Oct 5 2018 — Michael Harris — iPolitics — Justin Trudeau, beware. In the wake of Quebec’s second “Quiet Revolution,” all bets are off for the next federal election in Canada. The landslide victory of the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) is a boulder that sends ripples into the furthest reaches of Canada’s political pond. Which is to say, the ascension of Premier François Legault […]
Sep 27 2018 — Tim Naumetz — iPolitics — Canada’s Chief Electoral Officer has revealed that the federal elections agency intends to be ready for an election by next April, five months before the fixed election date for 2019. Chief Electoral Officer Stéphane Perrault outlined the timetable as he informed a Commons committee this week that a sweeping bill to overhaul the Canada Elections […]
Sep 20 2018 — Marieke Walsh — iPolitics — The clock is ticking down to the latest deadline to renegotiate a trade deal with the United States and Mexico, but Ontario’s trade minister went out of his way Thursday to commend the Trudeau government’s work. Fresh off a one-day trip to Washington on Wednesday, Minister Jim Wilson gave kudos to Canada’s negotiating team. “They’re […]
Sep 17 2018 — Marieke Walsh — iPolitics — After an all-nighter at Queen’s Park, the Progressive Conservative government condemned “paternalistic” attacks on Attorney General Caroline Mulroney. Mulroney has found herself in the crosshairs after Premier Doug Ford announced last week that his government would use the notwithstanding clause to circumvent the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and downsize Toronto’s city council. It’s the […]
Sep 11 2018 — Kelsey Johnson — iPolitics — Maxime Bernier’s decision to leave the Conservative Party of Canada and launch his own political party will make it harder to dethrone the current Liberal government in the 2019 election, former prime minister Brian Mulroney said Tuesday. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Mulroney said, is a good campaigner. “So, if you want to take his job, […]
Sep 11 2018 — Marieke Walsh — iPolitics — Canada’s finance minister is not ruling out cutting this country’s corporate taxes to better respond to increased competition from the U.S. Bill Morneau told reporters in Saskatoon, Sask. Tuesday that all options remain on the table as his government crafts a response to tax changes south of the border that put Canadian companies at a […]
Sep 11 2018 — Kelsey Johnson — iPolitics — Canada has a “problem” when a provincial premier can overrule the country’s courts, former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney said Tuesday. Mulroney was in Ottawa for a fireside chat with Canada’s chief librarian. He was asked by an audience member about Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s decision Monday to invoke the notwithstanding clause after the Ontario Superior […]
Sep 10 2018 — Kady O'Malley — iPolitics — It is, perhaps, somehow fitting that the first major achievement of Maxime Bernier’s still-unnamed libertarian-leaning political party may be to expose a loophole in the fine print of our otherwise tightly regulated political financing laws.
Sep 7 2018 — iPolitics — Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer has shaken up his shadow cabinet – two weeks before parliamentarians return to the House of Commons. In a press release Friday afternoon, he announced he’d appointed two new members and shuffled several experienced MPs into new roles. “Our Conservative team is focused squarely on holding the Liberals to account and […]
Sep 4 2018 — iPolitics — The New Democratic Party of Canada financial difficulties are worsening as the party’s 2017 report shows. Annual filings with Elections Canada show the NDP brought in $4.9 million last year, down from $5.4 million in 2016, even though they increased their number of donors by almost half of last year’s total. They received contributions from […]
Sep 4 2018 — L. Ian MacDonald — iPolitics — When the NAFTA trade talks resume in Washington on Wednesday, they will essentially come down to two trade offs between the United States and Canada. Canada is adamant that Chapter 19 of NAFTA, the independent dispute settlement mechanism, is a deal breaker. Canada will never settle trade disputes in U.S. courts. This was the deal […]
Aug 29 2018 — Peter Clark — iPolitics — Global Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland is in Washington hoping to manage the fallout of Donald Trump’s U.S.-Mexico trade deal. Her negotiating team — along with provincial representatives, farm and manufacturing industry stakeholders — are on the ground and settling in for what are expected to be some intense talks. Also lurking nearby is Trudeau’s righthand […]
Aug 28 2018 — Tim Naumetz — iPolitics — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has mandated Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Dominic LeBlanc to work toward an end to trade barriers in Canada with the use of “a full exercising” of federal jurisdiction over trade and commerce. The instruction is contained in a mandate letter Trudeau released Tuesday that gives LeBlanc responsibility for a vast array of […]
Aug 28 2018 — iPolitics — If one is looking for where the Trudeau government’s focus will be in this last year before an election. changes to cabinet committees offer that. On the same day that ministers’ mandate letters are being made public, the Prime Minister has adjusted the committees those same ministers will join. In a media release Justin Trudeau […]
Aug 28 2018 — L. Ian MacDonald — iPolitics — Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland had planned to be in Europe this week, visiting Germany, France and Ukraine. The good minister has had a change of plans. Freeland only got as far as Berlin Monday before U.S. President Donald Trump announced a bilateral draft agreement between the United States and Mexico via a conference call […]