Mark Carney’s plan for Canada includes $130 billion in new spending which will see the country run deficits until at least the fiscal year 2028-2029. Entitled “Unite, Secure, Protect, Build”-- the platform also commits more than $18 billion of spending on national defence, putting Canada on track to “exceed our NATO target by the year 2030,” according to policy experts...
The federal Liberals and NDP both released their costed campaign platforms Saturday as Canada's 45th general election inched toward the finish line. With just over one week left before election day, and on the second of four days of advance voting, Liberal Leader Mark Carney and NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh published documents outlining their full campaign commitments and what they...
- Elections Canada says early voters set a new record for turnout on the first day of advanced polls. Nearly two million people showed up to cast a ballot on Friday, the first of four days for advanced voting in the federal election. Many of those voters were met with long lineups at polling stations across the country. Elections Canada...
Pierre Poilievre campaigned for Ezra Levant in Calgary riding nomination. Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has documented historic ties to Rebel News owner Ezra Levant, the media personality at the epicentre of a controversy that has engulfed Canada's Leaders' Debates Commission. After facing criticism for allowing right-wing media activists to dominate the post-French debate press conference, the commission cancelled Thursday's post-debate...
Conservative leader has called for an end to 'woke ideology' in schools. U.S. President Donald Trump has been threatening to cancel funding for some universities unless they accede to his demands to change ideological policy, similar to a pledge Pierre Poilievre has made for Canadian post-secondary schools. But so far, the Conservative leader has been sparse on details of exactly...
A new poll by Liaison Strategies for the National Ethnic Press and Media Council of Canada (NEPMCC), the industry association representing Canada’s non-official language newspapers, TV, radio, and online news media, finds the Liberals leading with 44% (no change) to the Conservatives 39% (no change). The rolling survey, conducted from April 16 to April 18, 2025, used interactive voice response...
The analysis in this report is based on results of a survey conducted from Wednesday, April 16th to Friday, April 18th, 2025, among a sample of 1124 adults, 18 years of age or older, living in Canada. The survey was conducted using IVR. The survey is intended to represent the voting population in Canada. The margin of error for the...
A new poll by Liaison Strategies for the National Ethnic Press and Media Council of Canada (NEPMCC), the industry association representing Canada’s non-official language newspapers, TV, radio, and online news media, finds the Liberals leading with 44% (no change) to the Conservatives 39% (-2). The rolling survey, conducted from April 15 to April 17, 2025, used interactive voice response technology...
Our watchers continue to see Liberals having the most momentum (89%), best candidates (82%) most effective leader (77%) and most impactful message (70%). Responses are a bit tighter on best ads, and Conservatives continue to be seen as having the best events. Read more.
- Elections Canada says early voters set a new record for turnout on the first day of advanced polls. Nearly two million people showed up to cast a ballot on Friday, the first of four days for advanced voting in the federal election. Many of those voters were met with long lineups at polling stations across the country. Elections Canada...
The federal Liberals and NDP both released their costed campaign platforms Saturday as Canada's 45th general election inched toward the finish line. With just over one week left before election day, and on the second of four days of advance voting, Liberal Leader Mark Carney and NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh published documents outlining their full campaign commitments and what they...
NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh’s full election platform focuses on a slate of commitments meant to build up core Canadian values in the face of strong American headwinds and would add $48 billion to the deficit over four years. The big spending package – which is offset to some degree by revenue-generating measures such as a wealth tax – is warranted...
With just nine days until election day and advance polls already open, the two leading federal parties are pulling out all the stops to get out the vote in the crucial 905-swing riding of Burlington North–Milton West. “This election is extremely close,” said Conservative candidate Nadeem Akbar in an interview with The Hill Times yesterday on the first day of...
Mark Carney’s plan for Canada includes $130 billion in new spending which will see the country run deficits until at least the fiscal year 2028-2029. Entitled “Unite, Secure, Protect, Build”-- the platform also commits more than $18 billion of spending on national defence, putting Canada on track to “exceed our NATO target by the year 2030,” according to policy experts...
The way Claude Messier sees things, the fight is really with U.S. President Donald Trump and the ballot box question is who is best equipped to take him on. “We are in danger in Canada,” Messier says, pausing during his daily walk near the historic Saint-Ignace-de-Loyola church in the Quebec City riding of Beauport—Limoilou. “In this election I think we’re...
In unveiling his party’s full platform Saturday morning, Mark Carney released a strange plan for strange times: A protectionist plan to return Canada to the world stage. The costed platform document, released after Canadians have already begun voting, sets the stakes in its second sentence: “Our sovereignty is under threat.” In response, Carney wants to open markets, integrate with our...
The comedian Robin Williams famously likened living in Canada to “living in a really nice apartment over a meth lab”, a line that was much funnier when the dealer down below didn’t get high on his own supply and suddenly start threatening to expand his operations into your home. Given this recent twist in our bilateral dynamic, the punditry plotline...
During Thursday night’s English-language leaders’ debate, Conservative Party Leader Pierre Poilievre told Liberal Leader Mark Carney that “We need a change, and you, sir, are not a change.” He’s right on the first part, but wrong on the second. For more than two years, while Justin Trudeau occupied the Prime Minister’s Office, national and regional public opinion polls consistently revealed...
Four leaders, one moderator, two hours of debate. In a five week campaign did those two hours change the shape of Canada's election race? That's the question for Chantal Hebert and Rob Russo on this week's Good Talk. Plus, how did the debate organizers allow a fringe advocacy group disguised as reporters to take over the post-debate platform?
The first thing people ask me when I give a talk or an interview about my book “Ripper: The Making of Pierre Poilievre” is what the title means. The answer is easy: at the beginning of the COVID pandemic, New York Times columnist David Brooks wrote a piece saying there are two kinds of politicians, “rippers” and “weavers.” Rippers are...
Mark Carney the Rookie Politician would like you to know that Mark Carney the Experienced Central Banker is a serious person. The kind of man forged in the crucible of molten global crises, whether of the global financial or post-Brexit variety. In short, Carney wants Canadians to agree that he alone is able to take on the volatility that is...
Today, Jagmeet Singh unveiled the NDP’s costed campaign commitments—laying out a plan to stand up to protect working and middle-class Canadians from the effects of Trump’s trade war, fight corporate greed, and protect what makes Canada, Canada. The NDP plan, Made for People. Built for Canada, takes on the big challenges—from climate and reconciliation to defending democracy. But Singh made...
This election comes at a time of crisis. President Trump is disrupting global markets and fundamentally reshaping the international trading system. With Canada, he has been even more direct and aggressive: he wants to break us so America can own us. Mark Carney won’t let that happen. He has a plan that will fight, protect, and build in the face...
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre promised today that a new Conservative government will stop Mark Carney’s proposed Liberal food tax and scrap the existing Liberal plastic ban. Poilievre will:
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre pledged that his new Conservative Government will provide $22 billion worth of frozen Russian assets to Ukraine for their heroic defence of their country against Putin’s vicious and illegal invasion. The Conservative Party of Canada has always stood with our Ukrainian allies. Moscow’s war against Ukraine did not start in 2022, but nearly eight years prior...
Chris Warkentin, Conservative candidate for Grande Prairie, announced the second phase of the Canada First Arctic Defence Plan today in Yellowknife. In the face of rising global threats and growing foreign interest in the North, Conservatives are taking bold action to secure Canadian sovereignty and defend our Arctic. For years, Canada believed our geography would protect us. But the three...
We are living in a moment of profound disruption. From climate disasters to rising authoritarianism, from hospitals stretched past capacity to housing costs that defy logic — people feel the ground shifting beneath their feet. And they’re being told to put their faith in “stability,” to trust that the same institutions that created this crisis will somehow get us out...
In unveiling his party’s full platform Saturday morning, Mark Carney released a strange plan for strange times: A protectionist plan to return Canada to the world stage. The costed platform document, released after Canadians have already begun voting, sets the stakes in its second sentence: “Our sovereignty is under threat.” In response, Carney wants to open markets, integrate with our...
The comedian Robin Williams famously likened living in Canada to “living in a really nice apartment over a meth lab”, a line that was much funnier when the dealer down below didn’t get high on his own supply and suddenly start threatening to expand his operations into your home. Given this recent twist in our bilateral dynamic, the punditry plotline...
During Thursday night’s English-language leaders’ debate, Conservative Party Leader Pierre Poilievre told Liberal Leader Mark Carney that “We need a change, and you, sir, are not a change.” He’s right on the first part, but wrong on the second. For more than two years, while Justin Trudeau occupied the Prime Minister’s Office, national and regional public opinion polls consistently revealed...
The first thing people ask me when I give a talk or an interview about my book “Ripper: The Making of Pierre Poilievre” is what the title means. The answer is easy: at the beginning of the COVID pandemic, New York Times columnist David Brooks wrote a piece saying there are two kinds of politicians, “rippers” and “weavers.” Rippers are...
Mark Carney the Rookie Politician would like you to know that Mark Carney the Experienced Central Banker is a serious person. The kind of man forged in the crucible of molten global crises, whether of the global financial or post-Brexit variety. In short, Carney wants Canadians to agree that he alone is able to take on the volatility that is...
As we enter the final stretch of the 2025 federal election campaign, a generational divide has opened up in Canadian politics—one that’s not just visible in the polling numbers, but audible in the voices of voters themselves. In a recent Abacus Data survey, we asked Canadians to explain—in their own words—why they’re voting the way they are. No prompts. No...
Susan Delacourt: Well, the debates are now behind us, advance voting is under way, and I am thinking a lot this weekend about the whole idea of change. I wonder whether the debates changed anything. I’m curious to see if poll trends change in the last week of this election. And I’m also reflecting on Pierre Poilievre and whether we’ve...
Mark Carney largely resisted the predictable onslaught from his opponents during the English leaders’ debate on Thursday night. He was helped by a boneheaded move by the hopeless Leaders’ Debates Commission that allowed fake news outlets into the room. Any difficult patches Carney may have experienced were pushed to the bottom of the page in post-debate analysis, owing to the...
Thirty-seven years ago, inside a television studio in Ottawa, John Turner thrust an index finger at Brian Mulroney and warned that with one stroke of a pen Mulroney had reversed 120 years of national development and thrown Canada into the "north-south influence of the United States.""When the economic levers go, the political independence is sure to follow," Turner said.
There are probably few areas of Canada where Liberal fortunes have turned as dramatically as they have in Niagara Falls
As we enter the 10-day homestretch of Canada’s most important election campaign in generations, many voters will be spending this long Easter weekend either casting their ballots in advance polls across the country or taking a last look at the very different candidates. This week provided a crucial window on those candidates, especially the two top rivals, Prime Minister Mark...
Three leaders walked on to a stage in Montreal on Thursday night with one mission — to take the front-runner shine off Liberal Leader Mark Carney.If there was any doubt about Carney’s lead in this election, it was dispelled within minutes after the opening of the English-language leaders’ debate.
With the English-language leaders’ debate now in the rear-view mirror, the 2025 federal election campaign moves into its most important phase: the closing week.
The impact on the broader election race was a nothingburger: there simply were no flashpoints that would justify anyone shifting their vote
The dynamics of this election campaign have been nothing if not unusual. Consider, for example, that the Liberals’ remarkable ascent has had very little to do with the flagging fortunes of their Conservative rivals — and plenty to do with the near-collapse of the NDP and Bloc Québécois. Support for the independantistes has declined almost exclusively due to threats from...
Surprisingly absent from the debate was major focus on U.S. President Donald Trump. His offences were just one of many themes
Before the current campaign, Canada held eight federal elections in this century. Five — including the last two — resulted in a minority government. Minorities have become the norm in our multi-party system. But now is not the time for another minority. It’s not the time for another government that has to cut deals to stay in office, that’s always...
There should be no denying that, for Canada and for our allies, we have a unique chance to diversify and expand our economic and security relationships that will be of mutual benefit.
In an election campaign that has been obnoxiously micromanaged, where the aspirants to lead our country have treated journalists — and, by extension, the public — with varying levels of disdain, last night’s debates should have been a breath of fresh air. Instead, the whole affair was hijacked by right wing conspiracy-minded outlet Rebel News and another right-wing network. We...
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has said that, if elected, he would override constitutionally protected rights and freedoms to implement his controversial “tough on crime” agenda. He would be the first-ever prime minister to take that extreme step — and his cavalier attitude toward civil liberties should alarm all Canadians.
Liberal Leader Mark Carney walked away unscathed from his first faceoff with his opponents during the French-language leaders’ debate in Montreal. Carney, who has a huge lead in public opinion polls in Quebec, had the most to lose. Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh and Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet are all nipping at his support, notably in...
Carney, like Michael Ignatieff before him, doesn't even seem to be in charge of his own campaign. Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre landed a few pretty solid blows against Liberal leader Mark Carney during the French-language debate in Montreal on Wednesday night. Whether those blows will matter to Quebecers, who will have comprised the vast majority of the audience for the...
There was no clear “winner” of the French-language leaders’ debate on Wednesday night in Montreal, but the lack of a clear loser, and the takeaways based on expectations, produced a number of results. First, it is quite clear that this debate is unlikely to be particularly consequential in terms of shifting party standings in this campaign, partly because no party...
Wednesday night’s French-language leaders’ debate in Montreal didn’t produce any knockout punches — but if you were scoring on points, Liberal Leader Mark Carney came out on top. And he did it the old-fashioned way: by letting his opponents beat each other up. Carney’s performance was far from riveting, and he frequently fell into economist-speak, such as when he talked...
NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh’s full election platform focuses on a slate of commitments meant to build up core Canadian values in the face of strong American headwinds and would add $48 billion to the deficit over four years. The big spending package – which is offset to some degree by revenue-generating measures such as a wealth tax – is warranted...
With just nine days until election day and advance polls already open, the two leading federal parties are pulling out all the stops to get out the vote in the crucial 905-swing riding of Burlington North–Milton West. “This election is extremely close,” said Conservative candidate Nadeem Akbar in an interview with The Hill Times yesterday on the first day of...
The way Claude Messier sees things, the fight is really with U.S. President Donald Trump and the ballot box question is who is best equipped to take him on. “We are in danger in Canada,” Messier says, pausing during his daily walk near the historic Saint-Ignace-de-Loyola church in the Quebec City riding of Beauport—Limoilou. “In this election I think we’re...
An ongoing trade war and U.S. President Donald Trump's hunger for critical minerals have brought Canada's rich mineral deposits into the spotlight, with federal and provincial politicians promising to accelerate natural resource projects.
In the thick of the COVID-19 pandemic, Mark Carney was the chief capital wrangler for a novel product marketed by Brookfield Asset Management Ltd. BAM-T +0.95%increase In theory, his job was simple: persuade top financial executives to pour billions of dollars into a promised boom in renewable-energy and green-technology investments. In practice, it involved cajoling, hand-holding and decoding climate finance...
Four leaders, one moderator, two hours of debate. In a five week campaign did those two hours change the shape of Canada's election race? That's the question for Chantal Hebert and Rob Russo on this week's Good Talk. Plus, how did the debate organizers allow a fringe advocacy group disguised as reporters to take over the post-debate platform?
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.
The stakes for Carney, for the Liberals fighting for a fourth term, and for the country with Donald Trump’s eyes on Canada’s resources and sovereignty, couldn’t be higher.
When Hong Kong democracy activist Henry Chan decided to run for a Saskatchewan Party nomination in his hometown of Saskatoon, he didn't expect to come out of the experience wondering if he'd been a target of foreign meddling. Chan says he was approached at his meet-and-greet event by someone he later discovered on social media may have ties to the...
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is promising to end the federal single-use plastic ban on items like straws and grocery bags if his party is elected. Poilievre campaigned in Montreal this morning, as he and other federal leaders returned to the campaign trail following the two national leaders' debates Wednesday and Thursday. Liberal Leader Mark Carney is campaigning in Hamilton later...
An internal Conservative party strategy document viewed by the Star shows how the party uses parliamentary committee meetings to maximize social media exposure and advance its political narratives. A “torture chamber” for the government. “Social media content generators.”
The Liberals widened their lead over the Conservatives when it comes to which party Canadians most trust to steer the economy, according to a new The Logic poll by Abacus Data, although there was also a small drop in the share of people who plan to vote for them.
In the cut and thrust of an election debate, it's not uncommon for a political party leader to get a number or a fact wrong. But sometimes they repeat those erroneous statements — both on the campaign trail and the debate stage. The CBC News fact-checking team looked into some of the inaccurate claims that leaders have made more than...
Liberal Leader Mark Carney spent his first English election debate presenting himself as a safe pair of hands for a Canada in crisis -- while Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre sought to frame him as more of the same after a decade of Liberal government. Carney, who is leading in the polls, became the main target of all his rivals' attacks...
As voters enjoy a holiday meal with family and friends this long weekend, they might also be digesting the leadership debates — and the election campaign writ large. Holidays in the middle of a campaign aren't new. Canada's fixed date election rules means the vote usually takes place in October after the Thanksgiving weekend. But the spring snap election call...
The leader scrums that had been scheduled for after Thursday’s English-language debate have been cancelled due to security concerns. CTV News first reported the development while the debate was underway. Leaders’ Debates Commission executive director Michel Cormier later confirmed it, telling reporters the organizers don’t feel they “can actually guarantee a proper environment for this activity.” Cormier did not elaborate...
The head of the Leaders’ Debates Commission said Thursday he wasn’t aware that right-wing media group Rebel News — which was permitted more opportunities to question leaders after Wednesday’s debate than most mainstream outlets — had registered as an official third party in the federal election. Third parties are groups that seek to influence elections but aren’t parties or candidates...
'I'm a very different person from Justin Trudeau,' Liberal Leader Mark Carney says. With polls showing Liberal Leader Mark Carney is the front-runner in this federal election, the other three main party leaders on stage for Thursday's English-language debate spent much of the contest trying to tear him down. Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre took aim at Carney early on in...
New questions have surfaced about relations between a federal Liberal candidate running in Markham-Unionville and China’s consulate in Toronto, including his presentation of an award of appreciation to a consul-general and appearing to salute the Communist flag at an event celebrating the establishment of the People’s Republic of China.
Investment fund co-headed by Liberal leader acquired 51% of Westinghouse in 2023. During the first leaders' debate on Wednesday, Liberal Leader Mark Carney praised nuclear energy and named two companies in the sector with which he did business during his tenure at Brookfield Asset Management. In 2023, Brookfield formed a partnership with uranium mining firm Cameco to purchase the Westinghouse...
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith's government is pausing the procurement policy it announced more than a month ago to fight U.S. President Donald Trump's tariffs. Service Alberta Minister Dale Nally says since the province's retaliatory measures were first announced in early March, Trump's administration has put a hold on further tariffs. Nally says, "in the spirit of diplomacy," Alberta has decided...
Amid mounting American trade threats and global instability, Prime Minister Mark Carney recycled the Liberal promise of overhauling Canada’s problem-plagued military procurement system through a new centralized agency. That pledge, floated repeatedly over the past two decades, could take root if the next government has “the political imperative” to follow through, but it won’t solve everything, say defence experts...
John Mutton — the Greenbelt lobbyist known as “Mr. X” — has been banned from lobbying government for two years.Mutton, a former mayor of Clarington, gained notoriety when integrity commissioner J. David Wake dubbed him “Mr. X” in a 2023 report on the $8.28-billion Greenbelt land swap scandal.
The Liberals have a marginal five-point advantage over the Conservatives on Day 26 of the 36-day federal election campaign, while a breakdown of voter intention by age shows an “absolute dead heat” when it comes to key middle aged voters. A three-day rolling sample by Nanos Research ending April 16 has the Liberals at 44 per cent over the Conservatives...
Some of the organizations have looked to courts to obtain accreditation. Rebel News and other right-wing media outlets dominated the question-and-answer sessions with federal party leaders after Wednesday's French-language leaders' debate — though not all of them got answers to their questions. Liberal Leader Mark Carney was the first leader to take 10 minutes of questions from the media after...
A federal website that used to feature information on vaccines, testing and treatment for COVID-19 has been transformed into a page supporting the theory that the pandemic originated with a lab leak.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Donald Trump has stepped up his attacks on Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell at the same time that the Supreme Court is considering a case that could make it easier for the president to fire him.
JENA, La. (AP) -- Amid rural Louisiana's crawfish farms, towering pine trees and cafes serving po'boys, nearly 7,000 people are waiting at immigration detention centers to learn whether they will be expelled from the United States.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Donald Trump is drastically shrinking the size and the mission of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the latest step in an extraordinary reshaping of the federal government.
Meta Platforms Inc. faces a historic antitrust trial beginning Monday that could force the tech giant to break off Instagram and WhatsApp, startups it bought more than a decade ago that have since grown into social media powerhouses.
China announced Friday that it will raise tariffs on U.S. goods from 84 per cent to 125 per cent -- the latest salvo in an escalating trade war between the world’s two largest economies that has rattled markets and raised fears of a global slowdown. While U.S. President Donald Trump paused import taxes this week for other countries, he raised...
A helicopter broke apart in midair Thursday and crashed upside-down into the Hudson River between Manhattan and the New Jersey waterfront, killing a family of Spanish tourists, including three children in the latest high-profile aviation disaster in the U.S., officials said. Mayor Eric Adams said the flight began at a downtown heliport around 3 p.m. and that the dead had...
NEW YORK (AP) -- President Donald Trump has launched tariff wars with nearly all of America's trading partners. And there's no end in sight.
GREENBELT, Md. (AP) -- A federal judge on Friday ordered the Trump administration to arrange for the return of a Maryland man to the United States after he was mistakenly deported to a notorious El Salvador prison, while a U.S. government attorney was at a loss to explain what happened.
On March 11, China concluded its annual 'Two Sessions' — a pair of legislative and advisory meetings focused on Beijing's economic priorities for the year ahead. The slew of macroeconomic measures announced at those meetings are now taking on heightened significance amid the escalating U.S.–China trade war.
The reciprocal tariffs announced by U.S. President Donald Trump on April 2 – what he referred to as “Liberation Day” – hit Southeast Asian economies particularly hard. While they and others received a brief respite in the form of a 90-day pause, with a universal lowered reciprocal tariff of 10 per cent, tariffs on goods from China spiked to 14...
Canadian health care is ripe for major reform. In 1965–66, Canada experienced a paradigm shift – a “big bang” policy change. Since then, the core relationships between patient, state, medical profession, and labour remain the same. For 60 years, political actors have focused on policies that promise incremental change and avoid major reform. Medicare might be one of the most...
A collection of SubStack publishing within Canadian public affairs.
Is it time I admit defeat, pull up my tent and go home? For 30 years I have advocated for reductions to Canada’s military spending, and it keeps rising and rising. Now it’s reached the point where Canada is the 6th highest in actual dollars within NATO (after USA, Germany, UK, France, Poland). Responding to expensive plans to increase military...
Last fall, before the Trump shitstorm, advisers to the prime minister saw the black clouds gathering to the south. The new president had not yet been sworn into office, but it was clear Canada was in the crosshairs.
The 10 men who have governed the Bank of Canada since its inception in 1934 have been taciturn types, studiously avoiding the mud-holes of public controversy. Central banks trade in trust, and must project immutability and stability.That’s why it was so unusual in 2012 to hear Mark Carney, then governor of the Bank, apologize to Canadians for screwing up.
There was no shortage of clashes and controversy as major party leaders’ squared off against each other in Montreal in both French and English. There were battles over pipelines, crime, change and how to deal with Donald Trump. Behind the scenes — concerns over how the debates were managed by organizers. Who came out on top and what’s the future...
Mark Carney, Canada’s 24th Prime Minister and leader of the Liberal Party, joins Scott to discuss the country’s economic outlook, how Canada fits into a shifting global order, and whether the U.S.-Canada relationship can be repaired amid rising trade tensions.
David Herle, Scott Reid, Jordan Leichnitz, and Kory Teneycke provide insights on the latest in Canadian politics.
Major party leaders meet in Montreal for the English-language leaders' debate with less than two weeks until Canada votes. And event organizers are forced to cancel the post-debate news conferences over security concerns. Rosemary Barton hosts Chantal Hébert, Andrew Coyne and Althia Raj.
