Attacks underscore the need to develop Canada's natural resources, says energy minister. Energy Minister Tim Hodgson says he's starting to get calls from countries about how Canadian energy producers can fill the gap amid the war in Iran, which is driving up oil and gas prices. "The world right now is feeling incredibly insecure as a result of this weekend,"...
Canada should align its trade and labour regulations with three of its “like-minded” anglophone allies excluding the U.S., says Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre. Speaking in London at the Institute of Directors, a British business group, Poilievre on Tuesday revived an idea previously embraced by past Conservative leaders that Canada should strengthen its ties with its Anglosphere cousins that share the...
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre touted the importance of "free trade" between "free nations" in a speech that referenced the likes of Adam Smith, Winston Churchill and even the mythic Robin Hood. Poilievre is on his first foreign trip as Opposition leader and delivered the Margaret Thatcher lecture at the Centre for Policy Studies in London on Tuesday. "Canada must become...
Canada’s political weather has shifted, and the barometer is moving decisively in one direction. The Liberals have opened a clear lead, sitting in the mid40s nationally, while the Conservatives trail by roughly ten points. This is in the wake of a few weeks in favour of the Carney Liberals. The gap is even starker on leadership: Mark Carney dominates the...
Canada’s former budget watchdog Yves Giroux says the government’s failure to appoint a new parliamentary budget officer after both his and his interim successor’s terms expired is a “conscious decision” to silence the office and prevent it from holding the government accountable. Jason Jacques’ six-month term as the interim Parliamentary Budget Officer (PBO) ended on March 2 without Prime Minister...
Canada’s political weather has shifted, and the barometer is moving decisively in one direction. The Liberals have opened a clear lead, sitting in the mid40s nationally, while the Conservatives trail by roughly ten points. This is in the wake of a few weeks in favour of the Carney Liberals. The gap is even starker on leadership: Mark Carney dominates the...
Between February 18 and 23, 2026, Abacus Data surveyed 1,500 Canadian adults to understand how Canadians view Prime Minister Mark Carney’s approach to dealing with President Donald Trump and how they see the risks and stakes as the 2026 CUSMA joint review approaches. The results point to a striking and potentially underappreciated dynamic. While business leaders and policy insiders have...
Canadian Forces exchange officers working with the U.S. military were “very likely” involved at some level in planning the weekend strikes on Iran, a former Canada major-general has warned. If true, this should raise alarm bells for Canadians because it means Ottawa’s insistence that Canada is “not involved” in this operation is not just implausible, it’s misleading.
RIP Canada’s Indo-Pacific Strategy, we hardly knew you. As Prime Minister Mark Carney alights in Australia this week, fresh from a trade mission to India, the basic premise of the strategy — “to seize opportunities in the national interest of Canadians, while defending the values they hold dear” — has been junked in favour of realpolitik: doing business with countries...
Canada’s artificial intelligence minister says he will demand more information about what changes OpenAI is making to its safety protocols on Wednesday, when he meets with the company’s CEO, Sam Altman. Evan Solomon is meeting with Altman after it was revealed last week that the Tumbler Ridge shooter — who killed eight people earlier this month in one of the...
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is set to speak at a think tank in London, England, today. He is on his first official trip abroad as Opposition leader with stops planned in both the U.K. and Germany. In London today he will deliver the Margaret Thatcher Lecture at the Centre for Policy Studies, after meeting this morning with U.K. Conservative Leader...
This week, the world will converge in Toronto for the annual Prospectors & Developers Association of Canada (PDAC) convention, the largest mining conference in the world. At a moment defined by geopolitical instability, fractured supply chains, and surging demand for critical minerals, Ontario is emerging as the world’s reliable partner.
Mark Carney may have thought he dodged a bullet when he wordsmithed Canada’s position on the latest U.S.‑Israeli assault on Iran, Operation Epic Fury. “Canada supports the United States acting to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and to prevent its regime from further threatening international peace and security,” Carney said in a written statement released jointly with Foreign...
Mark Carney left on a trip to India last Thursday but there has simply been no time to field reporters’ queries. The Prime Minister cancelled the press conference scheduled for Monday, when embarrassing questions were to be posed, because his meeting with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi ran long and his flight to Australia couldn’t be delayed and well, there...
In politics it’s usually best to be as clear as you can. But there are times when clarity will get you in trouble for no particularly good reason. That’s when it’s smarter to fuzz things up a bit. On India and Iran, Mark Carney has been both clear and fuzzy over the past few days. The problem is he’s been...
Every prime minister is called upon, at one point or another, to comment on the actions of an American president. For Mark Carney, still less than a year on the job, there have already been several such moments. The latest moment of necessity arrived this past weekend, when the United States and Israel launched new attacks on Iran. The response...
In his Davos speech in January, Prime Minister Mark Carney said his government’s aim in foreign affairs is to be “principled and pragmatic.” He defined “principled” as being committed to the prohibition of the use of force, except when consistent with the United Nations Charter; and “pragmatism” as taking the world as it is, not as Canada wishes it to...
Mark Carney wasted no time in backing U.S. military action to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. It was a quick decision to pick a side but also to pick from a menu. It is hard to claim that preventing Iran from getting the bomb is the cause for this war.
Pierre Poilievre says he would rather work with Prime Minister Mark Carney to fight Donald Trump than plunge the country into another election to choose which man is the better negotiator. The Conservative leader declared that choice in a 40-minute podcast interview with former CBC anchor Peter Mansbridge, featuring some fascinating glimpses into how Poilievre intends to shift his tone...
If the PM were to call an election now, he would almost certainly be punished. Despite some stellar polling, what certainly feels like a collapsing opposition leader and the foundations of some policy wins, Mark Carney must not give in to those advising him to go the polls to secure his majority.
I’ve recently spent a week working in Ottawa. Keeping in mind that I work in public policy and am surrounded by political junkies, on one of those days not one but five separate people raised Quebec sovereignty with me unprompted. Clients. Colleagues. Even housemates. The anxiety is real.
Back in 2011, the popularity in Quebec of then New Democratic Party Leader Jack Layton helped trigger an unprecedented Orange Wave that saw the NDP win 59 seats (out of 75) in a province that had never been fertile electoral ground for the NDP. Tragically, Layton passed away from cancer less than four months later. In the 2015 federal election...
Canada’s response to the U.S.–Israeli strikes on Iran exposes a fault line at the heart of our foreign policy. We invoke international law and the “rules based international order” when adversaries engage in unlawful actions, but abandon those same rules entirely when it’s the Americans — whose current government 60 per cent of Canadians now see as a threat —...
In Iran, Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu have opted to play regime change roulette. They are wagering with the lives of civilians in Iran, Israel, and the Gulf countries. They risk embroiling American and Israeli forces into yet another forever war, a military operation with no clear objectives and no way to truly win. And they do so with no...
Prime Minister Mark Carney was forced to admit an unpalatable truth Saturday, that despite his declaration that the old order had been irreparably ruptured it was still very much intact.
As I write this late Saturday morning, news is still coming in about the joint U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran. The targets reportedly included senior regime figures and missile infrastructure. Iran has responded. World leaders are trading statements. The situation feels fluid and dangerous. Prime Minister Mark Carney has reacted in a way that is far different than how...
Is it too late for Pierre Poilievre? The Conservative leader gave an impressive speech this past week to the Economic Club of Canada in Toronto in which he laid out a Conservative strategy for dealing with the erratic and very anti-Canadian U.S President Donald Trump. “Canada cannot control the decisions of foreign presidents,” Poilievre said. “But we can control the...
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre tried to get back in the game this past week. Poilievre did that with a speech in Toronto on Thursday that actually mentioned President Donald Trump by name. More notably, he mentioned Trump in a critical way. Poilievre has been under increasing criticism for his reluctance to go after Trump and his administration for both the...
I paid for my Sunday morning beers one at a time during the men’s gold medal Olympic game. I wanted to be able to walk out of the bar immediately if the Americans won the game, which is what I did as soon as Jack Hughes put the puck past Jordan Binnington. I was in a little bar in the...
Alberta might be landlocked but the province is sinking in a sea of red ink — and red faces. An embarrassed United Conservative government admits its new deficit-riddled budget unveiled Thursday breaks the province’s own law against running deficits — a law the UCP introduced in 2023 when the government was flooded with oil-generated revenue and buoyed by an $11.6 billion surplus.
The premier defector from, and debunker of, the “Green Terror,” which holds that climate change is an existential challenge to the continuation of life on earth, is probably Bjorn Lomborg, president of the Copenhagen Consensus Centre and former director of the Danish government’s Environmental Assessment Institute. He has been a prominent climate change skeptic for years, and has roiled the...
There will be no Ceausescu moment, no “at long last sir have you no decency” turning point, no dramatic climax in which the tyrant’s power suddenly evaporates: That instantaneous, simultaneous crystallizing of long-inchoate doubts, wherein those who feared him lose their fear, and those who believed in him lose their faith. Life rarely supplies the needs of narrative, and if...
What happens when Canada needs bold action but the global figure most closely associated with political radicalism is the man Canadians hate the most in the entire world? Welcome to the conundrum facing Pierre Poilievre and Canada’s Conservatives. Lots of lights on Canada’s national dashboard are blinking red, but the country is fearful of the kind of radical disruption represented...
Donald Trump spent nearly two hours this week proclaiming that everything is going great for the United States under his watch. In this same week, the president is getting a united rebuttal from Canada — no, things are not that great on this front. Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is the latest to lay down that marker, and a strong one...
There were two speeches inside the speech on Canada-U.S. relations that Pierre Poilievre gave Thursday. One was intended to make him sound like a grown-up. The other was to make him sound different than Mark Carney. The first part was the kind of political repositioning that Mr. Poilievre has long needed.
Prime Minister Brian Mulroney often remarked that the two principal challenges facing any Canadian Prime Minister were national unity and managing relations with the United States. Mulroney excelled at both, which contributed significantly to his back-to-back majority election victories. Today, Prime Minister Mark Carney faces daunting challenges on both of these files and, so far, his prescriptions for success are...
Errors stemming from the federal government's Phoenix pay system continue to plague thousands of public servants, 10 years after the system's launch. Karine Chawla, who works for Transport Canada, says she is being told she still owes $35,000 in overpayments dating back to 2017. Chawla says most of the money owed dates from prior to the six-year limitation period for...
Defence Minister David McGuinty says Canadian military personnel in the Middle East are out of harm's way as the U.S. and Israel continue to launch missile strikes on Iran. McGuinty did not offer specifics Tuesday when asked how many Canadian military personnel are in the region, saying only there are "some."
A Liberal MP has challenged Prime Minister Mark Carney's endorsement of American strikes on Iran, as the government sidesteps questions over whether the campaign violates international law. Carney and Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand were in India for a visit focused on diplomacy and trade when the U.S. and Israel launched their major attack on Iran on Saturday. Both wrote...
After Carney cancelled questions with reporters, the foreign minister was left to update the government's position. Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand said Monday the Liberal government still wants to see a “diplomatic solution” to resolve the war in the Persian Gulf days after the prime minister said he supported the attack on Iran by the U.S. and Israel.
Iran’s deceased leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was “a force for evil,” Defence Minister David McGuinty said Tuesday as he defended the Liberal government’s decision to back U.S. and Israeli air strikes on Iran. Mr. Khamenei, 86, was killed in U.S.-Israeli attacks on Iran Saturday, a pre-emptive attack that critics say may have violated international law. Prime Minister Carney’s government however...
The opposition leader's first interview on The Bridge is a fascinating one to quote the Toronto Star. Done late last week we are happy to run it today. For Janice Stein fans, she will be here tomorrow having given up her regular Monday spot for this week's feature interview. Tomorrow Janice will give us her thoughts on the continuing story...
Prime Minister Mark Carney is in Australia, as Canada seeks to build on already strong intelligence ties by broadening collaboration in trade and defence. The prime minister arrived in Sydney midday Tuesday local time, which was Monday evening in Canada. He is expected to meet with business leaders here in Sydney. "This is a very important relationship for Canada to...
Pierre Poilievre said a Conservative government would allow other countries to have to access to a future Canadian national energy and critical mineral stockpile, but only allies in times of “crisis and war” who have a free-trade agreement with Canada. Speaking at an event in London, U.K., organized by CANZUK, an advocacy group pushing for closer ties between Canada, Australia...
Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s chief of staff is stepping down and will be replaced by a top aide with experience in Canada-U.S. relations. Patrick Sackville, who has spent eight years in government and was named Mr. Ford’s chief of staff in December, 2022, is leaving government on Friday and will be replaced by Travis Kann, the government announced on Monday...
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith says the war in Iran underscores the need for a new pipeline connecting her province's oil reserves to the West Coast. The threat of shipping disruptions has seen global oil prices jump since American-Israeli attacks on Iran over the weekend. Smith says any disruption in the Strait of Hormuz, a key oil choke point at the...
A sustained rise in oil prices would lift Canada’s economic growth and inflation outlook, Bank of Nova Scotia says. The war in Iran has already pushed petroleum prices higher, which may increase what Canada — a major crude-producing country — earns from exports relative to what it spends on imports.
Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe is applauding a move by India's government to strike a deal with Canada on uranium. Moe is in New Delhi, where he watched Prime Minister Mark Carney ink the deal with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Both Germany’s TKMS and South Korea’s Hanwha submitted their final bids to win a lucrative contract to build Canada’s next generation of submarines ahead of the March 2 deadline. CTV News has learned how the proposals will be evaluated and details about what the bids will contain. Tens of billions of dollars in economic incentives are attached to the bids...
Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand said Canada would like to see a diplomatic solution to the war in Iran, even as Canada has expressed support for the U.S. military attack that killed Iran's leader on Saturday. Anand, speaking to reporters in New Delhi after Prime Minister Mark Carney abruptly cancelled his scheduled news conference Monday, would not say whether Canada...
“We are one family,” said Prime Minister Mark Carney, standing beside Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday, in a major development to reset relations that included an invitation for Modi to come to Canada. Carney’s office said Modi accepted the invitation, but there is no timeline for a visit. Shortly after, and for the first time after being asked...
Prime Minister’s Office says Carney raised transnational repression with Modi. Prime Minister Mark Carney and his Indian counterpart announced Monday what they’re a calling a “new partnership,” a series of multi-million dollar deals and a commitment to sign a free trade agreement by year’s end as the two look to turn the page on years of frosty bilateral relations marked...
During his short tenure as Canada's interim parliamentary budget officer, Jason Jacques endured accusations of partisanship, criticism over his message delivery and, in the end, praise for representing an institution now ranked first among its international equals. Appointed in September by Prime Minister Mark Carney to sit in the chair until a permanent parliamentary budget officer (PBO) could be appointed...
Conservative leader emphasizes all-party committee proposal during podcast interview. Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre says Canada should not have an election before it reviews the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA) this year, and is instead calling for the Carney government to set up an all-party committee on the matter. "I think that being united will be a real force going forward. We have...
Ongoing public service cuts—and the fear senior officials have about their own job security—are throwing a wrench into the Liberal government’s ability to receive evidence-based and fearless public policy advice, say some public policy experts who also say this advice should be coming from deputy ministers and not political staff. “Politicians will turn to that source [political staff] of advice...
The competition to build the Canadian navy's next fleet of submarines is heading into a new phase after a deadline for both finalists to submit their final proposals to the federal government on Monday. Canada is planning to buy a fleet of up to 12 conventionally powered submarines with the hope of having the vessels in the water by 2032...
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre said he’s open to meeting with U.S. leaders if it will help Canada’s efforts to end the continuing trade dispute. Mr. Poilievre also said he “can’t stand” U.S. President Donald Trump’s talk about Canada becoming the 51st state, doesn’t like Mr. Trump’s tariffs and doesn’t like the way he’s treating Canada. “At various times, I’ve been...
It's Sunday night and I'm updating this before the newsletter launches Monday morning. The world is still absorbing the U.S. lead airstrikes on Iran. There are still more unknowns than knowns. Like you, I'm watching and reading and listening to see what the next phase of this will look like. I have a deep, professional distrust of those who say...
With Canada’s endorsement of American and Israeli air strikes on Iran, past Liberal foreign ministers and former international law practitioners are signalling alarm over what they call the federal government’s indifference to international law. On Feb. 28, the United States and Israel launched air strikes on Iran, which led to the killing of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and other...
Calls for an independent investigation into the shooting in Tumbler Ridge, B.C., where eight people, including six children were shot last month, are growing. Federal Conservative MP Bob Zimmer, who represents the community in northeastern B.C., says the mourning families need answers around various aspects, including the shooter's mental health and access to guns, as well as the role of...
Iranian-Canadian communities are greeting news of the death of Iran’s supreme leader with jubilation, according to Liberal MP Ali Ehsassi. Ehsassi, whose Willowdale riding in Toronto has a significant Iranian-Canadian population, was in the crowd at a large protest against the Iranian regime in Richmond Hill on Saturday when news of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s death was made public.
National Defence is refusing to disclose how it analyzed competing fighter jet bids after a Swedish media report suggested the evaluation was weighted against Saab's Gripen E. Citing confidential sources, the Swedish business publication Affarsvarlden reported that Ottawa added a risk coefficient to its analysis that significantly undermined the Gripen's test scores because it was still a new series aircraft.
Canada continues to grapple with the fallout of the ongoing conflict in Iran after the United States and Israel launched a major attack on the Middle Eastern country that left the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei dead. Prime Minister Mark Carney says Canada supports the U.S. action in Iran, but Canada will not get directly involved in the conflict. On...
Up to 18 Canadian military personnel were on exchange with U.S. in Bahrain and Qatar at time of attack. It is highly likely that members of the Canadian military, on exchange with the United States, were involved in the planning and co-ordinating of airstrikes on Iran, says a former senior Canadian general. Prime Minister Mark Carney has said he supports...
Canada is aiming to sign a comprehensive trade deal with India this year, Prime Minister Mark Carney told a business audience in Mumbai Saturday. "We are now negotiating a comprehensive economic partnership agreement, with the intention to double two-way trade by 2030. Our goal, to be clear, is to sign that agreement by the end of this year," Carney said...
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The White House on Monday attributed a large red spot on President Donald Trump's neck to a skin cream he is using, without elaborating on what condition it is treating.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Donald Trump on Monday pushed back against mounting criticism that he hasn't done enough to explain why it was necessary to start a war with Iran now or to articulate his vision for an endgame to the escalating conflict.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The White House on Monday attributed a large red spot on President Donald Trump's neck to a skin cream he is using, without elaborating on what condition it is treating.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Donald Trump, whose fierce denunciation of military adventurism abroad fueled his unlikely rise to the top of the Republican Party, risks becoming ensnared by that very type of conflict.
After Carney cancelled questions with reporters, the foreign minister was left to update the government's position. Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand said Monday the Liberal government still wants to see a “diplomatic solution” to resolve the war in the Persian Gulf days after the prime minister said he supported the attack on Iran by the U.S. and Israel.
Iran’s deceased leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was “a force for evil,” Defence Minister David McGuinty said Tuesday as he defended the Liberal government’s decision to back U.S. and Israeli air strikes on Iran. Mr. Khamenei, 86, was killed in U.S.-Israeli attacks on Iran Saturday, a pre-emptive attack that critics say may have violated international law. Prime Minister Carney’s government however...
Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand said Canada would like to see a diplomatic solution to the war in Iran, even as Canada has expressed support for the U.S. military attack that killed Iran's leader on Saturday. Anand, speaking to reporters in New Delhi after Prime Minister Mark Carney abruptly cancelled his scheduled news conference Monday, would not say whether Canada...
“We are one family,” said Prime Minister Mark Carney, standing beside Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday, in a major development to reset relations that included an invitation for Modi to come to Canada. Carney’s office said Modi accepted the invitation, but there is no timeline for a visit. Shortly after, and for the first time after being asked...
Prime Minister’s Office says Carney raised transnational repression with Modi. Prime Minister Mark Carney and his Indian counterpart announced Monday what they’re a calling a “new partnership,” a series of multi-million dollar deals and a commitment to sign a free trade agreement by year’s end as the two look to turn the page on years of frosty bilateral relations marked...
Canada’s economic landscape is profoundly changing. A shifting trade environment, global efforts to reduce emissions and other structural trends are reshaping industries and job requirements. With these shifts, opportunities arise, but so do uneven risks and impacts. Certain communities are disproportionately susceptible to the workforce disruption these changes will bring. In this Policy Brief, we focus on mass layoffs and...
A year ago, it was not obvious that Canada–India relations could be pulled back from the brink. Diplomatic expulsions, public recriminations, and allegations of foreign interference had frozen one of Canada’s most consequential Indo-Pacific partnerships. Yet since Prime Minister Mark Carney and Prime Minister Narendra Modi met on the margins of the G7 summit in Kananaskis last June, a different...
A collection of SubStack publishing within Canadian public affairs.
Prime Minister Mark Carney has finally revealed his plan to turn Canada into a weapons-exporting global mega-power. “In total, the Defence Industrial Strategy is an investment of over half a trillion dollars in Canadian security, economic prosperity, and our sovereignty,” he announced this week, promising to create over 125 thousand “high-paying careers” building weapons and otherwise supplying the Canadian military...
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.
It's been four days since the attack by Israel and the United States on Iran, and the reason for why keeps changing. Today, with her weekly commentary Dr. Janice Stein of the Munk School at the University of Toronto, shares her assessment of what's going on.
The opposition leader's first interview on The Bridge is a fascinating one to quote the Toronto Star. Done late last week we are happy to run it today. For Janice Stein fans, she will be here tomorrow having given up her regular Monday spot for this week's feature interview. Tomorrow Janice will give us her thoughts on the continuing story...
In 1953, the United States helped stage a coup to overthrow Iran’s democratically elected prime minister, largely a response to the Iranian leader’s nationalization of the oil industry. Twenty-six years later, revolutionaries stormed the U.S. embassy in Tehran just months after having deposed the U.S. installed King.
