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 Max Fawcett.
British Columbia is Canada’s third-largest province. It has the country’s fourth-largest economy. And right now, it might be the single most overlooked and underappreciated member of Confederation. Alberta’s willingness to indulge a separatist temper tantrum is consuming most of the attention that’s not already dedicated to dealing with Donald Trump, and it has already elicited a number of policy concessions...
US President Donald Trump may have finally found a way out of the war he started with Iran. No, it doesn’t come close to regime change, which was one of the Trump administration’s initial justifications for the war. There isn’t even a return of political prisoners, constraints on the country’s proxy forces in the Middle East or an end to...
For a guy who spent much of his career talking and writing about climate policy, Mark Carney has been conspicuously quiet on the subject ever since becoming prime minister. Part of that, I’m sure, is a desire to avoid the mistakes made by the last guy who had his job. And part of it is an understandable need to prioritize...
“Fake it ‘til you make it.” The motto that’s most popular among young entrepreneurs trying to bootstrap their way to success is also, apparently, the strategy being deployed by the Alberta government in its ongoing attempt to get a new oil pipeline to the West Coast. As Minister of Indigenous Relations Rajan Sawhney let slip a few days ago, her...
Steven Guilbeault finally had enough. The renewed deal between Alberta and Ottawa, which lowers the headline industrial carbon price and weakens or eliminates other climate policies he fought for as the minister of environment and climate change, made it abundantly clear that he could no longer sit in the Liberal caucus. Indeed, the writing was so obviously on the political...
There is still a chance, however remote, that Alberta Premier Danielle Smith comes to her senses and realizes the risks associated with a separatist referendum aren’t worth the rewards they offer to her political career. But I certainly wouldn’t bet on it, and I doubt Prime Minister Mark Carney will either. And while overt federal involvement in any separatist referendum...
The leaders of Alberta’s separatist movement spent years organizing their way into de-facto control over Alberta’s governing party, and with it the ability to direct the terms of their own referendum petition. They collected many tens of thousands of signatures, raised untold (and unknown) amounts of money and were preparing for a public vote this fall. And now, thanks to...
Danielle Smith’s United Conservative Party never mentioned the prospect of an independence referendum in the last election campaign, and voters never gave them a mandate to pursue one. But that hasn’t stopped her from pushing the province into a polarizing separatist debate, one that’s already attracting attention — and almost certainly interference — from foreign powers. Worse, it might all...
The old Pierre Poilievre is back. After watching Mark Carney’s Liberals secure a majority government with a clean sweep in last Monday’s three byelections and with rumours of more floor crossers in the offing, the Conservative Party of Canada leader has decided to abandon his kinder and gentler personality reboot in favour of his more familiar brand of populist petulance...
After 12 months, five floor crossings and one Liberal convention this weekend in Montreal, Mark Carney is going to get his majority government. If the Liberals win the three byelections scheduled for next week, and they should, they’ll have 174 seats, enough to pass legislation without relying on the Speaker of the House of Commons or support from another party...
Aaron Gunn wants a national energy program. He’d never describe it that way, of course, but the MP for North Island-Powell River is just the latest in a long line of Conservative politicians to unintentionally argue for the revival of Pierre Trudeau’s signature energy policy. With gas prices spiking above $2 per litre in his province, Gunn tried to blame...
There are many ways that governments can be defeated, from self-inflicted scandals and political corruption to their failure to respond to broader global trends and events. But few things will bring a government to its knees faster than unchecked food price inflation. The surge of post-COVID inflation and the impact it had on grocery bills transformed the politics in most...
It may have taken him more than a year, but Pierre Poilievre has finally come up with an answer to US President Donald Trump. In his ongoing attempt to pivot away from the pompous petulance that had defined his brand of politics, the Conservative leader tried something other than attacking the government. Instead, he proposed a solution to the trade...
It wasn’t that long ago that the federal NDP held the balance of political power in Canada. Now, it looks like it will be lucky to hold onto any political power at all. The defection by Nunavut MP Lori Idlout leaves them with just six federal MPs, and that’s without accounting for Alexandre Boulerice’s widely rumoured move to provincial politics...
After a humiliating election defeat, multiple defections from his caucus and a widening lead in the polls for Mark Carney’s Liberals, Pierre Poilievre has finally decided to make some changes. He debuted the new look at a recent speech at the Economic Club of Canada, one in which he cited the writings of Marcus Aurelius, name-checked Pierre Trudeau in a...
If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging. That’s known as the “First Law of Holes,” and it’s wisdom the caucus colleagues of Conservative MP Jamil Jivani desperately need to familiarize him with before he digs any deeper into the political hole they’ve all found themselves in. It was bad enough that he decided to freelance a trip down...
David Eby had clearly seen enough. Ahead of a meeting in Ottawa between the premiers and the prime minister, Eby decided to call out the leaders of Alberta’s separatist movement and their widely documented meetings with Trump administration officials. "To go to a foreign country and to ask for assistance in breaking up Canada, there's an old-fashioned word for that...
They’re just not that into you, Pierre. Ahead of his career-defining speech in Calgary at the Conservative Party of Canada’s national convention, that’s the message that a string of polls is telling the federal opposition leader. The big question for both delegates and his caucus is whether he’s even able to do something about it — and whether they want...
Mark Carney’s now-legendary speech at the World Economic Forum inspired thousands of Canadians, impressed his fellow world leaders, and triggered an entirely predictable temper tantrum from Donald Trump. But maybe the most impressive thing it did was shut Pierre Poilievre up for a couple of days.
For all of its great prime ministers, Canada has never had one who was known for their ability to deliver stirring speeches, much less ones with global import and impact. In a remarkable 16-minute-long speech delivered in front of the world’s most powerful political and business leaders in Davos, Mark Carney just changed that. It will almost certainly go down...
The bromance, it seems, is over. After Prime Minister Mark Carney’s official visit to China yielded a much-anticipated deal on electric vehicle and agriculture exports, Ontario Premier Doug Ford came out swinging.
Even before the 51st state threats, before the tariffs, before the ICE raids and now the flagrantly illegal attack on Venezuela, Donald Trump was the least popular American president in Canadian history by quite some distance. But if there was a relative bastion of support for America's 45th and 47th president, it was in Alberta — and especially its oil...
At some point, Danielle Smith is going to have to pick a side. For months now, Alberta’s premier has been catering to the separatists who dominate the membership of her United Conservative Party while insisting she doesn’t explicitly support their cause. But their appetite just keeps growing, and with Smith’s government clearing the way for a referendum on Alberta independence...
Liberal prime ministers aren’t supposed to get standing ovations in Calgary, much less from a room packed full of mostly-Conservative business leaders and provincial cabinet ministers who spent the better part of a decade honing their hatred of the Trudeau government. But Mark Carney, for better or worse — more on that in a moment — is clearly not your...
Another day, another attack on freedoms by Alberta's supposedly libertarian premier. In announcing her government’s plan to apply the Notwithstanding Clause to three separate pieces of legislation targeting transgender youth and adults in Alberta, Smith told reporters that “this is one of the most consequential actions our government will take during our time in office.” In time, it might be...
It’s coming. That’s the word from Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, who promised Albertans a memorandum of understanding between her government and Mark Carney’s that would spell out the path for a new oil pipeline — and the promises she would make on things like the industrial carbon price and support for carbon capture and storage projects to get it. “We...
Most people covering Mark Carney’s first budget are understandably focused on the big-ticket items, whether it’s the massive funding commitments to new economic infrastructure or the cuts being used to help pay for them. I’m more interested in a line buried on Page 220, under the heading “Improving the Efficiency of the Tax System,” that declares the government’s intention to...
Mark Carney clearly cares about climate policy. He spent much of his career, and especially the more recent portion, articulating the key role he saw for financial markets in pricing and ultimately reducing greenhouse gas emissions. And yet, during his almost eight months as prime minister, he has been conspicuously quiet about an issue that seemed to define his politics...
By the time the Grey Cup rolls around in a little over three weeks, Prime Minister Mark Carney expects to announce the next tranche of “nation-building” major projects. Given all the chatter around a “grand bargain” between his government and Alberta, one that would effectively trade the elimination of the emissions cap for a major investment in carbon capture and...
He just can’t help himself. As the federal budget approaches and Canada’s relationship with the United States continues to hang by an increasingly tenuous thread, Pierre Poilievre apparently decided that it would be a good use of his time as official opposition leader to re-litigate one of his oldest (and dumbest) arguments: that Nazism was, in fact, socialism.
The leaders and senior executives within Alberta’s oil and gas community — and the politicians they fund and support — have had more than a decade to absorb the lessons of the Northern Gateway pipeline fight. It is becoming more apparent with each passing day and each new statement from political leaders in British Columbia opposing Danielle Smith’s attempt to...
It’s hard enough to get a pipeline built in Canada, much less one carrying oil to British Columbia’s northern coastline. But Alberta Premier Danielle Smith seems determined to make it nearly impossible. Never mind, for the moment, that her latest proposal is missing both a specific route and a private sector company that would actually put its money where her...
At long last, Danielle Smith’s government has found a proponent for her province’s latest pipeline dream: itself. On Wednesday, Smith announced that the province, with the “support” of a trio of pipeline companies, will draw up plans for a new pipeline that would bring Alberta’s oil to Pacific tidewater. She also effectively dared the federal government to oppose it. “This...
Mark Carney told Canadians that he knew how to deal with Donald Trump. April’s federal election results showed that voters wanted to believe him. But now, more than three months in and with the latest economic data starting to show signs of tariff-driven deterioration, Canadians are starting to wonder whether his handling of our relationship with America is going according...
Among all the reasons that Pierre Poilievre chose Battle River-Crowfoot as the riding that would return him to Parliament, one seems to stand out above the rest: it wouldn't take a lot of work to win. After all, Damien Kurek took the riding with almost 83 per cent of the vote in April's election, and it's hard to imagine a...
One vote. That’s all that separated the Liberal and Bloc Quebecois candidates in the riding of Terrebonne after a judicial recount that moved the Liberals one seat closer to a majority government. Unfortunately, it’s also apparently all that separated some Conservative Party of Canada candidates from flirting with election conspiracy theories — the very sort that now defines the MAGA...
It’s time to build. That was Mark Carney’s message to Canadians during the election campaign, and it ought to be one of his top priorities as he continues his job as prime minister. That means more housing, more healthcare and more (heck, any) high-speed rail. But it also means more energy — and more of the infrastructure that moves and...
In a leaders' debate that was supposed to be all about Pierre Poilievre and Mark Carney, Jagmeet Singh ended up stealing the spotlight. While logic would have dictated that Singh set his sights on Carney and win back some of the voters who had fled to the Liberals, he instead took his biggest swipes at Pierre Poilievre — often at...
At least he still has his rallies. While public polling shows a large and durable Liberal lead, and global betting markets putting overwhelming odds on a Mark Carney victory on April 28, Pierre Poilievre can still comfort himself with the fact that thousands of people are willing to line up to hear him talk. In Edmonton, somewhere between 9,000 and...
Pierre Poilievre has been witness to a lot of change over the 21 years he’s served as a member of Parliament. He proudly resisted most of it, whether it’s changes to our social norms and mores or changes to how we see our own country and its past. That helped him win the leadership of his party and build a...
It was supposed to be a cakewalk. Instead, as Pierre Poilievre kicks off the election campaign that was supposed to be a mere formality, his odds of becoming Canada’s next prime minister get longer with each passing day. And now, for some reason, his closest provincial ally just gave Mark Carney’s Liberals a gift-wrapped political sledgehammer to celebrate the launch...
Naheed Nenshi isn’t used to asking for the spotlight. The Alberta NDP leader's unique brand of politics — politics in full sentences — made him an overnight sensation after he won the 2010 Calgary mayoral election, and he’s been able to count on the interest of journalists in Alberta and abroad ever since. Now, after winning the Alberta NDP leadership...
Pierre Poilievre knows he has a Donald Trump problem. After spending the last two-plus years imitating Trump’s approach to politics and winning plaudits from the people in his orbit, his proximity to the U.S. president and his anti-Canada policies has suddenly become an obstacle to his once-inevitable election victory. As it turns out, the reaping isn’t nearly as much fun...
After years of promising to axe the carbon tax, Conservatives watched in obvious horror as Prime Minister Mark Carney did it for them on his first day in office. They could have chosen to take a victory lap here, celebrating the elimination of a policy they’d sunk huge amounts of political time and treasure into attacking, and moved on to...
The legendary 1974 heavyweight fight between an aging Muhammad Ali and the unbeaten (and seemingly unbeatable) world champion George Foreman looked at the time like a dangerously one-sided affair. Bookies had pegged Ali as a 4:1 underdog, and his more ardent fans thought avoiding major injury — and even death — would be the real victory for the former champion...
By now, most politicians understand that the best way to deal with Donald Trump and his reckless pronouncements and policies is to take him seriously rather than literally. That was former adviser Anthony Scaramucci’s advice back in 2016, and it held true throughout Trump’s first term. And yet, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has repeatedly chosen to take him at his...
On Sunday, the sprint to replace Justin Trudeau as Liberal leader will hit the finish line. If Mark Carney wins, as most political observers expect, he should call a federal election on Monday. No waiting around for NDP leader Jagmeet Singh to change his mind again, and no bothering with testing the confidence of the House of Commons. On Monday...
“Elbows up.” That was the message Mike Myers sent to fellow Canadians at the end of last weekend’s Saturday Night Live, and it’s already resonating across the country in the wake of Donald Trump’s delivery of his long-threatened tariffs. It was the perfect hockey-oriented counterpoint to Wayne Gretzky’s repeated displays of cowardice, and a reminder of how Canadians ought to...
Canada, as it turns out, isn’t broken. That was the message coming out of Pierre Poilievre’s big rebrand rally, where he tried to reposition himself as a champion of Canada’s virtues rather than just another critic of its failures. And while Liberal partisans will look skeptically on this attempted political metamorphosis, the biggest doubters might actually be some of his...
Even Danielle Smith should be getting the memo by now. After she and Canada’s other premiers traveled to Washington to make their case against America’s proposed tariffs, only to be publicly humiliated by a Trump administration staffer after their meeting, it should be obvious that her brand of not-so-quiet diplomacy isn’t working. As CBC Washington correspondent Alex Panetta noted on...
“Everything Trump touches dies.” That’s the phrase coined by Rick Wilson, the former Republican strategist turned anti-Trump activist and Lincoln Project co-founder, who documented its many examples in a 2018 book by the same name. Now, it seems, we may have a Canadian case study to add to his list: Pierre Poilievre’s once-insurmountable polling lead.
Donald Trump isn’t joking about annexing Canada. That’s the message that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau shared with a group of business leaders at his hastily-convened “Canada-U.S. Economic Summit”, one that sought to address the growing threat posed by America’s president. In a so-called “hot mic” moment, Trudeau was heard saying that “Mr. Trump has it in mind that the easiest...
The Carney bounce is real. After polls by EKOS and Mainstreet showed a surprising surge in Liberal fortunes, the Angus Reid Institute — long viewed as a more Conservative-friendly pollster — reported a similar uptick in its latest soundings. After bottoming out at 16 per cent support in late December with Trudeau still at the helm, they now have the...
The race to replace Justin Trudeau as Liberal leader and Canada’s prime minister won’t officially conclude until March 9. Based on the way some people are reacting, though, it might already be over. After yet another round of high-profile endorsements for Mark Carney — this time from industry minister and Quebec political heavyweight François-Philippe Champagne, Transport Minister Anita Anand and...
As an annoyingly stubborn optimist, I try to find the good in even the worst situations. And so, as new U.S. President Donald Trump threatens Canada’s sovereignty and promises our imminent economic ruin, I’ve been racking my brain for the silver lining in all of the dark clouds forming over our country. I think I’ve found it: he’s going to...
So much for that reprieve. The pro-appeasement Postmedia pundits and Conservative politicians in Canada hadn’t even completed their victory lap over the apparent postponement of Donald Trump’s promised tariffs when Trump himself announced that he’d changed his mind. “We’re thinking in terms of 25 per cent on Mexico and Canada,” he told reporters on Monday. “I think we’ll do it...
History may often rhyme, but it gets downright poetic when it comes to the Trudeaus and Alberta’s oil and gas industry. Take Pierre Trudeau’s National Energy Program, which has been the bête noire of Albertans for more than 40 years now. It sought to grow Canada’s oil sands sector, build pipelines from coast-to-coast, and wean the country off its dependence...
Petroleum over country. For Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, that appears to be the guiding philosophy behind her unscheduled visit to Mar-a-Lago this week. Appearing as a guest of Kevin O’Leary, the television celebrity who openly petitioned for an economic union with the United States, Smith tried to sell incoming President Donald Trump on the value of exempting oil and gas...
Christy Clark almost certainly won’t win the leadership of the Liberal Party of Canada, but at least she’s already made some history: never before has a candidate so quickly and thoroughly torched their own credibility as she did last week. In a recent interview with the CBC’s Catherine Cullen, she claimed the mantle of a “lifelong Liberal” — and denied...
If the road to hell is paved with good intentions, Justin Trudeau has laid down more than his share of blacktop during his nine-plus years in office. After almost a decade of Stephen Harper’s miserly approach to governing, his open-hearted approach to politics was a refreshing and welcome change. He won a majority government on a promise to make government...