In his first media availability since two MPs announced they’re leaving his caucus, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre says he plans to continue leading the party as he has been. When asked by a reporter to respond to comments by former Conservative MP Chris d’Entremont — who last Tuesday announced he was crossing the floor to the Liberals and later blamed...
The Crawford Nickel Project in Ontario and a hydroelectric project in Nunavut are expected to be added to Canada's major projects list. Prime Minister Mark Carney will be in Terrace, B.C., Thursday to announce the next batch of major projects the government is submitting to its Major Projects Office. A senior Ontario government source says the Crawford Nickel Project, based...
Top diplomats from the Group of Seven nations gathered in the Niagara region this week to discuss global crises -- but Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand said she did not broach stalled trade negotiations between Ottawa and the United States. Anand and U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio met on the margins of the summit Wednesday, where they spoke about...
Canada’s foreign minister suggested that it is not her job to determine if the United States has breached international law when striking alleged drug boats in the Caribbean Sea. Foreign Minister Anita Anand (Oakville East, Ont.) made the remark at the closing press conference of the final gathering of top diplomats of Canada’s G7 presidency in Ontario’s Niagara region on...
The NDP is considering how to fast-track its campaign readiness in the case of a snap election, sources say, as its MPs weigh a budget vote that could trigger the fall of the Carney government. The NDP is weighing how to fast-track its campaign readiness in the case of a snap election, sources say, as its MPs weigh a budget...
Betting on Poilievre is betting that someone who’s been in politics for 20 years will grow more popular, and the odds tell us that only rarely happens. The list of politicians who gain popularity after 20 years in public life is short. When it happens, it involves a major change in the politician, or a bigger change in the world...
The Weekly Nanos Tracking is produced by the Nanos Research Corporation, headquartered in Canada, which operates in Canada and the United States. The data is based on random interviews with 1,000 Canadian consumers (recruited by RDD land- and cell-line sample), using a four-week rolling average of 250 respondents each week, 18 years of age and over. The random sample of...
If Canada is plunged into an election next week, we can already call it one of the most unwanted campaigns this country has ever seen. Gord Johns, one of the New Democrat MPs who gets a vote on that matter next week, said it bluntly to the Star this week: “I know certainly Canadians don’t want an election,”
Last week was an awful one for the Conservative Party. It should have been a time when Leader Pierre Poilievre and his team were critiquing Prime Minister Mark Carney’s first budget and laying out alternatives. Instead, they spent most of the week answering questions about Poilievre’s leadership as one of his Members of Parliament crossed the floor and joined the...
Another Alberta separatist has travelled south of the border to woo American conservatives. In recent months, members of the Alberta Prosperity Project (APP), a separatist organization, have boasted of meetings in Washington, D.C., with senior-level officials from the U.S. administration. Now, the only political party affiliated with Alberta’s independence movement, the Republican Party of Alberta (RPA), is making its own...
Betting on Poilievre is betting that someone who’s been in politics for 20 years will grow more popular, and the odds tell us that only rarely happens. The list of politicians who gain popularity after 20 years in public life is short. When it happens, it involves a major change in the politician, or a bigger change in the world...
There are moments in a city’s history when its resilience is tested — when decisions made in distant boardrooms send shockwaves through our streets, homes, and hearts. Stellantis’ announcement to end production of the Jeep Compass at Brampton’s Assembly Plant is one such moment, threatening the livelihoods of 3,000 workers and shaking our community.
For centuries, alchemists promised and failed to turn lead into gold. What is most astounding is that even after each debunking, these charlatans would repackage their discredited schemes as something new with fresh jargon and different salesmen, luring wave after wave of hopeful dupes eager for golden miracles. Instead of promising to turn lead into gold, today’s alchemist-in-chief, Mark Carney...
What happens when a political leader is both deeply admired and deeply disliked? As Parliament breaks for the week, Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre and his team may get a brief pause from the daily political grind, but the core of his public image is already well defined. He inspires intense loyalty among his supporters and equally intense opposition from his...
Last week, François-Philippe Champagne tabled the federal budget as Canada faces complex and consequential challenges: low growth and high unemployment, affordability pressures, a ruptured trade relationship with the United States, increased NATO commitments, technological transformations, climate change, and more.
When the Canadian government released its 2025 federal budget, it characterized a $2.7 billion reduction to international assistance funding over four years as “savings.” In other official summaries, it used even more obscure verbs to describe these cuts: “recalibrating,” “refocusing” and “re-baselining.”
Separate from those comments, the federal Conservative leader lauded his party for behaving like a government-in-waiting. “We’ve had very little dissent over the past year. When was the last time you saw an internal fight? This isn’t the Jerry Springer show; we’re not throwing chairs at each other,” he said. This was obviously long before Conservative House leader Andrew Scheer...
Both in Canada and the U.S., governments explicitly chose to train fewer doctors. We’re still dealing with the fallout. In the U.S., a 1980 government report forecast a “physician surplus” by the year 2000. It was wrong, and it justified the staffing bottlenecks that define today's familiar state of healthcare crisis, both in the profit-centric U.S., and in Canada’s relatively...
Protectionists, start your engines. On Monday, Prime Minister Mark Carney unveiled a “Buy Canadian” procurement policy that prioritizes Canadian suppliers for all manner of federal spending, including a second set of national “major projects” he’s announcing on Thursday. “We will build Canadian, by becoming our own best customer,” Carney intoned. Ottawa will allocate nearly $186 million in new funding to...
The problem with Remembrance Day is that we have short attention spans. Remembering our war dead, about 110,000 people who have been killed in our overseas wars, is a promise we make to ourselves when the memory of loss is fresh. The country goes to extraordinary lengths to mark the deaths of Canadian soldiers during a war. While the fighting...
The political strategy of “flooding the zone” is designed to disassemble people’s ability to react effectively to change. It was coined by Stephen Bannon and implemented by U.S. President Donald Trump when he came to office in January. But it is a strategy that has also landed in Canada with a dull thud. Prime Minister Mark Carney tipped his hat...
Fraternity houses across the nation may have taken offence when they were compared this weekend to the team around Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre. It came from Chris d’Entremont, who was explaining in a CBC interview how he had grown disaffected enough with Conservative culture to cross the floor and become a Liberal MP.
CPC Leader Pierre Poilievre’s leadership review will go down on the former site of Stampede Wrestling. That may be appropriate. Article content The storied grappler nights rumbled for decades in the old Stampede Corral. It was demolished in 2020-21 to make way for the new BMO Centre. Thousands of Conservative Party of Canada delegates will pour in there Jan. 29-31...
The plight of the Conservative Party of Canada, and its beleaguered leader, took another turn for the worse with the defection to the Liberals of Nova Scotia MP Chris d’Entremont on Nov. 4 and the resignation of Conservative MP Matt Jeneroux on Nov. 6. It is one thing for Pierre Poilievre to have lost a federal election that for months...
Reimagining this country is not only possible, it is essential. I present the following thought exercise to you: if some overeager, industrious journalist were to write an obituary for Canada, how would it read? Today, the world marked the passing of Canada, younger than most, older than some. Canada, on her best days was a beacon in the world for...
Former Conservative leader Andrew Scheer insisted Friday that no one is interested in palace intrigue. But after his party saw a floor crosser, a resignation, allegations of bullying and threats levied against MPs, and rumours of more Conservative caucus dissenters now too afraid to make a move, who isn’t interested? Ottawa hasn’t seen this kind of daytime soap opera since...
Andy Rooney once said that “numbers are the most certain things we have.” That can absolutely be true, and the one certainty about the numbers of the current Parliament is the baked-in uncertainty given the events of the past week. Some numbers to consider:
This week’s federal Budget sends a signal to Canadians that the government’s thinking on housing has evolved. Instead of trying to increase housing supply, it is placing greater emphasis on reducing housing demand. The promises made in the Liberal platform to build more have been watered down: housing targets are being softened, and the government has adopted a hard line...
MAGA strategist Stephen K. Bannon calls it “flooding the zone.” U.S. President Donald Trump demonstrated it in his first weeks back in office, when he introduced over 100 Executive Orders. Regardless of their legal viability, the sheer volume of policy changes is the point. It is a political strategy to overwhelm institutions, courts and social groups, preventing effective opposition.
Canadian politics has never been for the faint of heart. Every party has its fractures, leadership wars, and moments of chaos. But what’s happening inside the Conservative Party under Pierre Poilievre isn’t normal turbulence. It’s institutional decay disguised as discipline. Let’s be clear: what’s unfolding inside the halls of Ottawa isn’t strategy — it’s rot. When an MP from Atlantic...
Our 2025 federal budget is 493 pages long. The word ‘youth’ appears only eight times. The term ‘child’ appears only six. More than seven million Canadians under the age of 18 who access government services across multiple sectors such as justice, policing, education, national training initiatives, and health care, have somehow been forgotten about in Ottawa.
So, this is how it ends for Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre. Not with a bang but with a trickle of MPs slinking away from his side of the House — one defecting to the opposing Liberals, the other bailing out of politics altogether. First one to bolt was Chris d’Entremont, a Nova Scotia MP whom the Liberals have been courting...
Mark Carney’s first budget has landed in a House of Commons deeply divided. Now, one of the first wave of post-budget polls shows that Canadians are similarly torn about the fiscal blueprint put before the country this week. Abacus Data went out in the field the day after the budget was unveiled and came back with what it is calling...
Somehow, Mark Carney’s first budget – his grand game plan for the country, written in his economist mother tongue – was maybe the least exciting thing this week in Canadian politics. That could have been a serious problem for the Prime Minister, given how much was riding on his budget delivering in both economic and political credibility terms. But the...
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...
A watchdog that investigates the fair and humane treatment of federal prisoners is leaving his post two years early after becoming exasperated with what he says is the government’s unwillingness to address systemic human rights issues.
A senior government official says the market is picking up on signals Ottawa is sending about rebuilding the military. Stefanie Beck, deputy minister of National Defence, says she's "never had so many banks" and pension plans come to see her. Beck made the comments to an industry crowd gathered in Ottawa today for a Canadian Global Affairs Institute procurement conference.
Eight fewer departments and agencies are being asked to slash their budgets at least 15 per cent over the next three years, a move one economist says shows Ottawa's cost cutting exercise was not "thought through." Earlier this year, Finance Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne directed most ministers to find ways to cut their departments' program spending by 15 per cent over...
Canadians’ concerns about U.S. President Donald Trump and the state of relations with our southern neighbour are once again on the rise, according to new data from Nanos Research. Nearly 18 per cent of respondents in Nanos Research’s weekly issues tracking said Trump and Canada-U.S. relations are their greatest concern, doubling from 8.8 per cent last month. The next issue...
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre said Wednesday he is not reflecting on his leadership style after two MPs announced they were leaving his caucus — including one who cited the leader's "negative" approach to politics as the reason why he's calling it quits on the party. Speaking to reporters in Calgary at his first press conference since the defections last week...
- Canada's premiers say infrastructure investments and the state of U.S.-Canada trade negotiations are high on their agenda for an upcoming meeting with Prime Minister Mark Carney. Carney will host a virtual meeting with the nation's provincial and territorial leaders on Monday and the premiers laid out their priorities in a letter to the prime minister this morning. They are...
Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand is announcing more sanctions on Russia today as she hosts top diplomats from the Group of Seven countries in the Niagara region. The sanctions will target those behind Russia's drone and cyber attacks on Ukraine, as well as vessels in Russia's sanctions-evading shadow fleet. G7 foreign ministers are to hear this morning from Ukraine's foreign...
PM Mark Carney, Canadian foreign and defence ministers have yet to publicly comment on strikes. In what appears to be the most significant condemnation so far from a G7 ally, France's foreign minister says that the deadly boat strikes carried out by the United States in the Caribbean since early September violate international law.
A new Code of Values and Ethics for Senate Staff—developed and adopted behind closed doors last spring—caught many by surprise when it was implemented earlier this fall, and its requirement for staff to disclose their political activities has sparked concerns among both Senators and their staff. Thanks to a motion from Conservative Senator Michael MacDonald (Cape Breton, N.S.) adopted by...
New polling suggests Canadians had a lukewarm response to the federal budget released last week -- leading one pollster to argue all parties should think twice before mounting an election campaign over the spending plan. The Leger survey indicates some 30 per cent of Canadians who responded approve of the budget tabled by Prime Minister Mark Carney's government on Nov...
Many Canadians continue to boycott travel to the United States, and the U.S. economy is paying the price.
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...
Prime Minister Mark Carney is expected to make announcement in Prince Rupert, B.C., on Thursday. Prime Minister Mark Carney is set to announce a second set of “nation-building projects,” including at least two focused on critical mineral extraction, one for exporting liquefied natural gas (LNG) and at least one transmission project, sources told CBC News. They said there will be...
Canadians paused to remember the military members who put their lives on the line to serve their country as Remembrance Day ceremonies got underway Tuesday morning from coast to coast. Family members of the war dead staked out spots hours in advance in the nation's snowy capital, braving chilly weather to get a good view of the ceremony at the...
MP says Conservatives felt like ‘part of a frat house rather than a serious political party.’ Nova Scotia MP Chris d’Entremont says pushing and yelling from Conservative Party leadership "sealed the deal" on his choice to cross the floor of the House of Commons to the Liberals this week. After d’Entremont’s musings over a possible defection were reported by Politico...
Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand opened a meeting of foreign ministers from the Group of Seven countries Tuesday by calling for continued collaboration to tackle many of the world's problems. "Meeting global challenges requires global partnerships," Anand said. Anand welcomed G7 foreign ministers to Ontario's freshly snow-covered Niagara region for a two-day gathering to discuss shared economic and security challenges...
Eighty years after the end of the deadliest conflict in history, the number of living Second World War veterans has dwindled to a few thousand. Veterans Affairs Canada said it estimates that as of this year, there are 3,691 surviving Canadian veterans -- 667 women and 3,024 men. Veterans Affairs also believes the number of living veterans from the Korean...
Advances in DNA technology mean there will likely be no more unknown soldiers in future wars, experts say. It’s often said no one has ever truly died as long as you remember them and speak their name. It's more complicated but nonetheless true for Canada’s Unknown Soldier, who was laid to rest under the frozen, watchful gaze of his Great...
Finance Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne says his goal is to help make Canada the NATO partner of choice when it comes to supplying critical minerals. He says refining is the "name of the game" and Canada can do better than just shipping those high-demand materials south in their raw form. Champagne made his remarks to a Calgary business audience while discussing...
OTTAWA -- Montreal-based activist Yves Engler is applying to enter the NDP leadership race months after announcing his intention to make a bid.
Foreign Minister Anita Anand has suggested the G7 foreign ministers’ meeting will focus on multilateral geopolitical issues in a departure from the approach taken when her predecessor hosted the gathering in March and keyed in on the Canada-U.S. relationship. Seven months after Canada first hosted top diplomats from the Group of Seven, they will reconvene for two days of meetings...
A group of riding executives and former candidates with the Conservative Party of B.C. have become the latest voices to call for an end to John Rustad's leadership, writing to the party's legislators to urge them to oust him. Corey Brooks, president of the riding association for Burnaby-North, says in an interview the party will "continue bleeding" support and won't...
Canada’s new environment minister and Environment and Climate Change officials confirmed that the federal government is standing by the national climate targets previously set under Justin Trudeau. On several occasions, Environment and Climate Change Minister Julie Dabrusin was asked about whether the current Liberal government was still committed to working toward the near-term targets set under the previous prime minister...
The second round of major so-called nation-building projects will be announced this Thursday in Prince Rupert, B.C., Prime Minister Mark Carney said on Monday. Carney confirmed the date during a press conference in Fredericton, following a meeting with New Brunswick Premier Susan Holt. “We’ve got big strategies that then also have implications for provinces across the country,” Carney said, when...
Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand says U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio hasn't repeated President Donald Trump's musings about making Canada the 51st state during their conversations. Anand will welcome Rubio and other foreign ministers from G7 countries to Ontario's Niagara region this week to discuss shared economic and security challenges amid geopolitical uncertainty.
OTTAWA -- Canada Post says it has submitted a plan to the federal government to transform its struggling business model into a financially sustainable postal service.
In a stunning upset that has left the Liberal caucus “kicking ourselves,” the Conservatives have ousted a senior Liberal MP as co-chair of the powerful Canada-U.S. Inter-Parliamentary Group. At the Oct. 29 meeting held to elect a new co-chair, Conservative MP Richard Bragdon (Tobique-Mactaquac, N.B.) defeated four-term Liberal MP and cabinet minister Terry Duguid (Winnipeg-North, Man.) for the position. The...
Conservative House leader denies any pressure on Tory MPs to stay in caucus. B.C. NDP MP Gord Johns says he’s “very confident” none of the seven New Democrats in the House of Commons will cross the floor to the Liberals — even as he admits he’s regularly approached by the Liberals. “Oh, that’s an everyday conversation they have with me...
Expert says event exemplifies worrying overlap between martial arts and extremism. Some of the country’s most prominent white supremacist groups gathered in Vancouver this summer for a secretive neo-Nazi conference that also included martial arts gym owners, coaches and trainers. Held at the Scottish Cultural Centre in the city’s south end, the event was organized by a group called Exiles...
Peterson Spring court filing claims it can’t afford to ship parts below cost to produce them in Woodstock. Stellantis and one of its Canadian auto suppliers are battling in court over the price of brake rotors in a dispute that threatens to shutter multiple auto assembly plants in the U.S. Peterson Spring says in a court filing it can’t afford...
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Democrat Adelita Grijalva was sworn in as the newest member of Congress on Wednesday, more than seven weeks after she won a special election in Arizona to fill the House seat last held by her late father.
Democrats on the House Oversight Committee released never-before-seen emails on Wednesday that revealed former financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein claimed that U.S. President Donald Trump “knew about the girls” and referred to him as the “dog that hasn’t barked.” The emails also claim that Epstein told Ghislaine Maxwell, his former aide and accomplice, that an alleged victim had...
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Approval of the way President Donald Trump is managing the government has dropped sharply since early in his second term, according to a new AP-NORC poll, with much of the rising discontent coming from fellow Republicans.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer led his caucus, and the country, into a record-breaking government shutdown and voted against reopening when a small group of his members defected. But there are still calls for him to step aside from Democrats who think he should have fought harder.
President Isaac Herzog announced Wednesday that US President Donald Trump had written him to ask him to pardon Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is currently standing trial on charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust.
LONDON (AP) -- President Donald Trump 's threat to bring a billion-dollar lawsuit against the BBC has cast a shadow over the British broadcaster's future, but it could also be a bluff with little legal merit.
LONDON (AP) -- The sudden resignation of two top bosses at the BBC over the editing of a speech by U.S. President Donald Trump dealt a huge blow to the broadcaster, which is revered by some in Britain as a national treasure but derided by others as outdated and left-leaning.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Microsoft said Monday it will be shipping Nvidia's most advanced artificial intelligence chips to the United Arab Emirates as part of a deal approved by the U.S. Commerce Department.
Continued staffing shortages in air traffic control facilities around the country were again causing delays at airports on Friday as the government shutdown neared the one-month mark.
Violent crime in Canada’s cities has not only risen – it has become a growing threat affecting urban communities across the country. While headlines often focus on year-to-year fluctuations in crime, the Urban Violent Crime Report, Volume 2 reveals a deeper and more troubling reality: over the past decade, violent crime has increased significantly across Canadian cities, spreading beyond Toronto...
Dubbed a “generational investment” that will help define the next century, Prime Minister Mark Carney’s first federal Budget, tabled on November 4, includes broadly anticipated themes. The 400+ page document proposes trimming day-to-day operational government spending, increasing investments in capital projects and the military, and introducing measures to make Canadian businesses more competitive. The goals are clear: “More than 75%...
A collection of SubStack publishing within Canadian public affairs.
Pierre Poilievre’s recent video attacking Mark Carney could have been a strong argument. If not for the air quotes. When he says Carney promised he could “handle Trump” and “negotiate a win,” his fingers twitch into the familiar inverted-comma gesture. It’s a tiny move, but it says everything. Air quotes don’t persuade; they perform. They turn conviction into commentary and...
As Prime Minister Mark Carney said, “Donald Trump wants to break us so America can own us.” But what if Trump decides to use military power along with economic tariffs? An Arctic expert writing in The Globe and Mail says we shouldn’t think of tanks or helicopters streaming over the border. Instead, an American show-of-force could begin with a single...
I am very worried that Canada is sleepwalking into potentially the most dangerous military project since the atom bomb. Trump’s Golden Dome will put thousands of weapons in space – one of the few places where there are no weapons today – and lock us into a new Cold War with Russia and China that will rob our children and...
David Herle, Scott Reid, Jordan Leichnitz, and Kory Teneycke provide insights on the latest in Canadian politics.
Stephen Carter and Shannon Phillips brace themselves for an old-school strategy session. What should Pierre Poilievre be doing over the next two months? Two years? And how does Zain expect anyone to know when the liveshow is if he won't promote it?! Zain Velji, as always, picks the questions and keeps everybody in line.
Former prime minister Justin Trudeau is dating the American pop star Katy Perry. He’s been spotted with her on her yacht, singing along at her concerts, and globetrotting with her hand in hand.
Questions continue to surround the future of Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre following the turmoil of budget week. Not only did the Conservatives lose Nova Scotia MP Chris d’Entremont to the Liberals, they also lost Edmonton MP Matt Jeneroux, who announced his upcoming resignation. It’s been widely reported that Jeneroux was contemplating a floor-crossing of his own, but instead he has...
