Amid reporting by CTV News that trade talks between Canada and the U.S. are gaining momentum, Prime Minister Mark Carney said the Trump administration is “coming closer to our position.” Carney made the comments during a question-and-answer period with reporters after a meeting between First Nation leaders and First Ministers in Ottawa on Monday. Carney also said, however, he can’t...
U.S. President Donald Trump says he expects his constantly evolving trade war with Canada to end "pretty soon" despite formal trade negotiations not resuming since they fell apart in August. Trump told a rally in Port Huron, Michigan, on Sunday that Canada had been "ripping off" the U.S. on trade and the U.S. had no choice but to impose levies...
Source familiar with discussions tells Radio-Canada 'we are not on the verge of an agreement just yet.' With the U.S.-Canada trade war dominating the final days of the U.S. midterm campaign, trade discussions between the two countries have intensified. But sources tell CBC News and Radio-Canada that doesn't mean a deal is imminent. A source familiar with the discussions told...
Prime Minister Mark Carney says he will instruct his ministers to work with First Nations to move Canada beyond the Indian Act — which he said could mean reforming it or abolishing it altogether. Speaking to reporters after a meeting with First Nations chiefs and premiers in Ottawa today, Carney said the elimination of the Indian Act has been sought...
A plainspoken, two-term Alberta United Conservative backbencher who courted controversy is quitting the job effective immediately. Shane Getson says he is leaving due to personal and family reasons but does not elaborate. "I can no longer give the time and attention that I have over the last seven years," Getson said Monday in a statement written for local newspapers and...
Canada’s economic mood remains finely balanced. The Bloomberg Nanos Canadian Confidence Index stands at 51.22, little changed from 50.88 four weeks ago. Household sentiment remains the stronger component, with the Pocketbook Index at 54.34. Expectations are more subdued at 48.09, suggesting Canadians remain cautious about the economic and housing outlook. Confidence has improved from spring lows, but a decisive turn...
The latest Liaison Strategies National Tracker finds the Liberals at 44%, the Conservatives at 31% and the NDP at 14% among decided and leaning voters. The Liberal lead has narrowed for a third consecutive week, falling from 18 points at the start of October to 13 points now. Liaison surveyed a random sample of 1,000 Canadians from October 11 to...
British Columbians elected David Eby as their premier on Oct. 19, 2024. They elected New Democrat MLAs in 47 of 93 seats, giving his party a third term in government and a second consecutive majority government on that day. He was given a majority mandate to govern until 2028 if he wanted to. Speaking on election night, a freshly re-elected...
The First Nations Leadership Council says British Columbia is at a crossroads with the incoming Conservative government that could result in either a "battleground" or reconciliation. Premier-designate Lorne Doerkson has said he will repeal DRIPA, or the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act, because the legislation has failed but he promised to work with First Nations in the...
B.C.'s newly minted Conservative government won't take its seats in the legislature until at least mid-November, but the premier-designate is not ruling out a shortened fall session. Lorne Doerkson told reporters Sunday, a day after his big election victory, that he was keeping the option open to recall the legislature in the fall.
Growing up in Huntsville, Ont., I learned early that community is not an abstract concept. It has faces and names. This was not simply something I observed; it was my lived experience. Months before my 16th birthday, determined to chart a path different from the one my parents had envisioned for me, I left home. I had no plan.
It’s time for the separatist factions to bring some intellectual honesty to their avowed separatism. There are lots of ways to do that, but the simplest and most effective way is that both parties to this never-ending debate resolve this situation one way or the other.
It may be the most Canadian ad of the U.S. midterms and it’s for a Republican. A man settles in at a neighbourhood bar with a Labatt Blue and the Red Wings game and tells us it doesn’t get any more Michigan than that. Then comes a line you wouldn’t expect: “Canada is not our enemy. We need to end...
British Columbians took a huge political gamble this weekend, handing power to someone they barely know who leads a party that looked like it was imploding only a few weeks ago. But such was the level of anger and disgust over NDP Leader David Eby’s move to call a snap election – amid provincewide municipal elections no less, and with...
Monday, a trial begins in Vancouver whose outcome could significantly alter climate change policies across the country. A group of youth are taking the federal government to court for failing to adequately address climate change, arguing that their Section 7 Charter rights — to life, liberty and security of the person — have been breached.
Jerry Andres watched the results roll in Monday night from his usual perch — at his computer, in his living room in Eckville, Alta., windows open to podcasters livestreaming on YouTube and Rumble. Anders, a retired oilfield worker, wasn’t surprised by the outcome, but he was disappointed. “To be honest with you, I’m more anti-Carney and the Liberals than I...
Are Canada and Europe really “besties”? That is certainly the message that Prime Minister Mark Carney and European Union President Ursula von der Leyen hope to convey when they meet for their much-anticipated Canada-EU Summit in Montreal this Thursday and Friday. But whether this budding romance between Canada and Europe becomes a serious relationship will depend on a host of...
Partisanship may have finally peaked. It’s about time. It can be hard to hear anything over U.S. President Donald Trump’s bluster. But look closer. A fascinating trend is emerging ahead of the U.S. midterm elections, with wider implications. A handful of candidates are galvanizing voters by ditching their party’s jersey altogether.
Mark Carney’s government was perhaps an hour old when he first laid out an intimate shared narrative of Canada and Europe that he has returned to and refined, again and again. “The ceremony we just witnessed reflects the wonder of a country built on the bedrock of three peoples: Indigenous, French and British,” he said as he began his first...
Referendums tend to raise as many questions as they answer. And so it may be for the 10-part questionnaire that Alberta Premier Danielle Smith put to her province — although with a series of no's Albertans have seemingly foreclosed on a number of possibilities. "I am well aware that not every grievance Alberta has with Ottawa has been resolved," Smith...
Danielle Smith wanted to walk into the coming first ministers meeting armed with the tools to start prying open this country’s lock on the Constitution. Alberta voters didn’t give her those tools. With almost all the votes counted, the referendum results show that all of Smith’s proposed constitutional reforms have been rejected. On Senate abolition and on giving the province...
It wasn’t all bad for Danielle Smith Monday night. True, Albertans voted massively to “remain” a province of Canada, thus depriving her of the bad cop for whatever good-cop, bad-cop routine she might have hoped to play with the rest of the country. And yes, Albertans voted to reject all four of the constitutional proposals the Premier had also put...
Pete Hoekstra, U.S. President Donald Trump’s ambassador to Canada, is apparently ticked off that no one took his warning about alleged Canadian meddling in the U.S. midterm elections seriously. So he had his embassy issue a profoundly unserious “fact sheet” this week backing up his claim. It’s tempting to brush off the document — a list of nine “FACTS” in...
If Canadians focused solely on recent commentary from union leaders and their lawyers, they’d be forgiven for thinking the current Liberal government has been engaged in a long battle against workers’ rights, culminating in a final charge against the right to strike.
The decisive, pro-remain result of 75% in the Alberta referendum has prompted two questions, one in that province and the other in Ottawa. The Alberta question is whether Premier Danielle Smith can remain in office after telling separatist members of her United Conservative Party (UCP) to “join a different party” if they can’t accept the referendum results. “The United Conservative...
Using her toughest words yet, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith decreed to United Conservative Party members Wednesday: get on the federalist train or get off the platform. No candidate, provincial board or constituency association board member would be permitted to publicly argue for anything other than a stronger Alberta within a united Canada, she said. But a parsing of Smith’s words...
Amid all the attention paid to her mildly salacious revelations about Justin Trudeau, Chrystia Freeland has been saying stuff that’s much more relevant to our current moment. At every tour stop to promote her new book “Unreliable Boyfriend: An Insider’s View of Dealing with a Chaotic Superpower, Plutocrats, and Other Complicated People,” the former federal cabinet titan has been going...
A spectre is haunting the United States — the spectre of Canada. At least, that’s according to the American embassy in Ottawa. In a new memo published Wednesday afternoon, the U.S. has directly accused Canada of meddling in their domestic affairs.
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith is like the arsonist who tries to play the hero because they helped put out the flames of a fire that they started. Don’t be fooled, she’s anything but a hero. She set things in motion towards the potential breakup of Canada, then fought against her own referendum question. She doesn’t deserve any credit. That goes...
One of the striking things about the Alberta referendum campaign was the media frenzy it triggered: wall-to-wall coverage, over-the-top headlines that declared Confederation was at stake. The outcome was never in doubt. As every poll testified, the result would be a rout. The hard-right separatists had about as much chance of victory as Eddie the Eagle winning the ski jump...
I believe the correct word is debacle. As in, “comprehensive failure, humiliating defeat, fiasco.” The secessionist campaign that Albertans have, in their wisdom and their mercy, dispatched to the hereafter is far from the only victim of the grotesque pantomime of democracy – 10 questions, none of them of any legal or practical effect – the province’s Premier saw fit...
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith fed a stray cat, in hopes that it would go away. But stray cats don’t do that. They eat until their bellies swell, then saunter away to go sleep it off. The next morning, however, they’ll come back for another meal, screeching by the side door until someone appears with a plate. And then, the next...
In the current Alberta political landscape, all 11 Edmonton ridings and five Calgary area ridings are in play, says political strategist Stephen Carter. A decisive win for the “stay” side in last week’s Alberta referendum, the prime minister’s high personal popularity, and the emergence of a new Alberta-focused right-of-centre federal political party could help the governing Liberals win as many...
Conservative members of Parliament are calling on Ottawa to repeal the West Coast oil tanker ban, arguing it's hurting Canada's prosperity. They pushed for the repeal during debate Monday in the House of Commons on a private member's bill to scrap the tanker ban, a day after Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre wrote to Prime Minister Mark Carney about it. Poilievre...
British Columbia's premier-designate Lorne Doerkson's long to-do list includes lowering taxes, while reviewing the provincial finances, working with Alberta and the federal government on the proposed Pacific Link pipeline and repealing Indigenous legislation. Doerkson laid out his priorities at a news conference Sunday, just hours after his party was elected with about two-thirds of the province's 93 seats in the...
The next leader of Toronto is set to be decided on Monday, as Olivia Chow looks to hold off a challenge from city councillor Brad Bradford in what's shaped up to be one of the most tightly contested re-election bids by a sitting mayor. Some pollsters who had Chow leading Bradford by double digits just weeks ago now say the...
BRASILIA (AP) -- Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva 's comeback to win Brazil's presidential runoff Sunday is already facing its first hurdle as his competitor, Sen. Flavio Bolsonaro challenges the results, setting the stage for a possible showdown between the country's two polarizing political forces.
Canada and the U.S. are “very close” to a trade deal, a key adviser to U.S. President Donald Trump said, days after the White House imposed new tariffs on Canadian goods and dropped others. National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett made the remark during an interview on Fox News Sunday. He said U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick had been speaking...
Multiple government and industry sources close to trade discussions between Canada and the United States tell CTV News the momentum of the talks, just recently re-started in earnest, combined with U.S. President Donald Trump’s political vulnerabilities ahead of the midterms leads them to believe there is considerable appetite from the White House to strike a deal with Canada. All the...
Voters gave Lorne Doerkson's B.C. Conservatives a two-thirds majority government on Saturday, now members of his party need to do the same to change their constitution to allow an interim leader to become permanent. ? The party's constitution prohibits an interim leader from seeking leadership in subsequent ballot, and change would require the support of two-thirds of the party's members...
The British government has turned down Ottawa's attempts to have it join the international Defence, Security and Resilience Bank, though London says it will work in lockstep with Canada to meet NATO spending targets. The DSRB is meant to reduce borrowing costs for military spending by pooling credit strength among allies. Canada has tried for months to convince
Former president Barack Obama took aim at U.S. President Donald Trump's tariffs on Canadian goods Saturday during an impassioned speech at a Democrat campaign rally in Detroit, Michigan, ahead of next month's U.S. midterm elections. During a speech supporting Democratic candidates Abdul El-Sayed and Jocelyn Benson, Obama mocked the current president's tariff war with its northern neighbour while jokingly referring...
Canada has received its first pair of new F-35 fighter jets, with Ottawa still deliberating on how many of the American planes it will buy. The Royal Canadian Air Force announced receiving the two Lockheed Martin jets Friday on social media with a photo from Phoenix showing one plane with a maple-leaf roundel. The air force could not immediately say...
First Nations leaders are gathering in Ottawa on Sunday for ceremonies ahead of a historic meeting on Monday with some premiers and Prime Minister Mark Carney. National Chief Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak told reporters Sunday that First Nations want to be partners with the provinces in making a strong economy that works for everyone. "We see geopolitical unrest around the world...
The “energy poverty” experienced in Canada’s North has significant consequences for affordability, residents’ health and safety, and could affect the feds’ big economic plans if Ottawa doesn’t do more to help, said multiple witnesses, including territorial cabinet ministers, at a recent House Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee meeting. “In a Yukon winter, electricity reliability isn’t a convenience; it is a...
India’s High Commissioner to Canada Dinesh K. Patnaik says he is “confident” a trade deal between Canada and India will be reached before Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Canada in December. “We have got most of it worked out. A few nicks here and there. Some legal scrubbing. But I’m extremely confident that we will be able to achieve...
The British Columbia Conservative Party has won a majority government after NDP Leader David Eby's decision to call a snap election two years early backfired in spectacular fashion. Here are the latest developments. All times are local.
British Columbians got their best look so far at Lorne Doerkson on Saturday night, their premier-designate, and self-described "guy from Williams Lake." The interim B.C. Conservative leader delivered a rollicking victory speech as he revelled in a sweeping majority win, secured in a snap provincial election called by outgoing Premier David Eby in a disastrous political miscalculation. Doerkson had emerged...
Just over five weeks ago, Lorne Doerkson was an obscure British Columbia legislator whose party was falling apart at the seams. He is now set to become premier at the head of a majority government, soundly defeating the New Democrats in Saturday's snap election that backfired spectacularly on outgoing Premier David Eby, who announced his resignation as NDP leader. It...
Lots of finger-pointing as the week comes to an end -- Danielle Smith tells separatists to get out of her party; Pete Hoekstra tells Canadians to stop interfering with Washington politics, while Mark Carney seems to be taking the "take a valium" approach. Quite the week for Chantal and Bruce to sum things up on this week's Good Talk.
For anyone looking, it was right there in bold text: white on blue, a message affixed to the front of the lectern Alberta Premier Danielle Smith used to speak two days after her province overwhelmingly rejected the pursuit of separatism. “Stronger Alberta within a United Canada,” the text read. It was a new formulation of a familiar refrain for Ms...
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith says the matter of separatism is settled within her party and she doesn’t need the support of those who want the province to leave Canada. Smith says she told members of her United Conservative Party on Wednesday that they should support the will of the majority of Albertans who have voted to stay in Canada, or...
U.S. President Donald Trump is lifting some tariffs on Canadian exports at the end of this month, but adding tariffs to dozens of new products, including Canadian garbage and sewage. As the trade war with Canada becomes a ballot box issue in key races ahead of November's midterm election, Maine Sen. Susan Collins, a Republican, said Friday nine categories of...
Canada’s parliamentary budget officer is raising concerns over Canada’s debt levels, with the federal government set to table its budget in a little over a week. The PBO released her latest economic forecast on Tuesday, which is projecting slower growth in the country’s real GDP forecast, and laying the blame at the feet of the U.S. tariff war on Canada...
Havana is urging Ottawa not to drop its public opposition to the decades-long U.S. embargo as Washington ramps up pressure on countries supporting Cuba. "We are confident that Canada will stay with us, as they have done in the past," Cuban Ambassador to Canada Rodrigo Malmierca Diaz told The Canadian Press. "The blockade and this intensification is, in practice, killing...
First Nations leaders are gathering in Ottawa on Sunday for ceremonies ahead of a historic meeting on Monday with some premiers and Prime Minister Mark Carney. Monday's meeting will the first such gathering since the Kelowna Accord talks of 2005, which brought premiers and then-prime minister Paul Martin together with Indigenous leaders to discuss ways to close the socioeconomic gaps...
Separatist leaders affiliated with the Alberta Prosperity Project say the group’s two most prominent members – Jeffrey Rath and Mitch Sylvestre – were fired by the organization six weeks ago, but the news was kept quiet to avoid derailing the referendum campaign. In a Thursday night social-media post, Tanya Clemens said the APP’s board, of which she says she’s a...
Canada is showing up at this year's international nature summit in Armenia with pledges to protect swaths of land bigger than most countries. But it's also facing criticism for advancing major projects that put those protections in jeopardy. Environment and Climate Change Minister Julie Dabrusin spoke to CBC News about the work she hopes to advance in Yerevan and responded...
British Columbians go to the polls today in an early election called by NDP Leader David Eby in the biggest gamble of his political life. The five-week campaign saw the major parties fight over issues from health care to housing, the province's record deficit and the increasing cost of living. Polls open at 8.a.m. and close at 8 p.m. in...
After three days spent fostering tighter economic and political ties with Turkey, Prime Minister Mark Carney is on his way home to Ottawa. Carney closed out his trip earlier this morning by visiting one of Istanbul's many great cultural landmarks, the Kariye Mosque, accompanied by his wife, Diana Fox Carney. The mosque was once a Byzantine church and is renowned...
Despite Alberta's decision to remain a province of Canada rather than hold another referendum, anger is still simmering at the surface, says Preston Manning. The former Calgary MP and leader of Canada's Reform party, which later morphed into the Conservative Party of Canada, doesn't believe that the issues that prompted Alberta's referendum have been solved.
NEW YORK (AP) -- Democrats and outside watchdogs are planning a massive presence at the polls on Election Day driven by concerns that President Donald Trump will further leverage the vast resources of the federal government to interfere with a midterm that could hobble his final two years in office.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Donald Trump would prefer that voters not worry about inflation. But it's hard for them to ignore.
Since launching the war with Iran nearly eight months ago, U.S. President Donald Trump has struggled to quell soaring energy costs, undermining Republicans' attempt to keep control of Congress in the midterm elections next week.
Two Catholic bishops have expressed regret about agreeing to a White House meeting that produced a publicly distributed photo of them praying with President Donald Trump.
BRASILIA (AP) -- Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva 's comeback to win Brazil's presidential runoff Sunday is already facing its first hurdle as his competitor, Sen. Flavio Bolsonaro challenges the results, setting the stage for a possible showdown between the country's two polarizing political forces.
Havana is urging Ottawa not to drop its public opposition to the decades-long U.S. embargo as Washington ramps up pressure on countries supporting Cuba. "We are confident that Canada will stay with us, as they have done in the past," Cuban Ambassador to Canada Rodrigo Malmierca Diaz told The Canadian Press. "The blockade and this intensification is, in practice, killing...
PM criticizes 'whoever' decided to limit Ukraine's ability to track Russian strikes. Prime Minister Mark Carney on Friday criticized a decision to restrict Ukraine's access to Elon Musk's military-grade satellite network, saying the move is costing lives. "I search for the right adjective to describe whoever took this decision, or a group of people took this decision, against a country...
Prime Minister Mark Carney said Friday a Canadian company has a real shot at winning a lucrative tender to supply nuclear energy to Turkey — a prospect he said was remote a year ago. Carney was meeting with Turkish business leaders in Istanbul Friday, a day after he announced a new strategic partnership between Canada and Turkey to deepen co-operation...
Prime Minister Mark Carney is defending Canada's decision to seek closer ties with Turkey as the country is accused of infringing on LGBTQ+ rights. Carney is in Turkey for a three-day trip to strike a new strategic partnership for deeper economic and social ties with the NATO ally. A joint statement released Thursday with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan stated...
In a previous commentary, I suggested that the Bank of Canada replace its near-term inflation targeting framework (maintaining two per cent inflation over a horizon of approximately two years) with a macrofinancial stability framework. This new regime would focus on ensuring price stability over a longer-term horizon, allowing policy interest rates to “lean” against financial booms and busts. In this...
Canada cannot afford to treat citizenship as paperwork to process rather than a covenant worth keeping.
The federal government’s internal accountability regime continues to grow more complex. Public service leadership is detached from policy implementation and socialized to avoid risk. Public servants should be evaluated on the rules they remove and services delivered. Those with delivery experience should be rotated periodically into roles that establish internal processes and policies. Improving the federal accountability regime requires simplifying...
A collection of SubStack publishing within Canadian public affairs.
Prime Minister Mark Carney’s ad-lib brought down the house at Thursday night’s Forever Canadian rally in Calgary. “They’re a little touchy down there at the moment,” he added, to roars from a crowd of about 5,000.
RCMP officers who responded to the April 2020 mass murders in Nova Scotia will receive bravery medals from Governor General Louise Arbour. An announcement is expected “imminently,” says an Arbour spokesperson. The medals follow 23 awards for excellence quietly distributed last year by RCMP Commissioner Mike Duheme to RCMP members and employees who managed the grisly incident, in which 2...
Prime Minister Mark Carney has finally charted a course out of the morass that is 24 Sussex Drive, the official residence of Canada’s prime ministers since 1951. Carney’s June announcement of a private-sector competition to “modernize” the decrepit building, abandoned in 2015 and later put into mothballs, was welcomed by heritage advocates as an end to a political impasse. A...
Elon Musk has shown his clout with his Starlink and Starshield Satellite systems in Ukraine, so the question is, could he do the same in Canada? He has hundreds of thousands of subscribers in Canada, and one assumes he could slow service here just as he has in Ukraine. Is that a threat? Dr Janice Stein of the Munk School...
Twenty-five years ago they rewired the province’s political thinking with their landmark “Alberta Agenda,” aka the “firewall” letter: a manifesto for the premier to assert sovereignty within a systemically inequitable federation. Days after Alberta’s referendum on some of the same issues they raised — but also going drastically further in considering separation — Brian speaks with letter-writers Ted Morton, who...
The Canadian government has invested billions in critical mineral companies in an effort to boost the sector so it can compete against China. But mining projects always come with a lot of risk for investors. So is this a smart strategy for a government to adopt? Niall McGee is the mining reporter for The Globe. He looked into which projects...
British Columbians have chosen Lorne Doerkson as their next Premier. His victory follows a snap-election call by former Premier David Eby late last month, after Kerry-Lynne Findlay resigned from her role as leader of the BC Conservative Party after some three months on the job. Doerkson was since tapped to become interim leader of the party. Host Caryn Ceolin speaks...
