While National Newswatch does not keep an archive of external articles for longer than 6 months, we do keep all articles written by contributors who post directly to our site. Here you will find all of the contributed and linked external articles from Aaron Wherry.
To illustrate the incredible upheaval that federal politics in Canada has experienced over the last 12 months, one could do worse than to simply look at the last two Liberal caucus holiday parties. A year ago, the Liberal caucus — then numbering 152 members — gathered just a day after Chrystia Freeland's stunning resignation from cabinet. Justin Trudeau tried to...
When the Conservatives tabled a motion asking the House of Commons to "take note" of the memorandum of understanding signed between the federal and Alberta governments and express its support for the construction of a pipeline, the Official Opposition presumably hoped, one way or another, to make trouble for the Liberal government. According to the logic of these things, the...
Ten months before he resigned from Mark Carney's cabinet, Steven Guilbeault vouched for the then Liberal leadership contender. "I've known Mark for many years. We've worked together on issues of green energy, transition, fighting climate change and the role of the financial sector in fighting climate change," Guilbeault told reporters when he endorsed Carney's candidacy to lead the party in...
Shortly after Prime Minister Mark Carney and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith formally signed their memorandum of understanding on Thursday, Smith joked to reporters in Calgary that she would love for "pipelines to be boring again." It's not clear that pipelines have ever been boring — they have been associated with political tumult in Canada for at least 70 years. And...
This week's budget drama does not bode well for the 45th Parliament. Is there anyone inside the House of Commons who thinks what the country wants or needs right now is another federal election? And if not, why was there such suspense and drama around this week's vote on the Liberal government's budget policy? As much as those who work...
Attempting perhaps to turn a story about his own leadership into a story about whether the Canadian news media have unfairly focused on dissent within the Conservative caucus, Pierre Poilievre challenged reporters on Wednesday to pay as much attention to the recent criticism levelled against the federal government's budget by Liberal MP Nathaniel Erskine-Smith.
Unfortunately, it can be easy for long stretches to forget about most of the 343 democratically elected members of the House of Commons — or to know next to nothing about them. But then, every so often, someone who is not the prime minister, the finance minister or the leader of the Opposition does something to steal the headlines. So...
"Generational" is the Carney government's adjective of choice at this moment of consequence. The word appeared 11 times in the prepared text of François Philippe-Champagne's budget speech and another 45 times in the 493-page budget document.
The morning after Mark Carney's 30-minute address to an audience at the University of Ottawa, Pierre Poilievre appeared before reporters to offer his review. The Conservative leader was unimpressed. "This was the sacrifice speech," Poilievre said, gamely trying to coin a moniker.
As Donald Trump explained it, he was primarily worried about the accurate and honourable reporting of Ronald Reagan's views on trade policy — and concerned that a misrepresentation of the former U.S. president's views might somehow influence the justices of the United States Supreme Court. And his belief in this regard is so strong that he was willing to suspend...
Five days before the new president was inaugurated, Justin Trudeau gathered the premiers in Ottawa to discuss the coming crisis. They emerged, Trudeau said, with a "shared sense of purpose, a shared sense of understanding and a commitment to stand together on a united path forward." Seated to Trudeau's right, Ontario Premier Doug Ford said it was "truly a Team...
When Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne appeared before the House of Commons finance committee this week, Conservative MP Pat Kelly attempted to corner him with a complicated question disguised as a simple one. "Minister, what year will the budget be balanced?" Kelly asked. Champagne spoke a few dozen words in response, but failed to answer, so Kelly tried again. And then...
Last month, after the federal government filed its factum with the Supreme Court in the case of English Montreal School Board v. Attorney General of Quebec, Justice Minister Sean Fraser stood accused by a Bloc Québécois MP of wanting to rewrite the Constitution. "On the contrary, we do not want to change the Constitution," Fraser said. "We want to give...
Danielle Smith wants a pipeline, but wants the prime minister held responsible. Announcing her intention to propose an oil pipeline that would run across northern British Columbia from Alberta to the Pacific Ocean, Premier Danielle Smith declared that this would be "a test of whether Canada works as a country."
At the end of a busy day at the United Nations on Tuesday, Prime Minister Mark Carney was asked by a reporter how he could still have confidence in Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree, who has been staggered this week by the release of a recorded conversation in which he casts some doubt on the government's buyback program for "assault-style"...
Pierre Poilievre was back in his happy place. Mark Carney was back in the prime minister's seat. Between them lay 396 centimetres of green carpet and the future of the country. "Why is it that all of this prime minister's promises of yesterday turn into today's disappointments?" the Conservative leader asked. "We need to be clear about the scale of...
The prime minister — and Canadians — are facing many choices in short order.Even while Mark Carney has been accused of lowering his elbows in regards to American tariffs, he continues to frame the larger challenge facing this country in stark terms. "What's going on is not a transition," Carney said last week in Mississauga, Ont., while announcing an array...
Mark Carney's announcement on Friday that implementation of the federal government's zero-emission vehicle mandate will be delayed by at least a year can be read as another retreat on climate policy from the new prime minister. It can also be read as a small victory for Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, who had been calling on the government to abandon the...
Inevitably, but torturously, this unique moment in the history of this country has come to be understood primarily in hockey terms. "His elbows have mysteriously gone missing," Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre said of Prime Minister Mark Carney on Friday. "He's not thrown one elbow since he took office." A few hours earlier, a reporter had warned the prime minister that...
In fundraising appeals sent to supporters ahead of Monday's vote, the Conservative Party billed Battle River-Crowfoot as the "most important by-election in Canadian history." It was at least the most important byelection in the history of Pierre Poilievre. Not that the winner was ever in much doubt. In attempting to regain a seat in the House of Commons — a...
With the federal carbon tax dead and gone, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has found a new target among the Liberal government's climate policies — the electric vehicle availability standard, otherwise known as the zero-emission vehicle (ZEV) mandate. "We will legalize, into the future, your right to drive a gas or diesel-powered truck or car by repealing the Liberal EV mandate,"...
Can the prime minister formulate his own third option? A week after the latest deadline to somehow resolve the trade war that Donald Trump has launched against Canada — and with Canadian officials now looking ahead to a full renegotiation of the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement — many things remain unclear. But when Mark Carney spoke to reporters in British Columbia on...
It's easy to move fast if you're not worried about breaking things. The greater challenge is moving fast while fixing, improving and building things. On the day, two months ago, that his new cabinet was appointed, Carney boasted that it was "among the fastest" swearings-in after an election and that the return of Parliament would be "one of the most...
After Prime Minister Mark Carney and President Donald Trump met one-on-one for 30 minutes on Monday morning, but before their respective teams joined to continue the discussion, the two leaders invited reporters and television cameras into a meeting room in Kananaskis, Alta. to witness them exchanging formal pleasantries.
Lacking broad consensus, the onus falls on those still interested in co-operation. Fifty years ago this fall the leaders of France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States met in a castle outside Paris for three days of meetings, at the conclusion of which they issued the Declaration of Rambouillet, a 15-point statement of principles and commitments.
Viewed from a certain angle, it could be read as good news that only 30 per cent of Albertans believe their province would be better off on its own, a share that has grown only slightly over the last five years. In a hypothetical referendum, just 28 per cent said they would vote to secede. But among those who believe...
At question period on Monday, two Conservative MPs beseeched the government to approve a pipeline that very afternoon. "The prime minister is meeting with premiers in Saskatchewan today," said John Barlow, MP for the Alberta riding of Foothills. "Will he approve a pipeline at that meeting?" Such a request raises other questions. Questions like, what pipeline? To where? To be...
The ultimate fate of the populist appeal may depend on what His Majesty's government does next. Speaking to reporters after the speech from the throne on Tuesday, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre struck a decidedly institutionalist tone. "We joined today in thanking His Majesty for coming to Canada and delivering the throne speech, reinforcing our ancient, great British liberties," he said...
One of Mark Carney's greatest advantages over the last five months — the first five months of his political career — has seemingly been his ability to play the part of the adult in the room. One of the defining characteristics of the House of Commons is its ability to make grown men and women act like children. Carney's arrival...
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...
Standing outside Rideau Hall on Tuesday, Mark Carney said his new cabinet — the first real cabinet of his time as prime minister — was "purpose-built for this hinge moment." Carney has long been fond of thinking of this current moment as a hinge — even before its real depths were clear. The Hinge was the title of the book...
In 2013, when he was running to unseat a Conservative government, Justin Trudeau said there were a "few very big things the prime minister of Canada needs to get right," one of which was "building a constructive working relationship with the president of the United States." That of course was long before the president of the United States was Donald...
In his first news conference since Monday's election, Prime Minister Mark Carney did not shy away from some of the rhetoric and ambition that carried him through the campaign. Canada would be embarking, he said, "on the biggest transformation of our economy since the end of the Second World War." This country's "old relationship" with the United States was "over."...
For the first time in nearly a century, two parties won more than 40 per cent of the vote. Shortly after 1 a.m. on Tuesday, Mark Carney walked onto a stage at the old Ottawa civic centre — the same hockey arena where John Turner was elected Liberal leader in 1984, the last time the Liberals tried to replace a...
John Duffy, the late political strategist and author, began Fights of Our Lives, his lively and encyclopedic account of the federal campaigns that shaped this country, with a simple premise — one always worth returning to at moments like this. "Elections matter," he wrote. Writing in 2002, Duffy was pushing back against what he saw as the lazy cynicism of...
Platform published Tuesday didn't include commitment made earlier in the campaign. The Conservative Party has republished the English-language version of its platform after what it says was a "publishing oversight" resulted in the omission of a previous commitment to crack down on "woke ideology" in the public service and federal funding for university research. Earlier in the campaign, the Conservatives...
During his campaign for the Conservative leadership in 2022, Pierre Poilievre said he would never pivot. "I am who I am," he said. To a great degree, that has held true — despite periodic suggestions from the commentariat that he should change course.
New spending for defence, housing, infrastructure would mean higher deficits under Liberal plan. Liberal Leader Mark Carney framed his fiscal and spending plan on Saturday in terms of a crisis — "the biggest crisis of our lifetimes," as he put it. The United States is attacking Canada's economy and threatening Canadian sovereignty. The American president is "trying to fundamentally restructure...
Thirty-seven years ago, inside a television studio in Ottawa, John Turner thrust an index finger at Brian Mulroney and warned that with one stroke of a pen Mulroney had reversed 120 years of national development and thrown Canada into the "north-south influence of the United States." "When the economic levers go, the political independence is sure to follow," Turner said.
According to survey data released last week by Pollara, Canadians are evenly split on whether they want this federal election to result in "change" or "stability" — 46 per cent of Canadians want change and 45 per cent want stability. Among those who want change, 47 per cent say Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre would best deliver that change, while 2...
In these disorienting days, Canadian leaders are responding in real time to a deeply uncertain world. On the day the president of the United States launched a global trade war, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith chose to look on the bright side. The United States, she wrote, had decided to "uphold the majority of the free trade agreement … between our...
The Alberta premier thought it was a good thing — a top Conservative strategist begged to differ. The most controversial statement of the federal election so far was uttered before the campaign even started — not by a federal politician, but the premier of Alberta. In an interview taped on March 8 with a right-wing American media outlet, Danielle Smith...
In ways no one could have understood at the time, June 16, 2015, turned out to be a momentous day for Canada and Canadian politics, the reverberations of which are only being fully felt now, nearly a decade later. In the moment, the day's most significant event might have seemed to be an announcement by the leader of the Liberal...
There were far fewer hugs than in 2015. The 23rd prime minister was a hugger — possibly the huggiest in Canadian history. The 24th prefers a firm handshake, with his left hand on the other person's elbow. Each of Mark Carney's 23 ministers received some version of that greeting after they had sworn their oaths. Carney is very apparently a...
Donald Trump has scrambled the playing board and rewritten the ballot question. Into this unprecedented moment, enter Mark Carney. In the more gossipy corners of Ottawa, this has been a long time coming. At least as far back as the summer of 2012, an eager group of Liberals tried and failed to woo him. That same year, according to Carney...
Canadians have taken Donald Trump's threats of trade action — now realized — very personally. Understandably and justifiably so. But the American president's treatment of Ukraine — not to mention his administration's larger withholding of foreign aid — demonstrates that Canada is far from alone. This United States administration is not concerned much with the welfare of other nations or...
It is an exciting debate for accountants. Mark Carney, the presumptive favourite in the Liberal leadership race, says a government led by him would introduce a new budget "framework" that would "separate" the federal government's operating and capital budgets — drawing a distinction between spending that covers ongoing expenses for programs and services and spending that goes toward building and...
Near the end of Tuesday night's Liberal leadership debate — the second and last time all four candidates will be on the same stage together before a winner is announced on March 9 — Justin Trudeau's would-be successors were asked how they would differentiate themselves from him. Chrystia Freeland, who until two months ago was Trudeau's most trusted lieutenant, initially...
Donald Trump now seems to loom over everything — almost as overwhelmingly as the giant Canadian flag that loomed behind Pierre Poilievre at his "Canada First" rally last weekend. If not for Trump, it seems unlikely Poilievre would have been celebrating Flag Day so enthusiastically. For that matter, if not for Trump, it seems likely that this Flag Day —...
The sensational foreign-interference saga that gripped Parliament Hill off and on for two years came to an unofficial end last month with the release of Justice Marie-Josée Hogue's final report. And between her relatively anticlimactic conclusion there are no "traitors" in Parliament and the incredible tumult that Donald Trump has since provoked, the commission's work could soon fade from memory...
The last few weeks may have at least buried any remaining notion that Canadian leaders can exert much control over the current president of the United States. Six-and-a-half years ago, when Trump's first administration imposed tariffs on steel and aluminum, the Conservatives declared that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was a "failure." "What is his plan to fix this tariff issue?"...
Canadian sports fans might be persuaded to stop jeering the American national anthem. At least for the next 30 days. The trade war is off. At least for now. But that is of limited solace. And even if the next deadline somehow comes and goes without the resumption of hostilities, it's not clear when Canadians will again be able to...
Addressing both Canadians and Americans on Saturday night, at one of the most fraught moments in the history of relations between Canada and the United States, Justin Trudeau reminded listeners of John F. Kennedy's words when the late American president addressed Parliament in May 1961.
When Chrystia Freeland proposed raising taxes on capital gains last April, she pitched the change — and related promises to invest in dental care, school food programs and housing — in starkly moral terms. "Before they complain too bitterly, I would like Canada's one per cent — Canada's 0.1 per cent — to consider this: What kind of Canada do...
When three of Justin Trudeau's ministers came to the microphone set up in the lobby of the rustically palatial Château Montebello in western Quebec on Monday afternoon, the mood seemed to be one of relief. There may have even been a vague sense of achievement. In the waning days of his premiership, Trudeau had gathered his cabinet in Montebello for...
It might seem like a distant memory now, but it's worth remembering that every major federal party ran in 2021 on a platform that included a consumer carbon tax. Nearly every single Liberal, NDP and Conservative MP who currently sits in the House of Commons — up to and including Pierre Poilievre, who now says Canada needs a "carbon tax...
In January 2017, Donald Trump signed an executive order that banned immigration to the United States from seven Muslim-majority countries. Amid the turmoil that ensued, Justin Trudeau posted a message to Twitter. "To those fleeing persecution, terror & war, Canadians will welcome you, regardless of your faith," he wrote. "Diversity is our strength #WelcomeToCanada."
In an interview in December 2022, Justin Trudeau allowed himself to talk about legacy. He has typically avoided entertaining such stuff. But sitting in his West Block office a little more than two years ago, he spoke of "unfinished business" and a desire to "lock in what Canada is doing as an open, progressive, confident democracy." And when it was...
On the day he finally conceded to the obvious, Justin Trudeau looked appropriately humbled. For maybe the first time, he looked older. And the affectation that often marked his public remarks seemed drained out of him. "This country deserves a real choice in the next election and it has become clear to me that if I'm having to fight internal...
The 29th ministry since Confederation now has some new members — individuals who could one day become vital or important ministers of the Crown. But the only minister who currently matters is the prime minister And unless or until the question of the prime minister's future is answered, not much else matters. The shuffle that was executed on Friday was...