New defence strategy has been in the works for more than a year. The Canadian government’s long-awaited defence industrial strategy formally landed on Tuesday and arrives in the shadow of a push by the Trump administration to further make the United States the arms-maker of choice among allies. The new strategy has been in the works for more than a...
Statistics Canada reported an easing in the headline inflation rate Tuesday but a jump in the pace of food inflation amid tax changes and lingering pressures at the grocery store continue to put the squeeze on consumers. StatCan said Tuesday that the annual rate of inflation edged down to 2.3 per cent in January. Economists had expected inflation to hold...
Canada has failed both to adequately fund its military and to build up the domestic defence industry, Prime Minister Mark Carney said Tuesday as he rolled out an ambitious new plan to grow the defence sector. Canada's first-ever defence industrial strategy, unveiled Tuesday by Carney in Montreal, sets new guidance on procurement and funding decisions, looks to hike Canadian firms'...
Hockey personality Don Cherry and tech titan Edward Rogers are among 30 new recipients of the Order of Ontario. Lt.-Gov. Edith Dumont has announced the 2025 appointments, which include trade union leader Joe Mancinelli of the Labourers' International Union of North America and former ambassador to the United States David MacNaughton. Dumont says the appointees have made a "profound contribution"...
Jivani joined Breitbart News Washington Bureau Chief Matthew Boyle on the program on the heels of meeting with President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio earlier this month, which led to a liberal member of parliament, John-Paul Danko, labeling Jivani a Nazi sympathizer.
Support for the two frontrunning parties is within the margin of error for the Nanos tracking. Poilievre trails Carney by 29 points on the preferred PM preferences as jobs/the economy and Trump/US relations statistically tied as the top national issues of concern.
Nanos conducted an RDD dual frame (land- and cell-lines) telephone random survey of 1,018 respondents in Canada. This report is based on the four waves of tracking ending February 13th, 2026. The margin of error for a random survey of 1,018 Canadians is ±3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20. The research was commissioned by the Bloomberg and was conducted by Nanos Research.
For generations, Canada lived under a durable assumption: integration guarantees security. We carried the flag for multilateralism in the postwar period, embedding ourselves in alliances, supply chains and global markets, confident that economic openness and collective defence would reinforce our sovereignty. By and large, that strategy helped Canada prosper. But in today’s volatile world, it no longer holds.
Embedded in the marquee numbers of the Defence Industrial Strategy Prime Minister Mark Carney unveiled on Tuesday was a long-unfathomable message: the United States is no longer a reliable ally, but a potential kinetic enemy. “The assumptions that defined decades of Canadian defence and foreign policy have been turned upside down,” Mr. Carney said at the DIS unveiling in Montreal...
Statistics Canada says lower prices at the pump and easing shelter inflation helped rein in the pressure facing consumers in January. The agency said Tuesday that the annual rate of inflation ticked down to 2.3 per cent last month. Economists had expected inflation to hold steady at 2.4 per cent. StatCan said gas prices were 16.7 per cent lower year-over-year...
Between February 5 and 10, 2026, Abacus Data surveyed 1,915 Canadian adults as part of our ongoing federal political tracking. This wave comes at a consequential moment in federal politics. It follows the Conservative Party convention in Calgary and Pierre Poilievre’s leadership review, but more importantly, it represents the first clear read on the political environment after several weeks of...
The GM plant in Oshawa often feels like a mythical place. Long-time residents in the region tell stories of a time when it was a hub of prosperity for tens of thousands of families. They say, when shifts would end, there were so many GM employees that some roads would become one-way streets so workers could drive home in an...
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...
Over the past week, both Campbell Clark in The Globe and Mail and Althia Raj in The Toronto Star have written about a section of Bill C-4 (the federal affordability bill) that deals with political party privacy rules. Both have raised serious concerns, using words like “cahoots,” “cabal,” “lawless,” and “above the law” to describe the cross-partisan agreement behind it...
The opposition parties were all trumped, as it were, in last year’s election. They may well face the same fate again this year as talk of an election call in Canada grows. If an election does occur, Donald Trump’s continued raft of threats, insults and incoherent rants is a gift to the Liberals. His behaviour underlines the threat he represents...
Prime Minister Mark Carney won many plaudits for his recent speech to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in which he warned that the rules-based economic order is over, and that “middle powers” such as Canada must work together against great-power coercion. The speech continued making waves at last week’s Munich Security Conference. But talk is cheap and applause...
The Supreme Court of Canada’s February 13th decision to nullify last April’s “single vote election win” in the Quebec riding of Terrebonne has increased the number of anticipated federal byelections to three — a number of exceptional importance based on the minority status of Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Liberal government in the House of Commons. The departure of University-Rosedale MP...
It’s unanimous: Federal political parties agree that they should be above the law. In this instance, the laws in question are provincial privacy laws that set limits on how your personal information can be used and provide individuals with some rights to know what information has been collected. Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Liberal government snuck measures into a bill on...
Canada’s political parties are in cahoots. The Liberals, Conservatives and New Democrats are attempting to grant themselves the right to do what they want with your personal information — without your knowledge or third-party oversight.
Silence is a decision. And this is, effectively, where Pierre Poilievre now finds himself on the issue of U.S. President Donald Trump.
The British band The Clash famously asked “Should I Stay or Should I Go” in its 1982 hit song. That was two years after Quebecers were asked a far wordier question about independence. How a question is phrased — and what response options are offered — can have a massive impact on a study’s results.
The fun thing about Ottawa is that it’s a town where people will swear with a straight face that they’re not thinking about a thing they are definitely thinking about, which is also the thing everyone is talking about. This week, that thing is snap-election speculation. It’s easy to picture the polls batting their eyelashes and waving seductively at the...
The NDP’s leadership race is hurtling toward the March 29 finish line, with all five declared candidates still in the race, having met their fundraising and signature-gathering requirements. There are differences emerging from the “violent agreement” that we normally see in NDP leadership races, and this could indeed be an existential choice that the party faces as they determine what...
Everybody knows what’s happening with Donald Trump’s threat to block the opening of a Detroit-Windsor bridge. At least, everybody in the political system in Washington and Ottawa. It’s a shakedown, with a choke point in Canada-U.S. relations as leverage. Detroit border crossings have been used that way for years. Now it’s a pretty good analogy for all of U.S. foreign...
They are greyer now: greyer of hair and face, but also in perception. In their younger days, they saw things more in black and white, as we saw them. But the years have passed, and now we see them through a mist of … what? Nostalgia? Ambivalence? Maybe say complexity, and respect, and, finally, gratitude. They are the lions in...
Many people in Ottawa, even some who know her well, did not know until this week that the former national director of the New Democratic Party, Anne McGrath, is the survivor of a school shooting. McGrath doesn’t tend to bring it up often, but every time there is a school shooting, as there was this week In Tumbler Ridge, B.C....
It’s not hard to imagine what would have happened if a year ago, or even a few months ago, Donald Trump had threatened to block the new Gordie Howe International Bridge linking Windsor, Ont., and Detroit. Shock and horror on the Canadian side. Front-page coverage in the Canadian media. Opposition calls for the government to do something.
Canada has a big, beautiful piece of infrastructure we think you might be interested in. It’s a tremendous, wonderful bridge, and it’s already been paid for — you only have to take the credit. And just because it’s you, because you’re such a clever and strong president, we named it for the best right-winger the Detroit Red Wings ever had...
Last week Conservative MP for Bowmanville-Oshawa North, Jamil Jivani, stated that he was going down to Washington, DC, in an effort to help move Canada-US trade relations along. Jivani has a longstanding friendship with the US Vice President JD Vance, so it would make sense for him to leverage his personal relationships in a professional capacity. Except, of course, Jivani...
The mass shooting in Tumbler Ridge is the kind of tragedy that Canada, unfortunately, has seen too often in recent decades. It will take some time to fully understand how this horror occurred. But we know the results. Nine people are dead: A mother, an educator, six children, and the shooter Jesse Van Rootselaar.
As part of his trip to Beijing last month, Prime Minister Mark Carney met with Zhao Leji, the third-ranking member of the 20th Chinese Communist Party Politburo and chair of the standing committee of the National People’s Congress. The readout that emerged from the meeting said they talked about the importance of ongoing parliamentary exchanges and “opportunities for enhanced understanding...
After Donald Trump came out this week with his latest instalment in his Browbeat Thy Neighbour series – his dip into Loo Loo Land with his Truth Social threat to block the opening of the Gordie Howe Bridge – I was keen to check in on the American reaction, from readers in both conservative and liberal media. Out of about...
If there’s one thing that’s driving me a little nuts about the active petition to foist a separation referendum on Alberta, it’s this: the claim that the process is some kind of benign and beautiful expression of democracy. Because, frankly, no, that’s not really how our democratic system is supposed to work. Canada is not California — which uses tools...
Is artificial intelligence the salvation of mankind, or its downfall? Are markets justified in bidding up AI stocks as high as they have, or is it all a bubble? Will we look back on the hundreds of billions of dollars the AI titans are currently investing in capacity as having laid the foundations for a new age of prosperity, or...
School shootings are the most senseless, shattering event that can befall a community. A feeling of ultimate loss grips the entire nation. Political leaders often have nothing more to offer than their condolences, but people want more than that. They are looking for reassurance, empathy and a sense that someone will do something about it.
When Stephen Harper was Prime Minister I wrote many columns warning about the influence that right wing Americans had on his political operation, and I spent many dreary hours trying to trace his connections south of the border. I now wonder if that was time well spent because, since the second election of Donald Trump, it has become clear that...
A new national survey by Liaison Strategies reveals that if a federal election were held today, the Liberal Party, led by Mark Carney, would hold a substantial 9 point lead over the Conservative Party. The Weekly Federal Tracker shows high approval ratings for Prime Minister Mark Carney, while Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre continues to face high unfavourable numbers. Among decided...
As some Albertans push to leave Canada, they could also be pushing away the billions of dollars needed to build a pipeline, in the same way past threats of separation led to capital flight from Quebec, warns the province’s former premier. “The oil and gas sector, the big projects that drive employment and government revenues, require tens of billions of...
Prime Minister Mark Carney released his new Buy Canadian plan for supplying the military and growing Canada’s domestic defence industry on Tuesday. The $6.6-billion plan promises to prioritize building military equipment at home, hike the share of defence contracts awarded to Canadian firms and add up to 125,000 new jobs over the next decade. The strategy aims to grow out...
Prime Minister Mark Carney is facing mounting calls to speak out against the United States for widening its restrictions on fuel reaching Cuba, or to send aid to the country. For more than a year, Global Affairs Canada has warned travellers of "shortages of basic necessities, including food, medicine and fuel" across most of Cuba. In January, the island lost...
The Canadian prime minister is spearheading discussions between the EU and a major Indo-Pacific trade bloc after calling on middle powers to join forces. Two of the world’s biggest trading blocs are cautiously eyeing closer ties to short-circuit Donald Trump’s tariffs. The European Union and a 12-nation Indo-Pacific bloc are opening talks to explore proposals to form one of the...
Prime Minister Mark Carney has chosen Janice Charette, the former head of the public service, to serve as the country's chief trade negotiator to the United States. Charette is a career bureaucrat who twice served as clerk of the Privy Council and once as high commissioner to the United Kingdom. Her appointment comes just ahead of a major review of...
The reborn federal electric vehicle rebate program is set to launch today -- but some of Canada's auto dealers say they're still out tens of thousands dollars from the last one. Starting today, Canadians can access up to $5,000 in government rebates toward the purchase of new electric vehicles that cost less than $50,000. Plug-in hybrids will be eligible for...
As Prime Minister Mark Carney lowers tariffs on imports of Chinese electric vehicles, new polling suggests that Canadians are becoming much more open to buying the cars. Article content More than half of Canadians, or 53%, say that knowing an EV was made in China would have no effect on their purchasing decision, according to a new poll by Nanos...
In preparation for a potential early election, the Conservative Party recently sent notices to 16 ridings in five provinces informing them that anyone interested in seeking the party’s nomination should file their papers by Feb. 25, according to Conservative sources. Of these, nine are in Ontario, three in Nova Scotia, one in New Brunswick, two in British Columbia, and one...
Weeks after Ottawa announced that it would allow a limited number of Chinese-made vehicles into the Canadian market, some have warned that the move puts data privacy at risk. But that might not be a significant turn-off for consumers who are in the market for a new car. While roaming the Canadian International AutoShow on Friday, Dianne Dougall and Pat...
TROIS-RIVIERES -- About 600 people welcomed Charles Milliard as the new head of the Quebec Liberal Party in Trois-Rivieres on Sunday, days after he was acclaimed in a leadership race that no one else joined.
VICTORIA -- Former B.C. Conservative leader John Rustad has announced he will not be entering the party's leadership race, saying the decision comes after "a lot of reflection."
Canada has officially signed onto the European defence procurement program it announced it would join last summer, as Washington's upending of geopolitics overshadows the world's top security conference. Defence Minister David McGuinty announced Ottawa had signed onto the European Union's 150-billion euro program called Security Action for Europe, or SAFE, Saturday at the Munich Security Conference. The program allows EU...
The Liberal government is making sweeping changes to the way it approaches supporting the domestic defence industry, as Canada looks to transition away from over-reliance on the United States for military gear. The government was expected to announce its strategy last week, but Prime Minister Mark Carney suspended his travel due to a mass-shooting in B.C. and pushed the announcement...
China is dropping its visa requirement for Canadian tourists and business visitors, after moves by Prime Minister Mark Carney to put relations with Beijing on a better footing. China's Foreign Ministry says Canadians will no longer be required to get visas for 30-days stays, starting Tuesday until at least the end of this year. A month ago, during his visit...
Despite a slow start in late 2025, Liberal members of the House Finance Committee say they finally see signs of progress towards passing the government’s massive budget implementation bill, although opposition MPs continue to object to a clause in the legislation they argue would grant federal ministers unprecedented powers “like those of a king.”
Economists expect tax changes from a year ago will result in a year-over-year surge in food prices when Statistics Canada reports January inflation figures later this week. StatCan will publish its January consumer price index report on Tuesday, a day later than originally scheduled. The agency recently adopted a Monday publishing schedule for the consumer price index but shifted the...
As discussion around Alberta separation continues, a new survey suggests many Canadians believe the United States would back the province if it chose to leave Confederation. A Nanos Research survey commissioned by CTV News found four in five Canadians believe the U.S. would support Alberta separating from Canada. Respondents in the Prairie provinces reported the highest levels of that belief...
Government House Leader Steven MacKinnon is standing by the Liberals’ decision to deliver the Budget Implementation Act as a 634-page omnibus piece of legislation. Bill C-15, the Budget Implementation Act, allows the government to enact the legislative policies laid out in the budget thatrequire new laws or amendments to existing laws. Among other things, the legislation includes changes to transport...
Over 370 delegates and more than 200 businesses seeking new markets. A Canadian trade mission to Mexico this week could produce new deals by early spring, and marks the country's "most significant" such mission ever to Mexico, according to Canada-U.S. Trade Minister Dominic LeBlanc. LeBlanc is leading the mission, which will see over 370 Canadian delegates and more than 20...
Defence minister says Canada's the only non-European country to join program. Defence Minister David McGuinty says Canada has now officially joined the European Union’s Security Action for Europe (SAFE) program, which offers loans to member states to invest in defence capabilities. "The agreement strengthens our collective security, supports the development of key defence capabilities, and gives Canadian industry access to...
'Every time you take the tunnel you're ... supporting the residents of Windsor,' Coun. Angelo Marignani said. A city councillor in Windsor, Ont., is encouraging Canadians who want to buy Canadian to travel from Windsor to Detroit through the Windsor-Detroit tunnel instead of crossing the Ambassador Bridge. The City of Windsor owns half of the tunnel and receives dividends from...
Canadian prime minister Mark Carney has told residents of Tumbler Ridge that the country is “with you, and we will always be with you”, during a candlelight vigil for the eight victims of a mass shooting that has shattered the small mining town.
Weeks after the 2025 federal election, Nick Belanger was on the phone when he started receiving calls from an unknown caller. Given he was already on a call, he declined to answer. The person tried again and Belanger relented. “I’m like, hello, who is this? Why do you keep calling me?” he recounts in a livestream. “Is this the Pleb?”...
Normally, it's considered a good thing when the world beats a path to your door. Maybe not so much when we're talking about nuclear deterrence. At the very least, it is an ominous sign of the times.
Inuit leaders back from a recent trip to Greenland say there's a stark contrast between the infrastructure in that Nordic country compared to Canada's North, and they're calling on the federal government to urgently fill the gap as part of its enhanced focus on Arctic security. "They're way ahead of us," said Paul Irngaut, president of Nunavut Tunngavik Incorporated (NTI)...
Brig.-Gen. Christopher Horner says access to spaceports is a challenge. The head of Canada's military space division says the country "should absolutely be" concerned about Russia's potential capabilities amid global fears the Kremlin is considering putting nuclear weapons in place to target satellites. "That would be cataclysmic," said Brig.-Gen. Christopher Horner, Commander of 3 Canadian Space Division during an interview...
CPP announces record $780B in assets — 47% in the U.S. For all the fear over the U.S. trade war and President Donald Trump's threats to Canadian sovereignty, this country's biggest pension funds remain heavily invested in the U.S. The Canada Pension Plan (CPP), the largest pension fund in the country, announced this week that it has grown to a...
Prime Minister Mark Carney says there's nothing anyone can do to fill the silence left by the loss of those killed in the mass shooting in Tumbler Ridge, B.C. The prime minister spoke to a crowd of hundreds at a vigil in the community where people held photos of the loved ones they have lost.
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) -- Late-night host Stephen Colbert said his interview with Democratic Texas Senate candidate James Talarico was pulled from Monday night's broadcast over network fears it would violate regulatory guidance from the Trump administration on giving equal time to political candidates.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Justice Department has issued new subpoenas in a Florida-based investigation into perceived adversaries of President Donald Trump and the U.S. government response to Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, according to multiple people familiar with the matter.
Late-night host Stephen Colbert said his interview with Democratic Texas Senate candidate James Talarico was pulled from Monday night's broadcast over network fears it would violate regulatory guidance from the Trump administration on giving equal time to political candidates.
Eulogies are pouring in after the death of the Rev. Jesse L. Jackson, who led the U.S. Civil Rights Movement for decades. The protege of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and two-time presidential candidate was 84.
Prime Minister Mark Carney is facing mounting calls to speak out against the United States for widening its restrictions on fuel reaching Cuba, or to send aid to the country. For more than a year, Global Affairs Canada has warned travellers of "shortages of basic necessities, including food, medicine and fuel" across most of Cuba. In January, the island lost...
China is dropping its visa requirement for Canadian tourists and business visitors, after moves by Prime Minister Mark Carney to put relations with Beijing on a better footing. China's Foreign Ministry says Canadians will no longer be required to get visas for 30-days stays, starting Tuesday until at least the end of this year. A month ago, during his visit...
Foreign diplomats in Ottawa are applauding the vision of Canada’s foreign policy direction outlined by Prime Minister Mark Carney in his Davos address, but they’re coming to different conclusions about how it will get implemented.
President says he won't allow opening until U.S. 'is fully compensated for everything we have given' Canada. U.S. President Donald Trump is threatening to block the opening of the Gordie Howe Bridge, poised to become the newest border crossing between Windsor, Ont., and Detroit. "I will not allow this bridge to open until the United States is fully compensated for...
Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand is calling on China to release Hong Kong publisher Jimmy Lai after he was sentenced to 20 years in jail today under a sweeping national security law. Canada joins numerous peers, including the United States and the European Union, in condemning Beijing for the sentence imposed under a law used to crack down on Hong...
Since the legalization of medical assistance in dying (MAiD) in 2016, the federal government has created certain safeguards and regulatory mechanisms – including data collection – to ensure that people don’t request death because they lack access to care, including palliative care.
A collection of SubStack publishing within Canadian public affairs.
Cuba has been plunged into darkness. Schools, hospitals and essential services are hit by rolling 12-hour blackouts. Foreigners, including Canadians, have fled. Even worse, infant mortality is climbing.
Lisa Banfield, common-law wife of the man who meticulously slaughtered 22 people six years ago, recently published a memoir of her life-on-eggshells with a controlling killer.
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...
How do you handle an MP who goes rogue from his own party? That's a question for this week's Moore Butts conversation. But first, Gerry Butts on the world's new security order. Gerry has just returned from the Munich Security Conference and the former principal secretary to Justin Trudeau, and former Stephen Harper cabinet minister James Moore discuss how Canada...
The Globe exclusively reported that Prime Minister Mark Carney and Ontario Premier Doug Ford discussed the possibility of a snap federal election this spring. The next federal election is scheduled for no later than 2029, though historically, minority governments usually last around two years. But just how realistic is this speculation of another election? Laura Stone, who broke the story...
Peter Mazereeuw gets you up to speed on what happened on and away from Parliament Hill this week in this five-minute mini-pod.
