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 Alex Ballingall.
Conservative MP Matt Jeneroux spoke by phone with Prime Minister Mark Carney and told him he was vacating his seat before publicly announcing a bombshell resignation that cast further doubt on Pierre Poilievre’s grip on the Tory caucus, according to two sources with knowledge of the situation. The Carney-Jeneroux phone call came at the height of a political drama that...
Conservative MPs facing questions about party loyalty are enduring unfair “harassment” fuelled by rumours and Liberal attempts to earn a majority in the House of Commons through convincing opposition members to defect to the government, a senior Tory claims. In an interview with the Star, Conservative whip Chris Warkentin bemoaned how MPs in his caucus are being repeatedly asked whether...
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre denied Wednesday that he recently suggested former prime minister Justin Trudeau should be jailed, but defended his claim that leadership of Canada’s national police force is “despicable” for allegedly covering up for the Liberal government. His comments come as signs of discontent inside the party emerged in the fallout of those claims, even as several Conservative...
Advocates and community groups are raising fears that federal funding for gender equality is on Prime Minister Mark Carney’s chopping block, with signs of approaching “austerity” and a shift in priorities from the Justin Trudeau era, when outspoken feminism was a core part of the government’s image.
Former Liberal environment minister Catherine McKenna is casting doubt on attempts to strike a “grand bargain” between the federal government and the fossil fuel industry, as she stresses the importance of Canada’s greenhouse emissions targets under the international Paris Agreement that Prime Minister Mark Carney has recently downplayed. In an interview with the Star to mark the release of her...
The safest assumption in Canadian politics right now is that Pierre Poilievre is going to win Monday’s federal byelection in Battle River—Crowfoot. In interviews this week with Conservative insiders, in most every pundit’s analysis, and in the strategizing of politicos of all stripes, it’s taken as a given: the Tory leader will be back in the House of Commons for...
With trade talks lumbering on, and questions about what type of deal Canada might get with Donald Trump after the European Union agreed to keep American tariffs, Stephen Harper believes an attitude is taking root in the United States. And he thinks it’s wrong.
Call it a prudent climbdown, a show of weakness, or an unavoidable concession. There are several ways to look at Prime Minister Mark Carney’s 11th-hour decision to cancel the federal government’s Digital Services Tax last weekend. But what if it’s also a tangible example of exactly what Carney warned would happen?
Canada’s top soldier says the military should keep buying at least some additional F-35 fighter jets from the United States, which she said will remain a key partner as Prime Minister Mark Carney pursues deeper defence ties with the European Union. Gen. Jennie Carignan, the chief of the defence staff, said Monday that the F-35 jet comes with many advantages...
The Liberal government is reviewing a series of changes to add oversight and restrain some — but not all — of the extraordinary powers created under its controversial legislation to fast-track major development projects. The proposed law, Bill C-5, has sparked warnings of Indigenous resistance in the coming weeks, along with condemnation from environmental groups, and some reservations within the...
Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government might weaken or cancel the incoming oil and gas emissions cap if a group of fossil fuel companies builds a planned $16.5 billion carbon capture megaproject for Alberta’s oilsands, three federal government sources told the Star. Hailed under former prime minister Justin Trudeau’s leadership as a marquee plank of the Liberal government’s climate action plan...
The co-chair of the federal government’s climate action advisory group is slamming Prime Minister Mark Carney for using fossil fuel “marketing speak” at Monday’s summit with provincial leaders, when he endorsed the idea of building new pipelines for “decarbonized” oil.
A “secret” memo from the Department of National Defence last year said Canada’s 2005 decision not to join the U.S. ballistic missile defence system harmed the country’s reputation as a security partner and could make it harder to participate in the AUKUS military collaboration between Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States. The memo also raised Canada’s long-standing failure...
Four sources close to Mendicino confirmed Friday that he is eyeing a mayoral bid to replace incumbent Olivia Chow in next year’s municipal election. Marco Mendicino, the former Liberal cabinet member and chief of staff to Prime Minister Mark Carney, is considering a run for mayor of Toronto, multiple sources say. Four sources close to Mendicino confirmed Friday that he...
The PM is placing a heavy emphasis on cracking down on crime after some Liberals say the issue cost them GTA seats in last month’s election.
With a successful election and a high-stakes trip to Washington behind him, Prime Minister Mark Carney is grappling with a tangle of considerations and big decisions as he launches his first governing mandate for Canada’s incoming minority Parliament.
There are plenty of questions the party will need to address including how he can lead the party from outside Parliament. Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is not the prime minister. As of Tuesday morning, he was not even an MP. At the nexus of those two outcomes, which just months ago would have been nearly unthinkable, is a maelstrom of...
Liberal Leader Mark Carney says there is a realistic chance his economic plan could eliminate the federal budget deficit within five years, but that he refrained from putting the claim on paper because it is irresponsible to make assumptions about growth during U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade crisis.
The Conservative leader’s plain sense of righteous grievance will help determine whether his lifelong project as a career politician leads to the Prime Minister’s Office, or to the ignominy of an electoral defeat.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is defending one of his candidates in British Columbia who was accused of making “horrific and offensive” comments on social media about the harms perpetrated against Indigenous Peoples in Canada. At a campaign stop in Osoyoos, B.C., Poilievre rejected calls from Indigenous leaders and others for the Conservatives to drop Aaron Gunn, a documentary filmmaker running...
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre holds personal investments that include the same company his party has repeatedly criticized in its attacks on Liberal Leader Mark Carney, his campaign revealed. In the opening days of the federal election, Poilievre and the Conservatives have hammered Carney over his former role as chair of Brookfield Asset Management, a major part of the global investment...
Pierre Poilievre wants you to know: if he’s prime minister, taxes will get axed. Red tape will get slashed. Crime will get smacked down. But there is another long-standing Poilievre priority that the party has not highlighted in the same way over the opening stretch of the campaign this week.
In the opening days of the federal election campaign, one thing has united the Conservatives and New Democrats in their opposition to Liberal leader Mark Carney: that he was chairman of a massive investment firm called Brookfield Asset Management. Carney’s corporate and banking pedigree is an asset in itself, Liberals argue, since it highlights his experience and economic credentials at...
Canadians will decide their next government, Carney said at a Friday news conference, adding any trade talks will only come after the U.S. president shows respect for Canada’s sovereignty.
The grand chief of a group of northern Ontario First Nations is blasting Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre over his promise to fast-track approvals and pump money into the Ring of Fire mineral region. Poilievre made the pre-campaign pledge Wednesday in Sudbury, promising to green light all federal assessments for the area within six months if his Conservatives form the next...
Pressure over Mark Carney’s personal finances isn’t going away. At this point, he might be making it worse.
Call it the end of the beginning. When Liberals choose their next leader on Sunday, Canadian politics will enter a new era. The long denouement of Justin Trudeau’s prime ministership — which started, officially, when he announced his resignation on Jan. 6 — will give way to the opening act of whatever comes next.
Worsening feelings for Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre are helping push Canadian voters towards the federal Liberal party, a new poll suggests. In an online survey published Wednesday, Pollara Strategic Insights found that 34 per cent of respondents were more open to voting for the governing Liberals by mid-February than at the end of last year.
Can Carney’s vision save his party from losing power after almost 10 years in office? Not long after the Iron Curtain fell, Mark Carney found himself in the goalie crease of a Soviet-era hockey arena, taking professional-calibre shots from a cadre of Russian speedsters. It was January 1993, and the young Canadian was in net for the Oxford Blues. The...
Liberal supporters, former MPs, and one leadership campaign say problems with the party’s voter verification process could prevent people from casting their ballots in the race to replace Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. The party is using Canada Post’s Identity+ app or visits to post offices to verify that registered Liberals are Canadian citizens who can vote in the leadership race...
The federal government is set to announce plans on Wednesday for a high-speed rail line from Toronto to Quebec City, the Star has learned. Two sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the anticipated project will be unveiled in Montreal, where Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Transport Minister Anita Anand were slated to make an announcement Wednesday.
The federal Conservatives are amping up criticism of Mark Carney, the Liberal leadership contender they appear to assume will replace Justin Trudeau as their chief opponent in the next federal election. The criticism comes as the party stages a “Canada First” rally in Ottawa on Saturday, aimed at pitching Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre as the best answer to U.S. President...
Liberal leadership contender Mark Carney is not ruling out calling a general election if he wins the party’s leadership and replaces Justin Trudeau as prime minister on March 9. At a press conference in Vancouver on Thursday, the former Bank of Canada and Bank of England governor said he “will do” what is best for the country as it faces...
Defence spending is hot. The consumer carbon price is not. And at least two “czars” are on offer to help solve the nation’s problems. With little over a month left before Liberals choose Canada’s next prime minister, the candidates to replace Justin Trudeau are starting to fill out their policy visions. There is broad agreement on issues like the desire...
Decrying American “aggression” towards Canadian prosperity, Liberal leadership candidate Mark Carney outlined his vision Wednesday to spur economic growth and protect the country in an uncertain world where Canada can no longer rely on its partnership with the United States. It was the latest sign of how U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariff threats and talk of annexing Canada have taken...
Canada would not immediately match any U.S. tariffs with “dollar for dollar” penalties on American products coming into Canada — an approach that Ontario Premier Doug Ford views as not “proportional” or strong enough to counter Donald Trump’s threats, the Star has learned. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told premiers “everything is on the table” as he met them behind closed...
The former prime minister described Trump’s recent statements as incorrect and out-of-sync with the longstanding friendship between Canada and the United States. Former prime minister Stephen Harper says he has “a real problem” with some of Donald Trump’s recent statements about Canada, describing them as incorrect and out-of-sync with the long-standing friendship between this country and the United States...
The field of potential candidates to replace Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as Liberal leader is growing, ahead of a key caucus meeting Wednesday where Liberals MPs are expected to debate the rules and shape of the coming contest. According to a source familiar with her thinking, Burlington MP Karina Gould, the current House leader, is actively considering a leadership race...
Former Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney is seriously thinking about running for the Liberal leadership if Justin Trudeau resigns, a source close to him says, as the government grapples with uncertainty over the prime minister’s future in the face of the threat of American tariffs and a snap federal election. The leadership development comes after the heads of the...
Pressure is mounting on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to finally decide whether to resign or cling on, with some Liberal MPs urging him to quickly make up his mind, and one major business group raising concerns about “chaos” at the centre of Canadian political power. The uncertainty over who will lead the country into the new year comes barely three...
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is fighting once again for his political life, behind closed doors. At an emergency meeting Monday evening — called after Chrystia Freeland, Trudeau’s now former top deputy and one-time “minister of everything” quit as finance minister — the prime minister came face to face with Freeland along with an angry and bewildered caucus before he planned...
The opposition Conservatives say they will maintain defence budget increases planned under the current Liberal government if they take power, without making equivalent cuts under their proposed “dollar-for-dollar” spending cap.
Carbon pricing — including the Liberal government’s carbon levy-and-rebate scheme — had a small impact on the rate of inflation over the past five years, when the climate policy was responsible for a “small fraction” of the surge in consumer prices, according to a new study. Published Thursday, the report from University of Calgary economists Trevor Tombe and Jennifer Winter...
In Donald Trump’s world, it’s all rather straightforward. If a country — like, say, Canada — exports more to the United States than it imports from America, the U.S. is getting ripped off. It’s called a trade deficit. And Trump doesn’t like it.
A Liberal MP said he was threatened with unspecified “consequences” if he votes against the government’s proposed $250 cheques, an affordability measure that continues to face an uncertain path through the House of Commons. Hamilton MP Chad Collins said earlier this week that he would vote against the government’s cash rebates because they leave out seniors and people with disabilities...
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s top national security adviser warned earlier this year that the RCMP’s personal protective service was facing “unsustainable pressure” amid a surge of threats against public figures, a government document shows.
The new funding is set to be unveiled Friday, when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is expected to announce that Ontario is the third province to sign on to its emerging National School Food Program. Ontario is set to get more than $108 million from the federal government to expand existing school food programs and start feeding an extra 160,000 kids...
Several GTA mayors say they support a new request from Mississauga for the federal government to provide all funds in a major housing program now, as the Liberals ring the alarm over Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre’s plan to scrap the initiative to help pay for his proposed tax cut to boost home construction.
Federal Housing Minister Sean Fraser is exposing another Opposition Conservative MP who has voiced a desire for federal money from a program the party promises to cut, as the Liberals and Tories dashed off duelling letters over housing policy to mayors and premiers across the country.
One of the dissenting Liberal MPs calling for Justin Trudeau to resign is expressing disappointment over how quickly the prime minister trumpeted his intention to stay on after this week’s high stakes caucus meeting over his leadership.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was all smiles as he walked into a Liberal caucus meeting Wednesday morning, where dissidents in his own ranks were prepared to challenge his leadership while his supporters harshly condemned the damaging show of disunity. At the same time, a grassroots petition describing an “existential crisis” in the Liberal party was demanding an urgent secret ballot...
With no new campaign director, no new ad campaign rollout, no major cabinet shuffle, and no change at the top amid grim polling data for Justin Trudeau’s Liberals, anxiety and dread amongst MPs and insiders about their electoral prospects has ramped up, sources tell the Star. Most MPs head out Friday — some fled Ottawa earlier — into a Thanksgiving...
A Liberal MP from Toronto says he has been unfairly blocked from speaking in the House of Commons for seven months since he refused to apologize after declaring that a pro-Russian “Putin wing” had “taken over” Pierre Poilievre’s Conservative party. The federal Tories have expressed outrage over the claim they dismiss as a lie, but Yvan Baker argues he shouldn’t...
The federal government is off to a slow start on its 20-year plan to improve Canada’s contribution to the North American Aerospace Defence Command (NORAD) that it shares with the United States, new documents show. Tabled in Parliament last week in response to a written question from Conservative MP Bob Zimmer, the documents detail how much money was spent over...
Premier Doug Ford’s push to limit the construction of bike lanes in Ontario municipalities is facing criticism from some Liberal cabinet ministers and MPs. Liberal MP Yasir Naqvi, a former Ontario attorney general, told the Star on Wednesday the controversial plan was an “unacceptable” distraction from a premier who “doesn’t want to do his job.”
In an effort to catch up to the Conservatives’ dominant fundraising machine ahead of the next federal election, Justin Trudeau’s Liberals plan to resume holding fundraisers in private homes. A party source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, confirmed to the Star that the Liberals have ditched a policy adopted in 2017 to only hold political fundraisers in public spaces...
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau could see his government fall next week after the Liberals offered the Conservative Official Opposition the first chance at presenting a motion of non-confidence in the House of Commons, despite the Liberals’ loss Monday of a key Montreal-area seat, the Star has learned.
One of the first things many MPs saw when they returned to Parliament Hill on Monday was a large, flapping “F—k Trudeau” flag. As if they needed a reminder about the mood in Canadian politics. The flag, one of several, was raised at the familiar anti-establishment demonstration that is often stationed on the sidewalk in front of West Block, where...
A combative Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Friday he’s not going to resign as Liberal leader if his party loses a high-stakes Montreal byelection on Monday, the same day his minority government is slated to return to Parliament without the NDP promising to prop it up. In an interview on the Montreal radio station CJAD 800, Trudeau said he will...
Trailing in the polls and suddenly facing the prospect of an early federal election, many Liberals say there is a welcome chance for renewal now that the governing party’s national campaign director is leaving his post. Jeremy Broadhurst, a veteran strategist who was set to quarterback the Liberals’ election campaign after serving as a top adviser in Prime Minister Justin...