. Speaker, [these] are serious times and Canadians expect us to be good stewards of our economy and manage our public finances with thoughtful fiscal discipline," François-Philippe Champagne told the House of Commons as he presented the federal government's first spring economic...
If you have been wondering what meaning to attach to that irritating phrase the Carney Liberals use to describe themselves, “Canada’s New Government” – which was irritating enough when it was first employed, under Stephen Harper, when it was actually a new government – wonder no longer. As this Spring Economic Update makes abundantly clear, it means nothing whatever. Or...
“Let me make it real for you.” In that one short, sharp sentence, Finance Minister François Philippe Champagne acknowledged the political juggling act that Mark Carney’s government is trying to pull off as it embarks on its second year of power.
Nothing is likely to shore up Conservative esprit de corps like the sight of Patty Hajdu rising in the House of Commons and accusing the Official Opposition of being “against Canada.”
Ford received honorary doctorate, thanked by university president for fostering Great Lakes region relations. Ontario Premier Doug Ford delivered a commencement speech at a U.S. university Saturday, touching on the close ties between Canadians and Americans, as well as the risk imposed by tariffs. Dressed in a black cap and gown, Ford addressed hundreds of graduating students at Saginaw Valley...
Natalie Thoma scoffs at the idea of Alberta separation. “Why should Alberta be its own independent country?” she wonders, shrugging her shoulders. There are more important things to worry about, says the Calgary equipment operator, including the rising cost of living.
It's the last day for Alberta separatists to gather petition signatures that could trigger a referendum on pulling the province out of Confederation. Because the deadline falls on a weekend, however, they have two extra days to deliver the petition. Mitch Sylvestre, head of the group Stay Free Alberta, says it plans to hand the paperwork in Monday to Elections...
Prime Minister Mark Carney is headed to Armenia on Saturday for a visit his office says is framed around Ukraine's defence and drumming up more trade and investment in Europe. Jean-Francois Ratelle, an international studies professor at the University of Ottawa who specializes in the Caucasus region, said it's disappointing that the visit doesn't seem to be aimed at continuing...
Canada's initial position supporting Washington's war in Iran shifted over the subsequent days as U.S. President Donald Trump's objectives became more clear, Prime Minister Mark Carney told The Canadian Press. "The scale of what the objectives were, or the clarity about what the objectives were, were not there at the start and have arguably evolved over time," Carney said in...
Prime Minister Mark Carney will head to Yerevan, Armenia, this weekend for a brief stop as a guest at a meeting of the European Political Community. The gathering will bring together leaders from the European Union and non‑EU countries, including the United Kingdom, Norway and Switzerland. It marks the first time a Canadian prime minister has been invited to the...
The message from Mark Carney to Conservative MP Jamil Jivani was very clear -- there's only one player on the Canadian team negotiating with the US and that's his government. But is there? Jivani is in Washington again saying he's working for Canada. The plot thickens. Plus, Avi Lewis passes up another opportunity to run for the party he leads...
Canada’s spy agency says five countries, including China and India, remain the main perpetrators of foreign interference and espionage in this country despite all being singled out in a public inquiry into these activities. The Canadian Security Intelligence Service also identified Russia, Iran and Pakistan as countries that engage in foreign meddling and spying in Canada. In its 2025 annual...
Canadian government came under fire in 2022 over similar case. A senior Iranian soccer official says he’s been in contact with "relevant authorities" after Canada’s immigration minister confirmed the government revoked travel documents granted to a former commander of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps to attend a FIFA meeting in Vancouver. The incident, which has drawn pointed questions from Conservatives...
Prime Minister Mark Carney says a new oil pipeline out of Alberta is "more likely than not." In his first sit-down interview with The Canadian Press since becoming prime minister more than a year ago, Carney said Friday that given the increased global demand for secure new sources of energy due to the war in Iran, and Canada's need to...
The Liberal government's House leader says he's committed to ensuring parliamentary committees operate in public, after Conservatives cried foul this week when Liberals used their new majority to move several committees behind closed doors. "The fundamental role of parliamentary Commons committees, standing committees, is to hold the government accountable, to probe government spending, indeed to approve government spending in advance,"...
Prime Minister Mark Carney says Canada will not use energy or critical minerals as "leverage" in upcoming trade talks with U.S. President Donald Trump's administration. Carney said on Friday that Canada is not talking about halting any such trade with the U.S. and ruled out the notion entirely, adding Canadians honour their contracts and agreements. But the prime minister also...
EDMONTON -- Premier Danielle Smith says her government will look at new legislation depending on what comes out of investigations into claims a separatist group breached the personal information of nearly three million Albertans.
The Conservatives' fundraising machine continues to outpace all other federal parties after bringing in more than $9.4 million in the last quarter, though the Liberals are closing the gap. Elections Canada has released fundraising data for the four major parties for the quarter ending in March. The Liberals raised more than $6.8 million over the quarter, bringing their total for...
President Donald Trump said on Friday that he will increase the tariffs charged on cars and trucks from the European Union next week to 25%, a move that could jolt the world economy at a fragile moment. Trump said in a social media post that the EU "is not complying with our fully agreed to Trade Deal," though he did...
The federal government says it will quadruple the maximum fine that can be levied against airlines for repeated violations of the air passenger bill of rights from $250,000 to $1 million. Transport Minister Steven MacKinnon made the announcement during a news conference on Friday. The regulations, formally known as the air passenger protection regulations (APPR), came into force in 201...
The federal government has referred one more individual to the police this month as part of its probe into over-billing by consultants, making this the 10th case of suspected procurement fraud referred to the police for criminal investigation.
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith says a key approval for a cross-border oil pipeline project to deliver more of the province's crude to the United States is coming after years of advocacy from her government. U.S. President Donald Trump has signed a presidential permit authorizing the Bridger Pipeline expansion, considered a partial revival of the Keystone XL pipeline project. The Keystone...
The video playing was clearly Pete Hoekstra, the frequently combative U.S. ambassador to Canada. But something was off. He kept referring to Canada as a partner?
Gen. Jennie Carignan will present strategies to drastically expand CAF, but current targets remain elusive. The Liberal government will soon be asked to consider options to drastically increase the size of the Canadian military, says the country’s top military commander. Gen. Jennie Carignan, the chief of the defence staff, told CBC News in a recent interview that she’s finalizing a...
A Postmedia-Leger poll published this week shows the Conservatives narrowing the gap slightly on the Liberals, but satisfaction with Prime Minister Mark Carney’s performance remains high among Canadians overall. Forty-eight per cent of Canadians said they support the Liberals, compared to 37 per cent for the Conservatives, when asked which political party they would vote for if a federal election...
The federal government is set to make a major funding announcement for a Canada Soccer national training centre today. A government source, who did not disclose how much funding will be announced, says the money will go to plan, design and pre-construct the centre. The federal government announced in its spring economic update this week that it's setting aside $66...
Bank of Canada governor Tiff Macklem says he's "encouraged" by the federal government's efforts to diversify the economy and protect it against increasingly common shocks to global trade. He also says Ottawa's fiscal update, tabled earlier this week, will likely have little impact on the central bank's forecasts for inflation. Macklem made the comments in an interview with The Canadian...
The new “strategic partnership” that Prime Minister Mark Carney struck with China this year would be damaged if Ottawa sends more military vessels through the Taiwan Strait or if Canadian parliamentarians keep meeting with officials in Taiwan, Beijing’s envoy says. In an interview Thursday, Wang Di, China’s ambassador, said he’s optimistic about warming ties between Beijing and Ottawa but laid...
Contract notice shows Canada is included in $1.1B artillery system deal. The Pentagon announced this week that it has secured a $1.1-billion contract with U.S. defence giant Lockheed Martin to manufacture M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) for several allied countries including Canada. The notice was posted Wednesday by the U.S. Department of War on its contracting website. It...
Jamil Jivani returned to the U.S. capital this week to carry 'the Conservative party's Team Canada message.' Prime Minister Mark Carney dismissed Conservative MP Jamil Jivani's recent trade trip to Washington D.C., saying on Thursday that Jivani can go where he wants, but he won't learn anything Carney doesn't know already. "It has not been our experience that people have...
Premier Doug Ford said Thursday he does not feel he’s lost touch with the average person, despite a backlash over a scrapped plan to buy a jet and new polling numbers showing his popularity declining. “I’m in touch with the people on a daily basis,” Ford told CTV News Toronto in an exclusive interview. He said no other politician “in...
Canada's new parliamentary budget officer says the government's spring economic update lacks details on spending targets and results. Annette Ryan, who appeared before the House of Commons government operations committee today, says the update provided some metrics on progress but few mentions of risks and specific objectives. She says it instead introduced a range of new and und
Prime Minister Mark Carney said it doesn’t hurt to have Conservatives travelling to the U.S. at a time when cross-border trade talks are on the rocks, but it doesn’t necessarily help either. Conservative MP Jamil Jivani, who has a personal friendship with U.S. Vice-President JD Vance, was on his second self-assigned mission to Washington again this week. His trip follows...
The U.S. Air Force has finished modifying and testing a Boeing 747 jet donated by Qatar for temporary use as Air Force One and expects to have it ready for President Donald Trump to use this summer, the service announced late Friday.
A Supreme Court decision striking down a majority Black congressional district in Louisiana has amplified an already intense national redistricting battle by providing Republican officials in several states new grounds to redraw voting districts.
President Donald Trump said on Friday that he will increase the tariffs charged on cars and trucks from the European Union next week to 25%, a move that could jolt the world economy at a fragile moment. Trump said in a social media post that the EU "is not complying with our fully agreed to Trade Deal," though he did...
President Donald Trump's administration is arguing that the war in Iran has already ended because of the ceasefire that began in early April, an interpretation that would allow the White House to avoid the need to seek congressional approval.
Prime Minister Mark Carney is headed to Armenia on Saturday for a visit his office says is framed around Ukraine's defence and drumming up more trade and investment in Europe. Jean-Francois Ratelle, an international studies professor at the University of Ottawa who specializes in the Caucasus region, said it's disappointing that the visit doesn't seem to be aimed at continuing...
Canada's initial position supporting Washington's war in Iran shifted over the subsequent days as U.S. President Donald Trump's objectives became more clear, Prime Minister Mark Carney told The Canadian Press. "The scale of what the objectives were, or the clarity about what the objectives were, were not there at the start and have arguably evolved over time," Carney said in...
President Donald Trump said on Friday that he will increase the tariffs charged on cars and trucks from the European Union next week to 25%, a move that could jolt the world economy at a fragile moment. Trump said in a social media post that the EU "is not complying with our fully agreed to Trade Deal," though he did...
The new “strategic partnership” that Prime Minister Mark Carney struck with China this year would be damaged if Ottawa sends more military vessels through the Taiwan Strait or if Canadian parliamentarians keep meeting with officials in Taiwan, Beijing’s envoy says. In an interview Thursday, Wang Di, China’s ambassador, said he’s optimistic about warming ties between Beijing and Ottawa but laid...
U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday signed an order authorizing the Bridger Pipeline’s proposed project to transport Canadian crude from the U.S.-Canada border to Wyoming.
The first year of Prime Minister Mark Carney’s leadership has had a transformational impact on both Canada’s foreign policy and its standing in the world. The shift has been especially evident in the Indo-Pacific, where Ottawa is more active, more strategic, and more ambitious than it has ever been.
Canada’s long-standing openness helped build one of the world’s most respected immigration systems. However, the intellectual establishment’s push for ever-expanding “inclusivity” has driven that openness beyond what many Canadians consider reasonable.
A comparison of two separate surveys conducted during the 2021 and 2025 election years shows a misalignment between the positions of election candidates and those of their constituents on the division of powers in Canada. While the views of candidates and voters were relatively close on this issue in 2021, the gap widened in 2025. The percentage of voters who...
A collection of SubStack publishing within Canadian public affairs.
An F-35 crash in Alaska should give shivers to Canada’s military. The pilot survived thankfully, but the $200 million plane was completely destroyed.
By now, most of you reading this column are aware of Prime Minister Mark Carney’s announcement earlier this week that the government is launching a sovereign wealth fund (entitled the Canada Strong Fund). There is, in theory, nothing wrong with such an idea. Indeed, the logic behind such a fund is quite sound.
Earlier this month, the federal government quietly released its annual inventory of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, now with data up to 2024. The news was not good. Carbon pollution reduction effectively stalled in 2024 (down a measly 0.3 per cent from the previous year and down only 10 per cent from 2005). Canada, simply put, is not on the trajectory...
This week, the Carney government released its first spring economic update — which painted a better-than-expected picture of Canada's finances despite a long U.S. trade war and instability in the Middle East. The question on many Canadians' minds is: How does this update help them? Host Catherine Cullen visits an Ottawa grocery store to hear from owner Eli Njaim and...
The message from Mark Carney to Conservative MP Jamil Jivani was very clear -- there's only one player on the Canadian team negotiating with the US and that's his government. But is there? Jivani is in Washington again saying he's working for Canada. The plot thickens. Plus, Avi Lewis passes up another opportunity to run for the party he leads...
At Issue this week: What Mark Carney's spending goals outlined in the spring economic update mean for the deficit. Conservatives battle Liberal efforts to move committees behind closed doors. And how will Carney's new sovereign wealth fund help Canadians?
Food affordability remains a priority for many Canadians. This week, Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government unveiled the spring economic update. It included some already announced measures aimed to make groceries more affordable. But some people are considering others measures to make food cheaper: public grocery stores. Federal NDP leader, Avi Lewis, has been talking about establishing a network of public...
