These are the 30 most read items on National Newswatch, from the last seven days.
Liberals would be 2 seats shy of majority with floor-crossing. Nova Scotia MP Chris d'Entremont resigned from the Conservative caucus Tuesday — and he told CBC News he will join the Liberals. The longtime Conservative, who served in provincial politics before being elected to the House of Commons in 2019, told Politico earlier Tuesday he was considering crossing the floor...
A Conservative MP in Canada’s Parliament is considering joining the country’s Liberal Party, moving Prime Minister Mark Carney one step closer to securing a majority government and reflecting a concerted push on the part of Liberals to ensure Carney and their legislative agenda are safe until 2029. Nova Scotia MP Chris d’Entremont told POLITICO on Tuesday he is thinking about...
People can make polling sound complicated, or not. Here’s my elevator ready version of how it works in Canadian elections. It has held up pretty well over the years. One third won’t vote. One third already always know which party they will vote for. Elections are decided by the other third. The swing voters. Swing voters don’t follow politics every...
To stop outside sniping, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre will have to get more than 80-per-cent support in the upcoming leadership review, says Keith Beardsley, a former high-level staffer in Stephen Harper's PMO. If Pierre Poilievre is ever forced out of his role as Conservative leader, it won’t be due to internal caucus dissent, but rather mounting criticism from outside the...
Tuesday’s federal budget will announce a $50-billion fund for local infrastructure, including housing, transportation and a specific stream for health infrastructure such as hospitals and emergency services, a senior government official told The Globe and Mail. The source said the budget will also lay out a plan to retire aging military fleets as a way to save money on maintenance...
Floor-crossing MP says he wasn't aligned with Conservative leader anymore, felt he was too negative. Nova Scotia MP Chris d'Entremont said Wednesday he left the Conservative caucus because he didn't feel represented in leader Pierre Poilievre's party anymore and bristled at his "negative" approach to politics. D'Entremont said there are other Conservative MPs who "are in the same boat" and...
Prime Minister Mark Carney publicly welcomed Nova Scotia MP Chris d’Entremont to his Liberal caucus Wednesday morning, thanking him for his decision to cross the floor, bringing the minority government one vote closer to a majority. “I’m honored to welcome him as the newest member of our government caucus,” Carney said, at an announcement at a public transit facility in...
Prime Minister Mark Carney and his fellow Liberal MPs said Wednesday the party is open to talking to any opposition MPs interested in joining their team -- a day after Nova Scotia MP Chris d'Entremont quit the Conservatives to join the government caucus. Carney and d'Entremont were met with thunderous applause and cheers as they walked side by side into...
Prime Minister Mark Carney says he told Ontario Premier Doug Ford that he didn't think the province should run the ad campaign that's being blamed for ending trade talks with the U.S. When asked on Saturday what Ford's response to that was, Carney said, "Well, you saw what came of it." The prime minister also confirmed he did apologize to...
The Liberals are pursuing other Conservative MPs to cross the floor after Nova Scotia MP Chris d’Entremont stunned Conservatives by joining Mark Carney’s caucus. Two Liberal sources say the minority government has been in discussions with a number of Conservative MPs to gauge their willingness to either cross or sit as independents before a vote is held on the federal...
Canada's top bureaucrat is warning the budget's spending reduction target is a "big number" that will mean cuts to programs and jobs in the public service. Tuesday's federal budget outlined a plan to lower program spending and administration costs by about $60 billion over the next five years.
Federal budget includes $141B in new spending — offset by cuts and savings as Ottawa slashes the bureaucracy, Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne presented his first federal budget Tuesday and it includes big-ticket items to prop up an economy grappling with major economic disruptions but also cuts to the public service to get the fiscal house in order. Champagne’s document shows...
The Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs says it feels disrespected by a hastily arranged call with the head of the new federal Major Projects Office. The Indigenous organization said it received an invitation Friday for the phone meeting on Monday, and the late timing meant many chiefs were unable to participate as they were already booked in other meetings.
Conservative MPs were told Wednesday to avoid criticizing NDP for now, sources said. The Conservative and NDP caucuses are grappling with what to do about the upcoming federal budget and whether they want to be part of an effort to trigger an election by voting it down, multiple sources told CBC News. Senior Conservative sources say the party's leadership does...
A longtime Quebec minister has resigned from caucus, deepening a crisis engulfing the Quebec government over a recently passed law imposing a new payment system on the province's doctors. Social Services Minister Lionel Carmant announced Thursday he would leave the governing party to sit as an Independent member of the provincial legislature. He was accompanied during the press conference by...
Prime minister says he's '100 per cent confident' the budget is right for the country. Prime Minister Mark Carney signalled on Saturday that he’s prepared to fight an election over his government’s upcoming budget should it come to that. The fiscal plan will be tabled in the minority Parliament on Tuesday, but it is far from clear whether the governing...
'This is the kind of budget you will remember,' finance minister says. Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne will deliver the new Liberal government’s first budget Tuesday that will be full of what he calls “generational investments” to spur growth and help the country weather the tariff-related economic storm. While Champagne is the minister in charge of the file, Prime Minister Mark...
Former Liberal prime minister takes swing at Alberta’s simmering separatist movement. Former Liberal prime minister Jean Chrétien is taking a swing at Alberta’s simmering separatist movement and says Premier Danielle Smith “cannot double-talk all the time” about Ottawa depending on her interests. “Now she wants the federal government to intervene in B.C. to help Alberta, but don’t do anything in...
The idea that the Liberals might take a hatchet to their treasured social programs seems counterintuitive, but that's where the savings are
For many Canadians, if an election would rid the country of Pierre Poilievre’s snarky social media hits, his obsessive focus on enemies, his hypocrisy—lamenting the growing number of families using food banks, while living in a taxpayer-funded mansion with chef, driver and domestic help—they could hold the election on Dec. 25.
Prime Minister Mark Carney concluded a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Friday with an invitation to visit China, but no movement on the trade issues that have plagued the relationship. Still, Carney said he was "very pleased" with the outcome. "We now have a turning point in the relationship, a turning point that creates opportunities for Canadian families...
The NDP is not ruling out the possibility that some or all of its seven MPs could abstain when the minority Liberal government’s budget is put to a vote in the House of Commons. The government has warned of the possibility of a snap election unless at least one other party steps forward to allow approval of the budget, which...
Prime Minister Mark Carney was counselled to push back during an April call with Donald Trump if the U.S. president revived his complaints about border security, fentanyl from Canada or low defence spending, a newly released memo shows. Federal officials prepared the internal memo to guide Carney's conversation with Trump following the Liberal party's April 28 election victory. A concise...
As if there isn't enough going on with trade talks broken down with the U.S., new trade possibilities with China, and a crucial budget set for Tuesday, Canadians could be facing an election within a week. And then there's the case of "Profanity Pete" the US Ambassador to Canada. Let's get some analysis with Bruce Anderson and Chantal Hebert as...
Canada’s chaotic minority Parliament is at a critical juncture as Mark Carney’s Liberals scramble to lure more Opposition floor-crossers to secure support for the budget’s passage, and the Conservatives, reeling at Tuesday’s loss of an MP, struggle to frame themselves as the government-in-waiting. Political tribalism and parliamentary shenanigans were on display all day, starting first thing Wednesday morning when a...
Conservatives demand Liberals keep deficit below $42B, scrap industrial carbon tax. With just days to go until the Liberal government introduces its much-anticipated federal budget, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre won’t say whether his party will strike down the legislation — instead insisting he needs to read the document before deciding. “I don’t have telepathic powers to tell you what’s in...
Prime Minister Mark Carney called Doug Ford "a couple of times" from Asia to ask him to pull an ad campaign that's being blamed for ending trade talks with the United States, the Ontario premier said Monday. Carney said this weekend that he told Ford he didn't think the province should run the ad that featured clips of former U.S...
U.S President Donald Trump said Prime Minister Mark Carney apologized for an advertisement paid for by the Ontario government that halted trade talks. "I like (Carney) a lot but, you know, what they did was wrong," Trump told reporters on Air Force One during a flight to Florida on Friday. "He was very nice. He apologized for what they did...
Yukon Party Leader Currie Dixon says Yukon voters have opted for change by electing what he calls a "strong Yukon Party majority government." But Dixon, who will become the Yukon's first premier born in the territory, also says the territory faces a long list of challenges, which will "require difficult decisions."
Kamloops-area MPs Frank Caputo and Mel Arnold are refusing to offer their thoughts about Conservative Party Leader Pierre Poilievre’s recent accusation that Mounties covered up crimes committed by former prime minister Justin Trudeau.