Conservatives confirmed Poilievre's leadership. Can he regain the moment?
To understand the rise and stall of Pierre Poilievre, consider two polls conducted roughly three-and-a-half years apart.
Aaron Wherry
While National Newswatch does not keep an archive of external articles for longer than 6 months, we do keep all articles written by contributors who post directly to our site. Here you will find all of the contributed and linked external articles from Aaron Wherry.
Was Mark Carney's Davos speech a mistake if it upset Trump?
In an interview with an American television network this week, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent volunteered some advice to Mark Carney. "I would just encourage Prime Minister Carney to do what he thinks is best for the Canadian people, not his own virtue-signalling, because we do have a USMCA negotiation coming up," Bessent said, using the American name for the...
In Canadian politics, a new world order can't overshadow the price of groceries
The old world is dying and a new era of global instability beckons. But first, the groceries. "For many Canadians, the cost of groceries and everyday essentials has been too high for too long. They need more support now," Prime Minister Mark Carney conceded on Monday morning, speaking at a grocery store in Ottawa, almost exactly a week removed from...
For Canada and Carney, the end of the old order is just the start
The phrase "rules-based international order" became popular among Canadian leaders starting in 2017. It is not exactly poetry, but it was meant to mean something — shorthand for the web of multilateral acronyms (the UN, the WTO, the IMF, NATO, the G7, the G20, NAFTA, among others) that arose in the wake of the Second World War, all of it...
What can new polling tell us about the health of Canadian democracy?
According to polling by the Environics Institute, 70 per cent of Canadians are either very or somewhat satisfied with "the way democracy works in Canada." Is that good? At the very least, it could certainly be worse. And Environics surveys show that the share of Canadians expressing satisfaction has held relatively steady over the last 15 years — it was...
Is there a wrong way to gain a parliamentary majority?
A few days after Michael Ma decided to cross the floor to the Liberals, Pierre Poilievre was asked whether the loss of another MP was a problem for his leadership of the Conservative Party. On the contrary, Poilievre argued, it was a problem for the leadership of Mark Carney. The prime minister was, in Poilievre's words, "trying to manipulate his...
Another floor-crossing bookends a transformational year in Canadian politics
To illustrate the incredible upheaval that federal politics in Canada has experienced over the last 12 months, one could do worse than to simply look at the last two Liberal caucus holiday parties. A year ago, the Liberal caucus — then numbering 152 members — gathered just a day after Chrystia Freeland's stunning resignation from cabinet. Justin Trudeau tried to...
Who won this week's parliamentary pipeline game? Maybe no one
When the Conservatives tabled a motion asking the House of Commons to "take note" of the memorandum of understanding signed between the federal and Alberta governments and express its support for the construction of a pipeline, the Official Opposition presumably hoped, one way or another, to make trouble for the Liberal government. According to the logic of these things, the...
Can Carney still put together a credible climate plan? Does it matter?
Ten months before he resigned from Mark Carney's cabinet, Steven Guilbeault vouched for the then Liberal leadership contender. "I've known Mark for many years. We've worked together on issues of green energy, transition, fighting climate change and the role of the financial sector in fighting climate change," Guilbeault told reporters when he endorsed Carney's candidacy to lead the party in...
The Carney-Smith agreement surely won't make pipelines 'boring again'
Shortly after Prime Minister Mark Carney and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith formally signed their memorandum of understanding on Thursday, Smith joked to reporters in Calgary that she would love for "pipelines to be boring again." It's not clear that pipelines have ever been boring — they have been associated with political tumult in Canada for at least 70 years. And...
No one wants an election. MPs almost voted to have one anyway
This week's budget drama does not bode well for the 45th Parliament. Is there anyone inside the House of Commons who thinks what the country wants or needs right now is another federal election? And if not, why was there such suspense and drama around this week's vote on the Liberal government's budget policy? As much as those who work...
Is Mark Carney's budget a Progressive Conservative budget?
Attempting perhaps to turn a story about his own leadership into a story about whether the Canadian news media have unfairly focused on dissent within the Conservative caucus, Pierre Poilievre challenged reporters on Wednesday to pay as much attention to the recent criticism levelled against the federal government's budget by Liberal MP Nathaniel Erskine-Smith.
Two Conservative backbenchers steal the show on budget week
Unfortunately, it can be easy for long stretches to forget about most of the 343 democratically elected members of the House of Commons — or to know next to nothing about them. But then, every so often, someone who is not the prime minister, the finance minister or the leader of the Opposition does something to steal the headlines. So...
Are Canadians going to get behind Mark Carney's 'generational' budget?
"Generational" is the Carney government's adjective of choice at this moment of consequence. The word appeared 11 times in the prepared text of François Philippe-Champagne's budget speech and another 45 times in the 493-page budget document.
Carney's talk of 'sacrifices' suggests Canadians could soon face those tough choices
The morning after Mark Carney's 30-minute address to an audience at the University of Ottawa, Pierre Poilievre appeared before reporters to offer his review. The Conservative leader was unimpressed. "This was the sacrifice speech," Poilievre said, gamely trying to coin a moniker.
Trump's latest outburst is another reminder of how much has changed
As Donald Trump explained it, he was primarily worried about the accurate and honourable reporting of Ronald Reagan's views on trade policy — and concerned that a misrepresentation of the former U.S. president's views might somehow influence the justices of the United States Supreme Court. And his belief in this regard is so strong that he was willing to suspend...
As the trade war grinds on, Team Canada is getting restless
Five days before the new president was inaugurated, Justin Trudeau gathered the premiers in Ottawa to discuss the coming crisis. They emerged, Trudeau said, with a "shared sense of purpose, a shared sense of understanding and a commitment to stand together on a united path forward." Seated to Trudeau's right, Ontario Premier Doug Ford said it was "truly a Team...
The political fight over the deficit is still a phoney war
When Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne appeared before the House of Commons finance committee this week, Conservative MP Pat Kelly attempted to corner him with a complicated question disguised as a simple one. "Minister, what year will the budget be balanced?" Kelly asked. Champagne spoke a few dozen words in response, but failed to answer, so Kelly tried again. And then...
What is the Supreme Court going to say about the notwithstanding clause?
Last month, after the federal government filed its factum with the Supreme Court in the case of English Montreal School Board v. Attorney General of Quebec, Justice Minister Sean Fraser stood accused by a Bloc Québécois MP of wanting to rewrite the Constitution. "On the contrary, we do not want to change the Constitution," Fraser said. "We want to give...
Is Mark Carney going to get tied up in pipeline politics?
Danielle Smith wants a pipeline, but wants the prime minister held responsible. Announcing her intention to propose an oil pipeline that would run across northern British Columbia from Alberta to the Pacific Ocean, Premier Danielle Smith declared that this would be "a test of whether Canada works as a country."
With Anandasangaree and the tape, Carney faces his first political firestorm
At the end of a busy day at the United Nations on Tuesday, Prime Minister Mark Carney was asked by a reporter how he could still have confidence in Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree, who has been staggered this week by the release of a recorded conversation in which he casts some doubt on the government's buyback program for "assault-style"...
Carney and Poilievre exchange pleasantries, then resume an epic debate
Pierre Poilievre was back in his happy place. Mark Carney was back in the prime minister's seat. Between them lay 396 centimetres of green carpet and the future of the country. "Why is it that all of this prime minister's promises of yesterday turn into today's disappointments?" the Conservative leader asked. "We need to be clear about the scale of...
Carney says there's been a 'rupture.' What's he going to do about it this fall?
The prime minister — and Canadians — are facing many choices in short order.Even while Mark Carney has been accused of lowering his elbows in regards to American tariffs, he continues to frame the larger challenge facing this country in stark terms. "What's going on is not a transition," Carney said last week in Mississauga, Ont., while announcing an array...
Is the zero-emission vehicle mandate dead or merely sleeping?
Mark Carney's announcement on Friday that implementation of the federal government's zero-emission vehicle mandate will be delayed by at least a year can be read as another retreat on climate policy from the new prime minister. It can also be read as a small victory for Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, who had been calling on the government to abandon the...
Unfortunately, there may not be a hockey analogy for the challenge Canada faces - Are Mark Carney's elbows up or down? Does it matter?
Inevitably, but torturously, this unique moment in the history of this country has come to be understood primarily in hockey terms. "His elbows have mysteriously gone missing," Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre said of Prime Minister Mark Carney on Friday. "He's not thrown one elbow since he took office." A few hours earlier, a reporter had warned the prime minister that...
Pierre Poilievre's (brief) exile is over. Now what?
In fundraising appeals sent to supporters ahead of Monday's vote, the Conservative Party billed Battle River-Crowfoot as the "most important by-election in Canadian history." It was at least the most important byelection in the history of Pierre Poilievre. Not that the winner was ever in much doubt. In attempting to regain a seat in the House of Commons — a...
Can the ZEV mandate survive political pressure and industry objections?
With the federal carbon tax dead and gone, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has found a new target among the Liberal government's climate policies — the electric vehicle availability standard, otherwise known as the zero-emission vehicle (ZEV) mandate. "We will legalize, into the future, your right to drive a gas or diesel-powered truck or car by repealing the Liberal EV mandate,"...
Deal or no deal, Mark Carney has to manage a new relationship with the United States
Can the prime minister formulate his own third option? A week after the latest deadline to somehow resolve the trade war that Donald Trump has launched against Canada — and with Canadian officials now looking ahead to a full renegotiation of the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement — many things remain unclear. But when Mark Carney spoke to reporters in British Columbia on...
Can Mark Carney move fast and not break things?
It's easy to move fast if you're not worried about breaking things. The greater challenge is moving fast while fixing, improving and building things. On the day, two months ago, that his new cabinet was appointed, Carney boasted that it was "among the fastest" swearings-in after an election and that the return of Parliament would be "one of the most...
In Kananaskis, the G7 held together, but showed signs of strain
After Prime Minister Mark Carney and President Donald Trump met one-on-one for 30 minutes on Monday morning, but before their respective teams joined to continue the discussion, the two leaders invited reporters and television cameras into a meeting room in Kananaskis, Alta. to witness them exchanging formal pleasantries.
Can the G7 leaders still find anything to agree about?
Lacking broad consensus, the onus falls on those still interested in co-operation. Fifty years ago this fall the leaders of France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States met in a castle outside Paris for three days of meetings, at the conclusion of which they issued the Declaration of Rambouillet, a 15-point statement of principles and commitments.
Mark Carney has a national unity problem. A Liberal voice in Calgary might help
Viewed from a certain angle, it could be read as good news that only 30 per cent of Albertans believe their province would be better off on its own, a share that has grown only slightly over the last five years. In a hypothetical referendum, just 28 per cent said they would vote to secede. But among those who believe...
Is another 'grand bargain' necessary to build another pipeline?
At question period on Monday, two Conservative MPs beseeched the government to approve a pipeline that very afternoon. "The prime minister is meeting with premiers in Saskatchewan today," said John Barlow, MP for the Alberta riding of Foothills. "Will he approve a pipeline at that meeting?" Such a request raises other questions. Questions like, what pipeline? To where? To be...
Can Mark Carney defeat Canadian populism?
The ultimate fate of the populist appeal may depend on what His Majesty's government does next. Speaking to reporters after the speech from the throne on Tuesday, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre struck a decidedly institutionalist tone. "We joined today in thanking His Majesty for coming to Canada and delivering the throne speech, reinforcing our ancient, great British liberties," he said...
Mark Carney meets the battleground of question period
One of Mark Carney's greatest advantages over the last five months — the first five months of his political career — has seemingly been his ability to play the part of the adult in the room. One of the defining characteristics of the House of Commons is its ability to make grown men and women act like children. Carney's arrival...
Mark Carney's to-do list is short, but steep
What can we glean from the mandate letter the PM sent his ministers? Emerging from his cabinet's first "planning forum" — what previous prime ministers would have called a cabinet "retreat" — on Tuesday evening, Mark Carney told reporters that his ministers had all been given a single mandate letter. "It reflects a unified mission," the prime minister said of...
Mark Carney unveils his crisis cabinet
Standing outside Rideau Hall on Tuesday, Mark Carney said his new cabinet — the first real cabinet of his time as prime minister — was "purpose-built for this hinge moment." Carney has long been fond of thinking of this current moment as a hinge — even before its real depths were clear. The Hinge was the title of the book...
Carney and Trump are only at the beginning of redefining the Canada-U.S. relationship
In 2013, when he was running to unseat a Conservative government, Justin Trudeau said there were a "few very big things the prime minister of Canada needs to get right," one of which was "building a constructive working relationship with the president of the United States." That of course was long before the president of the United States was Donald...
How will Carney contend with a minority — and what kind of Parliament do MPs want?
In his first news conference since Monday's election, Prime Minister Mark Carney did not shy away from some of the rhetoric and ambition that carried him through the campaign. Canada would be embarking, he said, "on the biggest transformation of our economy since the end of the Second World War." This country's "old relationship" with the United States was "over."...
Carney's win caps a remarkable turn of events — and sets up the immense challenges ahead
For the first time in nearly a century, two parties won more than 40 per cent of the vote. Shortly after 1 a.m. on Tuesday, Mark Carney walked onto a stage at the old Ottawa civic centre — the same hockey arena where John Turner was elected Liberal leader in 1984, the last time the Liberals tried to replace a...
A consequential election ends with a stark choice and an uncertain future
John Duffy, the late political strategist and author, began Fights of Our Lives, his lively and encyclopedic account of the federal campaigns that shaped this country, with a simple premise — one always worth returning to at moments like this. "Elections matter," he wrote. Writing in 2002, Duffy was pushing back against what he saw as the lazy cynicism of...
Conservatives update platform to include omitted 'anti-woke' promise
Platform published Tuesday didn't include commitment made earlier in the campaign. The Conservative Party has republished the English-language version of its platform after what it says was a "publishing oversight" resulted in the omission of a previous commitment to crack down on "woke ideology" in the public service and federal funding for university research. Earlier in the campaign, the Conservatives...
Poilievre isn't pivoting, but he's stepping lightly around a few things
During his campaign for the Conservative leadership in 2022, Pierre Poilievre said he would never pivot. "I am who I am," he said. To a great degree, that has held true — despite periodic suggestions from the commentariat that he should change course.
Mark Carney lays out his plan for 'the biggest crisis of our lifetimes'
New spending for defence, housing, infrastructure would mean higher deficits under Liberal plan. Liberal Leader Mark Carney framed his fiscal and spending plan on Saturday in terms of a crisis — "the biggest crisis of our lifetimes," as he put it. The United States is attacking Canada's economy and threatening Canadian sovereignty. The American president is "trying to fundamentally restructure...
Mark Carney and Pierre Poilievre see very different threats to Canada
Thirty-seven years ago, inside a television studio in Ottawa, John Turner thrust an index finger at Brian Mulroney and warned that with one stroke of a pen Mulroney had reversed 120 years of national development and thrown Canada into the "north-south influence of the United States." "When the economic levers go, the political independence is sure to follow," Turner said.
Carney and Poilievre are fighting an election that's about both change and stability
According to survey data released last week by Pollara, Canadians are evenly split on whether they want this federal election to result in "change" or "stability" — 46 per cent of Canadians want change and 45 per cent want stability. Among those who want change, 47 per cent say Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre would best deliver that change, while 2...
A new ballot question: How should Canada define its relationship with the U.S.?
In these disorienting days, Canadian leaders are responding in real time to a deeply uncertain world. On the day the president of the United States launched a global trade war, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith chose to look on the bright side. The United States, she wrote, had decided to "uphold the majority of the free trade agreement … between our...
Is Pierre Poilievre too 'in sync' with Donald Trump?
The Alberta premier thought it was a good thing — a top Conservative strategist begged to differ. The most controversial statement of the federal election so far was uttered before the campaign even started — not by a federal politician, but the premier of Alberta. In an interview taped on March 8 with a right-wing American media outlet, Danielle Smith...
This election is about Donald Trump — and a lot more
In ways no one could have understood at the time, June 16, 2015, turned out to be a momentous day for Canada and Canadian politics, the reverberations of which are only being fully felt now, nearly a decade later. In the moment, the day's most significant event might have seemed to be an announcement by the leader of the Liberal...
Prime Minister Mark Carney tries to turn the page
There were far fewer hugs than in 2015. The 23rd prime minister was a hugger — possibly the huggiest in Canadian history. The 24th prefers a firm handshake, with his left hand on the other person's elbow. Each of Mark Carney's 23 ministers received some version of that greeting after they had sworn their oaths. Carney is very apparently a...
Mark Carney steps into an unprecedented moment
Donald Trump has scrambled the playing board and rewritten the ballot question. Into this unprecedented moment, enter Mark Carney. In the more gossipy corners of Ottawa, this has been a long time coming. At least as far back as the summer of 2012, an eager group of Liberals tried and failed to woo him. That same year, according to Carney...
Trump wants to go back to 1913. Canadians and Americans will suffer the consequences
Canadians have taken Donald Trump's threats of trade action — now realized — very personally. Understandably and justifiably so. But the American president's treatment of Ukraine — not to mention his administration's larger withholding of foreign aid — demonstrates that Canada is far from alone. This United States administration is not concerned much with the welfare of other nations or...
Carney and Poilievre both want to stop wasteful spending. But what would they cut?
It is an exciting debate for accountants. Mark Carney, the presumptive favourite in the Liberal leadership race, says a government led by him would introduce a new budget "framework" that would "separate" the federal government's operating and capital budgets — drawing a distinction between spending that covers ongoing expenses for programs and services and spending that goes toward building and...
Mark Carney has answered some questions — but many more remain
Near the end of Tuesday night's Liberal leadership debate — the second and last time all four candidates will be on the same stage together before a winner is announced on March 9 — Justin Trudeau's would-be successors were asked how they would differentiate themselves from him. Chrystia Freeland, who until two months ago was Trudeau's most trusted lieutenant, initially...
With Trump looming, Pierre Poilievre tries to wrap himself in the flag
Donald Trump now seems to loom over everything — almost as overwhelmingly as the giant Canadian flag that loomed behind Pierre Poilievre at his "Canada First" rally last weekend. If not for Trump, it seems unlikely Poilievre would have been celebrating Flag Day so enthusiastically. For that matter, if not for Trump, it seems likely that this Flag Day —...
Foreign interference report is just the start of a conversation about Canadian democracy
The sensational foreign-interference saga that gripped Parliament Hill off and on for two years came to an unofficial end last month with the release of Justice Marie-Josée Hogue's final report. And between her relatively anticlimactic conclusion there are no "traitors" in Parliament and the incredible tumult that Donald Trump has since provoked, the commission's work could soon fade from memory...
Trump is forcing Canadian leaders to grapple with what they can't control — and what they can
The last few weeks may have at least buried any remaining notion that Canadian leaders can exert much control over the current president of the United States. Six-and-a-half years ago, when Trump's first administration imposed tariffs on steel and aluminum, the Conservatives declared that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was a "failure." "What is his plan to fix this tariff issue?"...
The trade war is off — but for how long?
Canadian sports fans might be persuaded to stop jeering the American national anthem. At least for the next 30 days. The trade war is off. At least for now. But that is of limited solace. And even if the next deadline somehow comes and goes without the resumption of hostilities, it's not clear when Canadians will again be able to...
Donald Trump has ruptured the Canada-U.S. relationship. To what end? And what comes next?
Addressing both Canadians and Americans on Saturday night, at one of the most fraught moments in the history of relations between Canada and the United States, Justin Trudeau reminded listeners of John F. Kennedy's words when the late American president addressed Parliament in May 1961.
Trudeau pulled the Liberals left. Where do they go from here?
When Chrystia Freeland proposed raising taxes on capital gains last April, she pitched the change — and related promises to invest in dental care, school food programs and housing — in starkly moral terms. "Before they complain too bitterly, I would like Canada's one per cent — Canada's 0.1 per cent — to consider this: What kind of Canada do...