The resignation of longtime MP Bill Blair has triggered a potential round of political musical chairs, as the federal Liberals poach a provincial NDP representative to run for his seat and a Liberal MP looks to fill that provincial void. The Liberals named Ontario NDP member of provincial parliament Doly Begum as their candidate Tuesday for Scarborough Southwest following Blair's...
Interim federal NDP Leader Don Davies is accusing Ontario NDP deputy leader Doly Begum of undermining democracy after announcing she will run federally as a Liberal for the seat vacated by former MP Bill Blair. "When Canadians see politicians betray the values and policies that they claim to believe in, I think it damages our democracy and it breeds cynicism...
When it comes to Ontario, I’m all in. To that end, I’ll seek the Ontario Liberal Party’s nomination to run in the Scarborough Southwest by-election. I’ve communicated this to interim leader John Fraser, and I will continue to support Prime Minister Carney as an active member of our federal caucus in the meantime.
Canada has "absolutely no intention" of acquiring nuclear weapons, Defence Minister David McGuinty said Tuesday -- rejecting the suggestion from former chief of the defence staff Wayne Eyre that Ottawa should not rule it out. McGuinty said Canada has signed international treaties explicitly opposed to the proliferation of nuclear weapons. "Canada is a signatory to international treaties which preclude us...
Concern about Trump/US relations has surged in the wake of the WEF Davos meeting which featured speeches by Carney and Trump. Liberals hold a tenuous four point lead over the Conservatives while Carney has opened up a substantial 29 point advantage on the preferred PM tracking.
A new Liaison Strategies national survey finds the Liberal Party of Canada maintaining an eight-point advantage over the Conservative Party of Canada. Among decided and leaning voters, the Liberals lead with 43% to the Conservatives’ 35%, with the New Democratic Party at 8%, and the Bloc Québécois at 7%. Simultaneously, Prime Minister Mark Carney's approval rating has reached an approval...
The main criticism of Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre’s convention speech on Friday was that in 40 minutes or so, he didn’t mention the words “Donald Trump” — or how he would respond to the president’s intimidation.
OTTAWA -- Former prime minister Stephen Harper's official portrait was unveiled Tuesday afternoon, ahead of the 20th anniversary of the election of his first Conservative government.
Bank of Canada research suggests the acceleration in food inflation last year was almost entirely due to rising import costs, not domestic factors. The total annual change in food costs, excluding fruits and vegetables, was 3.1% in 2025, and 2.7 percentage points of that increase was due to direct imports, imported inputs and international shipping costs, according to research released...
Prime Minister Mark Carney’s well-crafted and eloquently delivered speech at Davos has been widely noted, and I want to start by offering some praise of my own. The Prime Minister is right to restate what many have said for years: Canada must become more self-reliant, less dependent and work with like-minded countries to advance our interests. Conservatives are, as always...
It’s hard to know what to make of Pierre Poilievre’s speech at the Conservative convention this weekend except to note that there is more information to be gleaned from that which was not said than that which was. On the one hand, it should be noted, the leader’s address to the faithful was conventionally conservative, tonally appropriate, and entirely safe...
The U.S. president is a preeminent concern for most Canadians. Pierre Poilievre did a lot right at the CPC convention last weekend. He got an 87.4 per cent approval rating, higher than most pundits predicted. He revealed a human side when he spoke about his autistic daughter and the family time he has sacrificed for politics. And he pledged to...
Canadians take pride in our country’s role as a principled voice for international law, arms control and responsible multilateralism. In 2019, when Canada acceded to the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT), there was strong public support for our government’s pledge that Canadian arms exports would never contribute to human-rights abuses.
“I think this is it,” I said to my dad. “No, this can’t possibly be it,” he said in response. “No, this is actually it,” I said again. The “it” was our destination: a tiny tavern in the village of Quyon, Que. — about 45 minutes northwest of downtown Ottawa. That night at that tavern, the former member of Parliament...
This week in Ottawa, Conservatives will gather to mark a milestone that still shapes Canadian politics: Stephen Harper’s election victory twenty years ago in 2006, ending more than a decade of Liberal rule. The unveiling of Mr. Harper’s official portrait is a reminder that his legacy will sit, quite literally, in the halls of Parliament. Our latest Abacus Data survey...
Predictably, the headline from the Conservative convention over the weekend is Pierre Poilievre’s 87.4 per cent approval score among party faithful, and 34 per cent among Canadians polled by the Angus Reid Institute. No news here. Time will tell if the buzz over the first data point will help increase the second. What’s more revealing is what Jenni Byrne, the...
The federal government is reportedly considering a social media ban for kids under the age of 14. This move, as first reported by the Globe and Mail, isn’t entirely surprising given that in the wake of Australia’s social media ban for kids under the age of 16, many other countries such as Denmark, Spain and France have been considering their...
Just weeks into 2026, the United States has sent shockwaves around the world by attacking and threatening a wide variety of countries. The U.S. government has repeated threats towards Canada, threatened military action against Europe in order to seize Greenland, and threatened the governments of Colombia, Mexico, and Cuba. It may be moving towards military confrontation with Iran.
To understand the rise and stall of Pierre Poilievre, consider two polls conducted roughly three-and-a-half years apart.
Red Tories and blue Liberals have found someone they like better, and trust more. Poilievre’s speech reflected a recognition that he had to change to be competitive. Whether you liked it or didn’t, the speech Pierre Poilievre gave at the Conservative convention was, in a way, the speech Mark Carney made him give. In Calgary, at the convention of Conservatives...
In his speech at his party’s convention in Calgary on Friday, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre expressed his wariness about the “strategic partnership” the Carney government has struck with China. Cognizant that many western Conservatives welcomed Beijing’s tariff relief on canola provided by an agreement to allow 49,000 Chinese electric vehicles into Canada, he did not expand on his misgivings.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre’s team feared the surprise of another floor crossing MP last Friday, but losing a member to the Liberals now might be a blessing in disguise. Handing Prime minister Mark Carney’s Liberals a working majority would give the Conservative leader some much needed breathing room.
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...
Pierre Poilievre garnered rousing applause Friday night when he told delegates to the Conservative convention in Calgary the party won’t change its principles. “We won the debate in the last election on every single one of the big issues, on carbon taxes, inflation, housing, resources, crime, drugs, and soon we will be proven right once again on the wasteful and...
But it should be remembered that U.S. President Donald Trump is an aberration. With a change at the White House, Canada and the United States could be besties again. History will eventually win out over histrionics.
The Conservatives gave 87.4 per cent support to a leader whose popularity lags far behind the party itself.
In the final week of the U.S. presidential campaign in 1980, during his only debate with President Jimmy Carter, Republican candidate Ronald Reagan said two things that made history. The first won him the debate, and the second likely won him the election. Reagan had been trailing Carter in the days leading up to the League of Women Voters debate...
In politics, you can rarely put your faith in absolutes. Especially maxims coined by Wall Street traders. But this one has merit. After an extensive analysis, Bloomberg Economics recently showed that U.S. President Donald Trump only follows through on his tariff threats a mere quarter of the time. So. Make that almost always chickens out.
After the year Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre had in 2025 — which started with victory in the air and within months turned to ashes — 2026 has begun on a high. Friday night at the Conservative Party convention in Calgary, where a required leadership review was held to enable the removal of the party leader following an election loss, Poilievre...
The phrase that was repeated like a mantra on the opening night of the Conservative convention was that Pierre Poilievre carried a “message of hope.” MPs and party officials who spoke Thursday night used the word “hope” 16 times in an hour.
Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew, like his fellow first ministers, went into his big meetings in Ottawa this week with Donald Trump and the United States much on his mind. Near the top of Kinew’s list of concerns, though, was a topic that not many politicians have been eager to publicly tackle — the chaos in Minnesota.
After a campaign-style speech, heavily borrowed from the Conservatives’ best hits of the 2025 election, Pierre Poilievre secured the leadership of his party with a resounding 87.4 per cent of the delegate vote. Now, the party must wrestle with the question of what comes next.
Stephen Harper’s ten years as prime minister began on Feb. 6, 2006. Twenty years later is a good time to assess his achievements in office and the legacy he left behind. I worked closely with Harper when he was leader of the Opposition, but not when he was in government, so this is a view from the outside.
Since my reference to it last week, Prime Minister Mark Carney’s address in Davos seems to have been both intended and received as a policy manifesto for Canada and also for other countries that feel short-shrifted by what have traditionally been known as the “great powers.” The prime minister quoted the Czech president and former dissident Václav Havel that the...
Executives in the core federal public service received more than $146 million in performance pay last year. Data from the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat shows 7,987 executives earned performance pay, which is awarded for achieving specific performance objectives. It says there were 8,140 executives at the time in the core public service -- departments and agencies under the purview...
Unlike the U.S. consultations for the CUSMA review, Canadian submissions have remained secret, and House International Trade Committee members are pushing for more information.
Mark Carney’s Liberals will be running a member of the provincial NDP in an upcoming byelection in Scarborough Southwest. The federal Liberals announced Tuesday morning that Doly Begum, the New Democrat MPP for the riding and the provincial NDP’s deputy leader, will be their candidate in the byelection to replace Bill Blair, who stepped down yesterday.
The federal government is targeting more than 8,000 job cuts through workforce adjustment. The federal government has released its clearest picture to date of efforts to cut back the size of the public service. Budget 2025 laid out a plan to reduce the public service by nearly 40,000 positions from a peak of around 368,000 in 2023-2024.
Sex offender travelled to Vancouver despite inadmissibility, federal officials offer no explanation. Nearly six years after pleading guilty to a crime that should have made him inadmissible, Jeffrey Epstein visited Canada, and federal government officials are providing no answers about why he was allowed into the country.
Conservatives hold a commanding lead with self-identified blue-collar voters, pollster Dan Arnold noted. Three contenders to be the federal NDP’s next leader say they’re not giving up on the party’s traditional blue-collar base, after multiple speakers at the recent Conservative national convention touted the party’s electoral gains on their turf. The Conservatives fell short of winning last year’s election but...
Former prime minister Stephen Harper's official portrait is set to be unveiled today, ahead of the 20th anniversary of the election of his first Conservative government. Harper's portrait will be presented during a ceremony at the Sir John A. Macdonald Building in downtown Ottawa this afternoon. The portrait was painted by Canadian artist Phil Richards, who is known for the...
No decision yet on future of the EV sales mandate, sources say. The federal government is considering bringing back consumer incentives for electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids as it finalizes its national automotive strategy, CBC News has learned. Sources with knowledge of the plans, whom CBC News has agreed not to name because they weren't authorized to speak publicly, say...
Canada’s former top soldier says this country should keep its options open on the question of acquiring nuclear weapons. Retired general Wayne Eyre, who stepped down as chief of the defence staff in 2024, was speaking at a forum on Canada’s military readiness. He was asked by a moderator whether Canada in this age of geopolitical turmoil should develop a...
Officials with a southern Alberta junior hockey team have announced the deaths of three players in a Monday crash. The Southern Alberta Mustangs, based out of Stavely, posted about the fatal collision on social media Monday, not giving specifics about where it occurred but saying it happened “earlier today” while “travelling to team practice.” “There are no words that can...
Former Alberta premier Jason Kenney says the governing United Conservative Party caucus has "no business" signing a petition to force a vote on the province quitting Canada. Kenney, in an interview Monday, said the party he helped create in 2017 and lead until 2022, was founded with the principle that it's committed to a strong Alberta within a united Canada...
With a new sitting of Parliament underway, Prime Minister Mark Carney and Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre are expected to meet this week. In a video posted to X on Monday afternoon, Poilievre said he is “seeking an urgent meeting with the prime minister” to “bring practical solutions, an openness to hear other ideas and work together to fast-track results.”
Former prime ministers Stephen Harper and Jean Chretien sat down for a fireside chat in Ottawa Monday to discuss the topic of “Canada and the World,” moderated by the Royal Canadian Geographical Society (RCGS). Ahead of the conversation, Harper received an RCGS Gold Medal at a ceremony in Ottawa, in recognition of his “distinguished career in public service,” according to...
Canada’s Arctic would eventually come from the U.S., he said Monday afternoon. Speaking on a panel at the Royal Canadian Geographical Society in Ottawa, the former Conservative leader said he knew during his decade as prime minister that it would be important to reinforce Canada’s sovereignty in the North due to growing threats.
Analyst warns Eby's language could push some 'separatist-curious' Albertans to become fully separatist. B.C. Premier David Eby is not backing down after calling the Alberta separatist movement seeking foreign assistance an act of treason — but one analyst is warning against using such serious language during a time where Canada needs to stand united. Eby’s comments last week came amid...
The office of former foreign affairs minister John Baird says neither he nor the Canadian government were consulted on a 2014 seminar invitation list that included convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Baird's name appears in documents related to Epstein recently released by the U.S. Justice Department, including work-related guest lists and a document inviting Epstein to a one-week seminar in...
Prime Minister Mark Carney is appointing his national security adviser and a former cabinet minister as Ottawa's top envoys to Paris and London — world capitals where his government is pursuing deeper economic, security and climate policy ties. Former cabinet minister Bill Blair will resign his Toronto seat in the House of Commons in the coming weeks to take on...
The boost to the federal GST credit Prime Minister Mark Carney promised Canadians last week is one step closer to being enacted. In one of their first moves on Monday, members of Parliament unanimously approved a Conservative motion proposing to speed up the House of Commons’ deliberations over Bill C-19, the Canada Groceries and Essentials Benefit Act. That bill seeks...
As the profile of Canada's automotive sector shifts dramatically, a new report is pushing the federal government to reward automotive companies that are committed to the country. The report from the Trillium Network for Advanced Manufacturing notes that the last decade has seen U.S. automakers significantly shrink their Canadian footprint, while Japanese companies have kept production and employment steady.
The government’s budget watchdog said Monday it expects the federal government’s plan to increase the GST credit and offer a one-time payment to Canadians will cost Ottawa an estimated $12.4 billion over five years. The number, released by the Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer — is slightly higher than Ottawa’s initial projection. Prime Minister Mark Carney promised last week...
Now that U.S. President Donald Trump has 'decided to weaponize the interdependence' between Canada and the U.S. 'as a means of compromising our sovereignty,' John Manley says that the focus should be on bringing Canadians along as Prime Minister Mark Carney makes difficult decisions.
Former PM's portrait, painted by Canadian artist Phil Richards, to be unveiled Tuesday. Former prime minister Stephen Harper is being honoured at several events in Ottawa this week ahead of the 20th anniversary of his Conservative government, which was sworn into power on Feb. 6, 2006. On Monday afternoon, the Royal Canadian Geographical Society will award Harper its gold medal...
Some recent appointments have bypassed Trudeau's reforms. It's a landmark appointment that could shed new light on the inner workings of Prime Minister Mark Carney's government. If all goes as planned, Anton Boegman will soon become Canada's first-ever foreign influence transparency commissioner, charged with protecting the country from foreign interference. However, the process that led to his appointment appears to...
Air Force commander to sign key component for first Canadian fighter in Texas. The Canadian Armed Forces will participate in a ceremony in Texas on Monday to celebrate the imminent arrival of their first F-35 — as Ottawa has still yet to announce how many U.S.-made fighter jets it will ultimately buy. The event comes as the future of the...
Manitoba’s premier is set to visit Churchill this week to continue conversations around expanding the remote community’s port. Ahead of the first ministers’ meeting in Ottawa last Thursday, Premier Wab Kinew spoke highly of potential plans to unlock the Port of Churchill as a major sea trade hub. “Big energy play, defence, environmental protection, Churchill has it all in terms...
OTTAWA -- Political analysts say the federal Conservatives and leader Pierre Poilievre have momentum coming off a unifying convention in Calgary but the party still has a hill to climb in Parliament to one-up Prime Minster Mark Carney and the Liberals.
Red Tories and blue Liberals have found someone they like better, and trust more. Poilievre’s speech reflected a recognition that he had to change to be competitive. Whether you liked it or didn’t, the speech Pierre Poilievre gave at the Conservative convention was, in a way, the speech Mark Carney made him give. In Calgary, at the convention of Conservatives...
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith says members of her caucus can sign whatever petitions they want to, including one pushing for a referendum on the province’s independence from Canada. “I don’t police the responses of my MLAs, they can sign whatever petition that they want,” Smith told CTV Question Period host, Vassy Kapelos in an interview airing Sunday, adding she doesn’t...
After receiving a “strong mandate” from the rank-and-file party members in yesterday’s leadership review, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre will be making election readiness a top priority in the event the governing Liberals trigger a spring election, says the Conservative Party’s national campaign director. “Right now, the Liberals are looking for an excuse to call a spring election,” said Steve Outhouse...
The federal housing minister says he wants to ramp up the lagging pace of homebuilding in some provinces by bringing developers off the sidelines and into Ottawa's affordable housing projects. Gregor Robertson also said in an interview that the feds' new Build Canada Homes agency is working on getting Canadian banks and pension funds to play an active role in...
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The House on Tuesday passed a roughly $1.2 trillion spending package to end the partial government shutdown, sending the measure to President Donald Trump and setting the stage for a debate in Congress over Homeland Security funding.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Don't tune into the Super Bowl hoping for a break from the tumultuous politics gripping the U.S.
HOUSTON (AP) -- Rep. Christian Menefee of Texas, the newest member of Congress, started the job Monday - and now has just four weeks to convince Houston voters he already deserves reelection.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton agreed late Monday to testify in a House investigation into convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, but the Republican leading the probe said an agreement had not yet been finalized.
The office of former foreign affairs minister John Baird says neither he nor the Canadian government were consulted on a 2014 seminar invitation list that included convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Baird's name appears in documents related to Epstein recently released by the U.S. Justice Department, including work-related guest lists and a document inviting Epstein to a one-week seminar in...
The United Nations chief is warning that the world body faces "imminent financial collapse" unless its financial rules are overhauled or all 193 member nations pay their dues -- a message likely directed at the United States and the billions it owes.
The head of an organization that represents Canadian chief executives questioned Mark Carney’s handling of the relationship with the White House, calling on the prime minister to focus on salvaging the North American trade pact. Article content Carney captured global attention — and annoyed President Donald Trump — with a speech at the World Economic Forum last week. The prime...
The leaders of Britain and China on Thursday called for a "strategic partnership" to deepen ties between their nations at a time of growing global turbulence as they sought to thaw relations after years of chill. Neither Prime Minister Keir Starmer nor President Xi Jinping publicly mentioned Donald Trump, but the U.S. president's challenge to the global order was clearly...
Canadian companies are coming under fire over their ties to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement as U.S. President Donald Trump pursues a mass deportation campaign to expel vast numbers of immigrants. Canadian defence manufacturer Roshel and Vancouver-based companies Hootsuite and Jim Pattison Group are being raked publicly over their ties to the immigration enforcement agency -- especially in the wake...
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s widely praised speech last week in Davos was most notable for its frankness in admitting the hypocrisy behind Western support for a selectively enforced “rules-based international order.” But it also pulled no punches in calling out the coercive measures that great powers — including the United States — are increasingly employing to advance their interests.
A collection of SubStack publishing within Canadian public affairs.
The head of Ottawa’s public service got an earful from the federal information commissioner about the dismal state of access to information – the sign of a growing rift between the Liberal government and Parliament’s watchdog on transparency. At a Nov. 12 meeting, Caroline Maynard presented Michael Sabia, clerk of the Privy Council, with statistics detailing the deterioration of the...
The RCMP has handed out 23 awards for excellence to officers and employees in Nova Scotia for their performance during the April 2020 mass murders, in which a gunman impersonating a Mountie murdered 22 people in cold blood.
Library and Archives Canada (LAC) gets a lot of flak for its processing of Access to Information Act (ATIA) requests, especially for its long delays to respond. But lately they’ve been doing a few things right.
What does and what should Pierre Poilievre do now after receiving a ringing endorsement from his party? Was the Poilievre we saw on the weekend the same Poilievre we will see in the future? James Moore and Gerald Butts have another one of their very popular conversations, now also available on our YouTube channel.
Pierre Poilievre received 87.4% support in his leadership review at the Conservative convention in Calgary — a number we said in last week’s episode would be the “most boring” because it would be neither extremely high nor problematically low. But now that Poilievre has passed this test, he has to face his next challenge: closing the widening gap in the...
Pierre Poilievre just cruised through his leadership review, but is the party really buying what he’s selling? Noor Azrieh goes inside the Conservative convention in Calgary, from the polished speeches on stage to the simmering anger offstage.
The future of Alberta could either help strengthen Canadian interprovincial trade or mark a new chapter in America's history. Either way, the roadmap to the outcome has put our country's sovereignty at a threat. So much so that BC Premier David Eby called out separatists who went to the White House in recent weeks as 'treasonous'. Alberta Premier Danielle Smith...
