A decade ago, a portrait of the British monarch caused a row in Canadian politics. Now, the King is being invited to deliver the Speech from the Throne. What's changed? In 2011, shortly after forming a majority Conservative government, Prime Minister Stephen Harper caused a national uproar when he sought to emphasise Canada's ties to the British monarchy. In one...
The Conservative Leader in the House of Commons says he “can absolutely advocate for a united Canada,” but won’t specifically condemn a possible referendum on Alberta separation. “I’ll leave it to provincial premiers to handle what’s going on in their province,” Andrew Scheer told CTV Question Period host Vassy Kapelos, when pressed on why he wouldn’t explicitly say a referendum...
Liberal MPs will vote on whether they want the power to oust the new leader if he loses their trust. Liberal caucus members are meeting today ahead of the return of Parliament, this time under the direction of a leader known for his high expectations and ambitious agenda. Sunday's gathering will likely touch on the big-ticket items Prime Minister Mark...
First order of business will be to elect a Speaker before King Charles presents the throne speech. Parliament will return on Monday after more than six months and will feel a little different than usual thanks to some unusual circumstances. Each parliamentary session typically opens with some routine proceedings, which include the election of a Speaker of the House of...
Although he will be on the ground for less than 24 hours, when the King lands in Ottawa on Monday for his 20th visit to Canada — though his first as monarch — he will be acutely aware of the highly delicate diplomatic situation. One Commonwealth source familiar with discussions between London and Ottawa over the visit said: “British ministers...
Our latest poll tracking opinions about Canadian politics was conducted from May 15 to 21, 2025 and interviewed 2,273 Canadian adults. The survey was conducted entirely after the swearing in of the Liberal government led by Prime Minister Mark Carney. Just before King Charles is set to deliver the new government’s Speech from the Throne, a new Abacus Data poll...
Below is a retrospective of the 45th Canadian federal election, the forces that shaped it, and the challenges Canada faces. Please click here for a PDF version of this report.
Matt Gurney: Over the last few weeks, Prime Minister Mark Carney’s postelection government has been shaping up. A cabinet has been announced. Parliamentarians are being sworn in — including the PM, for the first time. Some key staff positions remain unfilled. With the House returning next week and the King coming to town, what’s your sense of where things stand...
It's hard to see how effective Carney's cabinet will be in achieving his goals, given its large contingent of Trudeau-era ministers
The Pope prays about it. Companies around the world are betting on it. And the occupant of a newly created federal ministry with few precedents in the world has been tasked with harnessing it.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre will address his caucus on Sunday as they prepare to return to the House of Commons without him in the chamber. Poilievre's remarks are scheduled to be open to the media. The Conservatives won 144 seats in the April 28 election but Poilievre's seat was not one of them.
Since U.S. President Donald Trump began threatening Canada with tariffs, I’ve heard from many people and businesses about the intense anxiety they’re feeling. Ontarians are already struggling in the face of an ongoing affordability crisis and are now facing potential layoffs and staring down the face of an impending recession. But instead of uniting people to push back against Trump...
'So far I'm not seeing anything to suggest there's been a true change of heart,' says Premier Danielle Smith, of Prime Minister Mark Carney and his Liberal government
What can we glean from the mandate letter the PM sent his ministers? Emerging from his cabinet's first "planning forum" — what previous prime ministers would have called a cabinet "retreat" — on Tuesday evening, Mark Carney told reporters that his ministers had all been given a single mandate letter. "It reflects a unified mission," the prime minister said of...
On Tuesday in the Senate Chamber, King Charles III will deliver the Speech from the Thone. The last time a monarch did so was in 1977, when his mother Elizabeth II read it during her Silver Jubilee tour. Two decades earlier, she had pronounced her first Speech from the Throne in Ottawa, an occasion that marked the young Queen’s first...
A bipartisan group of U.S. senators say they're 'encouraged' by conversations about trade, tariffs and security with Prime Minister Mark Carney. The Power & Politics panel of party insiders discuss Canadians' expectations for a 'new' relationship with the United States ahead of Parliament's return next week.
The backlash to the news that Canada is in talks with Washington to participate in a space-based missile defence system designed to protect North America is an early warning to the Carney government on how difficult it will be to make substantive changes in a large number of areas promised in the recent election campaign. Prime Minister Mark Carney and...
Is being a cabinet minister the only mark of success for a government MP or MPP? An observer of recent events in Ottawa and Queen’s Park might reach that conclusion. In Ottawa, Mark Carney’s slimmed down cabinet meant several ministers needed to be dropped and considerable talent was left on the backbenches. The result was a flurry of articles and...
The Mark Carney government is at its finest when it’s Mark Carney, standing alone, in front of a microphone. There are good things about that. There are also downsides. On Wednesday evening, the Prime Minister was in the comfort zone, standing alone in front of a microphone. He said he’d given cabinet a collective mandate letter, listing the government’s priorities...
Last week, Prime Minister Mark Carney staged a photo-op more evocative of an American president than a Westminster statesman. Flanked by ministers and flashing pens, he theatrically signed an order directing his government to prepare a motion for a middle-class tax cut—cameras clicking, messaging crisp. “Canadians sent a clear message: they need to see improvements in their affordability,” Carney declared...
One of the great enduring myths of Government Relations is that the person with the fanciest title makes the decision. Ministers are the final deciders. Deputy ministers execute. Policy Advisors analyze. The machine hums along in a perfect linear fashion. Sure. And the Leafs win the Cup every year. Anyone who has spent more than ten minutes in Ottawa knows...
Information manipulation poses the single biggest threat to Canadian democracy, concluded commissioner Marie Josée Hogue, in her final report on foreign interference in federal elections, earlier this year.
With the minority Liberals now settling into governing and Conservatives trying to make sense of their improbable loss, we can look back at how political pundits called the election so early and so wrong for Pierre Poilievre, and learn what we can from their mistaken call. There’s no question 2024 was a banner year for Conservatives. The party had such...
In a less partisan, more conciliatory political environment, there would be cross-partisan consensus about the need for a by-election in the Quebec riding of Terrebonne. It’s not simply that the margin of victory was razor-thin, with the Liberals’ Tatiana Auguste winning the riding by a single vote. Nor is it about the flip-flopping of the result: Terrebonne was first won...
You have to be kidding – Canada considering involvement in Donald Trump‘s Golden Dome space defence initiative? Is this for real? Is Canada seriously contemplating joining Mr. Trump’s latest cockamamie idea? After winning an election on a clear promise to assert a more independent foreign and defence policy – including a move away from reliance on U.S. weaponry, military strategy...
Speeches from the Throne are often tedious affairs. They track the government’s agenda but in a boring, laundry-list kind of way. There’s not the raucous atmosphere seen at State of the Union addresses, with the president’s partisans cheering like banshees at their every word. But our upcoming Throne Speech will be highly significant. After 10 years of Liberal rule, the...
SPEAKING TO REPORTERS in Rome on Sunday, where he was attending the inaugural mass for Pope Leo XIV, Prime Minister Mark Carney was asked about housing prices. The question from reporter Mackenzie Gray was simple: “Do you want house prices to go down in Canada?” The answer was less simple.
What a Trudeauesque beginning to the Liberals’ fourth consecutive term — theatre, false starts, evasion and unaccountability, but absent the sunny ways! The technocrat’s prologue risks rivalling the drama teacher’s denouement.
In the rush to grow Canada’s economy by exploiting more of our natural resources, moves are afoot to pare back environmental impact assessments that slow or sometimes even block resource and industrial development. During the election campaign, the now-ruling Liberals promised to cut the decision time on projects from five years to a maximum of two. Similarly, BC is about...
Politics can be a blood sport, which is why most politicians learn to roll with the punches. Not Nate Erskine-Smith, who has become a punchline in the halls of power.
Mark Carney isn’t getting much of a honeymoon as a new prime minister. It’s been a bit of a bumpy ride since Carney swore in his new cabinet just a week ago, which featured some surprising new ministers, as well as some conspicuous absences, such as Nate Erskine-Smith, who pronounced himself disrespected.
If the Conservatives had won last month's election, the list of policy suggestions from Saskatchewan would have looked very different.
There was widespread outrage when the Carney government announced it would not release a budget this spring – or even, as first envisaged, in the fall. Only after a couple of days of appalling press was it announced the regular fall economic statement would be upgraded to a full budget. You can understand why people would be upset. As a...
On April 28, Canadians went to the polls to cast their votes in the federal election. When the dust had settled and the ballots were tallied, Prime Minister Mark Carney emerged victorious, albeit with yet another Liberal minority government. However, Carney’s stunning victory marks one of the most outstanding political comebacks in Canadian history. Just weeks earlier, oddsmakers had Pierre...
The next year in Alberta promises to be a hot one. Premier Danielle Smith’s last minute move to amend legislation that makes it so much easier to collect enough signatures for a referendum has lit the match. And what would that referendum be about? Separation from the rest of Canada.
Last Friday, I confronted a protester displaying a “F— Carney” flag directly in front of the Prime Minister’s Office, that historic 1880s building serving Liberal and Conservative leaders since 1975. When he refused to remove it, I gave him two minutes before I’d do it myself. An RCMP officer intervened. Despite my outrage at seeing such vulgarity on the grounds...
As re-elected Prime Minister Mark Carney and his new cabinet take the reins in Ottawa at a time of rising global instability, his government must urgently rethink how it defends Canada’s sovereignty, deepens its alliances and projects its influence in a world increasingly being shaped by authoritarian aggression and technological disruption.
The Liberal caucus is gathering today on Parliament Hill for the first time since the April election to prepare for the start of Parliament -- and to decide whether to adopt a process to eject a party leader unwilling to leave. The meeting follows Liberal MPs' roller-coaster experience with former leader Justin Trudeau, who rejected calls from caucus for him...
Prime Minister Mark Carney is on a mission to “build, baby, build.” And he wants to do it fast. It’s a goal that was central to the Liberal leader’s pitch in an election campaign dominated by U.S. President Donald Trump’s economic aggression towards Canada.
Sweeping legislation would fast-track approvals of major projects, exempt some from provincial laws. The most significant legislation from Ontario's Progressive Conservatives since winning their third straight majority is a sweeping bill that Premier Doug Ford says will protect the economy from tariffs, but which critics say will gut environmental protection.
OTTAWA -- Crews were at work in downtown Ottawa on Friday morning, touching up the protective coating on bronze statues around the National War Memorial before a whirlwind royal visit gets underway on Monday.
Prime Minister Mark Carney set a goal of removing federal barriers to internal trade by July 1, along with implementing a middle-class tax cut that he said would save two-income families up to $825 a year.
OTTAWA -- After an election which saw the Conservatives campaign heavily on crime while the Liberals promised stricter measures for offences like violent car thefts, the new minority Liberal government has a stack of new crime policies to implement.
OTTAWA -- King Charles is set to open a new session of Parliament on Tuesday, seated in a throne that incorporates a piece of English walnut from Windsor Great Park, a preserve of his mother, the late Queen Elizabeth.
Another high-profile student who may be impacted is Princess Elisabeth, heir to the Belgian throne. Here's what you need to know
The Liberal government has appointed 12 chiefs of staff to some of the most influential federal ministers. A list of appointments was sent in an internal e-mail to Liberal staff and obtained by The Globe and Mail. More appointments are expected next week. As the top aide to a minister, chiefs of staff have significant influence over the minister, their...
King Charles III will soon land in Ottawa to deliver the throne speech that kicks off a new session of Parliament. It's only the third time the Canadian monarch has read the speech from the throne, and it's happening now for a reason. "If you want to make a point about Canadian sovereignty, what better symbol than the embodiment of...
Sources say party was focused on saving leader's seat at the expense of other incumbents. In the dying days of the federal election campaign, senior New Democrats made a desperate, last-ditch attempt to save Jagmeet Singh's Burnaby, B.C., seat. Some say it was unwinnable. At least 20 staff from the party's Ottawa headquarters packed the leader's campaign plane just days...
Canada's relationship with Israel has travelled a long way since 2015, when prime minister Stephen Harper and aspiring rival Justin Trudeau competed to claim the title of best friend of the Jewish state.
Canada’s new industry minister said Prime Minister Mark Carney has given her 60 days to cut red tape in her department and speed up the processes that drive the government’s marquee innovation programs. “We are a war cabinet, and we need to have a wartime philosophy, culture in making sure that we can do things quickly and deliver results in...
Caucus will vote Sunday on whether to adopt Reform Act. Some Liberal MPs say they plan on voting to adopt the Reform Act on Sunday so caucus has more power and can reserve the right to trigger a vote to topple Prime Minister Mark Carney as party leader. CBC News spoke to half a dozen MPs who say they're pleased...
National Post spoke with a half dozen current and former PMO officials, senior bureaucrats and caucus members. Days after the federal election, Prime Minister Mark Carney stepped into the National Press Theatre and did something Canadians hadn’t seen in nearly 10 years under Justin Trudeau: he started the press conference virtually on time. Carney’s punctuality was a stark contrast with...
OTTAWA -- Top officials at the Canada Revenue Agency say mounting job cuts will impact how the agency is able to deliver services.
OTTAWA -- Five United States senators are in Ottawa today to meet with Prime Minister Mark Carney and underscore the long-standing relationship between the two countries.
The Bloc Québécois says it has filed a Superior Court challenge to overturn the election results in the federal riding of Terrebonne after losing by one vote. In a news release, the party says there is doubt about who won the riding in the April 28 federal election because a mail-in vote from a Bloc supporter was returned to the...
A federal election riding in rural Newfoundland flipped to the Conservatives on Friday, netting the party another seat in the House of Commons. After a recount process that took nearly two weeks, Elections Canada announced that Conservative Jonathan Rowe had defeated Liberal Anthony Germain in the Terra Nova—The Peninsulas riding by just 12 votes.
Four sources close to Mendicino confirmed Friday that he is eyeing a mayoral bid to replace incumbent Olivia Chow in next year’s municipal election. Marco Mendicino, the former Liberal cabinet member and chief of staff to Prime Minister Mark Carney, is considering a run for mayor of Toronto, multiple sources say. Four sources close to Mendicino confirmed Friday that he...
After a $1-billion bailout, more than $3-billion in losses over recent years, and now heading into the second strike action in six months, Canada Post has hit a crossroads, and the centuries-old mail service is in need of a “radical restructuring” for the digital era, experts say.
Tim Hodgson gets loud applause at sold-out event in downtown Calgary. The new federal energy minister delivered a boisterous speech in support of the country's energy sector on Friday morning, while highlighting his past involvement in the sector and the urgent need to build a variety of new energy projects. Tim Hodgson spoke to a business crowd, which gave him...
OTTAWA -- At least six members of Parliament are asking their colleagues to support their bid to become the next Speaker of the House of Commons, including the last man to hold that job, Greg Fergus.
Ten weeks ago today Mark Carney became the country's 24th prime minister. Many Canadians really didn't know that much about him at the time. In those ten weeks we've seen a lot in terms of how he works, what he decides and who helps him achieve his goals. What have we learned about him that we didn't know the day...
A ballot recount in Windsor—Tecumseh—Lakeshore has confirmed a Conservative win in the border city riding, formalizing the party's blue wave in Canada's most southern tip. The recount, which started Tuesday and wrapped up Thursday, narrowed Conservative candidate Kathy Borrelli's margin of victory over Liberal incumbent Irek Kusmierczyk to a mere four votes, according to Elections Canada.
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) -- Texas would require all public school classrooms to display the Ten Commandments under a Republican proposal that cleared a major vote Saturday and would make the state the nation's largest to impose such a mandate.
The group run by Elon Musk and his aides to cut federal spending in the second Trump administration is targeting some surveys conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau it claims are "wasteful," worrying users of federal data already concerned about the health of the nation's statistical infrastructure.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- House Republicans early Thursday took a major step forward on President Donald Trump's agenda, approving a legislative package that combines tax breaks, spending cuts, border security funding and other priorities.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- House Republicans stayed up all night to pass their multitrillion-dollar tax breaks package, with Speaker Mike Johnson defying the skeptics and unifying his ranks to muscle President Donald Trump's priority bill to approval Thursday.
Two staff members of Israel’s embassy in Washington, D.C., were shot dead outside the district's Capital Jewish Museum on Wednesday night, officials said.
The British government says it is suspending free trade negotiations with Israel and has levelled new sanctions targeting West Bank settlements as it criticizes Israel’s military actions in Gaza. Tuesday’s actions came a day after the U.K., France and Canada condemned Israel’s handling of the war in Gaza and its actions in the occupied West Bank. Foreign Secretary David Lammy...
Moscow is ready to work toward ending the fighting in Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Monday following a two-hour phone call with U.S. President Donald Trump.
CBS News CEO Wendy McMahon said Monday that she is resigning, the latest fallout at the network as its parent company considers settling a lawsuit with President Donald Trump over "60 Minutes."
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Microsoft acknowledged Thursday that it sold advanced artificial intelligence and cloud computing services to the Israeli military during the war in Gaza and aided in efforts to locate and rescue Israeli hostages. But the company also said it has found no evidence to date that its Azure platform and AI technologies were used to target or harm...
The completion of the Trans Mountain Expansion (TMX) pipeline in May 2024 has coincided with the beginning of a new era in global trade. Fueled by escalating US trade tensions and tariff policies that underscore Canada’s heavy dependence on a single market for its oil exports, TMX’s significance as a strategic gateway to the Asia-Pacific region is increasing, and China...
Universities are facing a sharp decline in their public reputation. In the US, the Trump administration is openly attacking many top universities – including taking steps to strip Harvard of its tax exempt status. The situation in Canada is less antagonistic, but there’s growing public frustration over the blatant left-wing bias and politicization of our post-secondary institutions. The public’s indifference...
For too long, Canada has been content to muddle in the slow lane when what is needed — now more than ever — is a breathtaking build out. Here’s how to do it.
A collection of SubStack publishing within Canadian public affairs.
Former Liberal Foreign Affairs Minister Lloyd Axworthy accused Prime Minister Mark Carney of betraying Canadians in a strongly worded opinion article published by The Globe and Mail. Axworthy was responding to the announcements this week, first by Donald Trump and then by Carney a day later, that Canada wants to join and help pay for Trump’s “Golden Dome” scheme that...
There are plenty of problems confronting progressives in the United States right now. So lots of our American cousins may not even be aware of the angst and hardship that Trump is inflicting upon Canada.
Parliament will look very different when newly-elected MPs return to Ottawa this month. There will be far less diversity of voices in the House of Commons with the demise of the NDP, and this is not good for our democracy.
Peter Mazereeuw and Sheila Copps dig into the return of Parliament, how Mark Carney might handle Question Period, whether the Liberals should elect a Conservative House speaker, and more.
At Issue this week: Prime Minister Mark Carney sets the stage for a throne speech with a mandate letter outlining tasks and priorities for his cabinet. Canada looks beyond the U.S. for allies. And, Liberal MPs will soon decide whether to give themselves the powers to order leadership reviews. Rosemary Barton hosts Chantal Hébert, Andrew Coyne and Althia Raj...
On this episode of WONK, host Amanda Lang talks to the driving forces behind the Oneida Energy Storage Project about Indigenous partnership and the secrets to their success
Over the weekend, the Israeli military launched a new operation in Gaza called Gideon’s Chariots. It comes after a two-month long blockade of humanitarian aid that is finally starting to ease as some trucks with food have been allowed to enter the Palestinian enclave.
