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 Alex Boutilier.
Canadian officials in the Middle East scrambled to help American citizens trying to escape the region after U.S. President Donald Trump launched his war against Iran, the federal government confirmed Wednesday. The assistance, revealed by the U.S.-based publication Semafor, was provided after American officials did not have a facility for U.S. citizens to pick up new or renewed passports required...
Prime Minister Mark Carney told a closed-door fundraiser crowd Monday night that floor-crossing MP Michael Ma represents “Liberal values,” after the former Conservative politician drew controversy over comments about forced labour in China. In video obtained by Global News, Carney told the crowd at the GTA fundraiser that the Liberals were “glad” to welcome Ma to their ranks after the...
Pierre Poilievre and Joe Rogan spent more than two hours talking about mixed martial arts, exercise, COVID-19 restrictions and nutrition — and a little bit of politics. Poilievre sat down for an episode of the Joe Rogan Experience podcast amid a mini U.S. tour of Michigan, Texas and New York — his second international trip as leader of the opposition...
Indigenous Services Canada is promising stricter enforcement against businesses falsely claiming to be Indigenous-owned in order to gain preferential access to billions worth of federal government contracts, according to a document reviewed by Global News. In a letter sent late last month to the House of Commons’ Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee, Mandy Gull-Masty, the minister responsible for the Procurement...
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.
A Conservative MP wants to identify federal public servants or members of the Canadian Armed Forces who sympathize with the left-wing antifa movement. Edmonton MP Garnett Genuis has asked federal departments and agencies, as well as the military, if any of their employees are now, or have ever been, members of the decentralized protest movement that stands in opposition to...
Jamil Jivani’s solo mission to Washington has provoked confusion and consternation among some of his Conservative colleagues who want to avoid the party looking cozy with Donald Trump’s administration. Jivani, a friend of U.S. Vice-President JD Vance since they attended Yale Law School together, paid a visit to Vance’s office in what he described as an attempt to “build bridges”...
Prime Minister Mark Carney’s top security official says Ottawa expects the United States administration to stay out of Canada’s domestic politics. When asked Tuesday if she viewed the U.S. as a potential threat to Canadian democracy, National Security and Intelligence Advisor Nathalie Drouin said the federal government is on guard against any threat to Canadian democracy, including the U.S. “Canada...
Prime Minister Mark Carney is still considering joining the U.S.-led “Board of Peace” for Gaza’s reconstruction despite the possible participation of Russian President Vladimir Putin. U.S. President Donald Trump announced late last week that he would create the board to oversee a new technocratic Palestinian government, as well as the disarmament of Hamas and the deployment of an international security...
The Canadian government is not planning any new action against X.com amid the company’s ongoing scandal over AI-generated child sexual abuse material and “nudified” images of women. The social media company, formerly Twitter, has for weeks allowed its in-house AI program Grok to create unauthorized, sexualized images of women stripped of their clothing and child sexual abuse material (CSAM) based...
An increasingly aggressive Russia coupled with China’s growing influence have renewed Canada’s focus on Arctic defence and sovereignty — and how to assert control over its remote northern geography. The focus is on both increased surveillance — knowing what and who is poking around up there — and having military assets in place to deter any aggressor before they consider...
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre says Canadian voters know he’s a “fighter,” but that he needs to do a better job explaining what he’s actually fighting for. In a year-end interview with Global News anchor and executive editor Dawna Friesen, Poilievre said he has reflected on his leadership and approach after April’s disappointing election loss. One of his conclusions was that...
“The timing (of Ma’s decision) was catastrophically bad for Conservatives, because you can’t bring everyone in and (say), rah, rah, everything is OK,” said one senior Conservative source, granted anonymity to discuss internal party politics. The source predicted that Carney will have a majority by spring 2026 “one way or another,” meaning they expect at least one more Conservative MP...
The Trump administration’s implicit endorsement of “patriotic” European political parties has renewed concerns about American meddling in Canadian political movements and causes. Washington’s updated National Security Strategy, released late last week, says little directly about economic or security ties with Canada. But it raised eyebrows among Canadian national security watchers with its full-throated support for nationalist parties in Europe and...
Pierre Poilievre has tapped a veteran Conservative campaigner to help steer the party through the next federal election. Steve Outhouse, an affable Nova Scotian with deep roots in the federal Conservatives as well as provincial Tory parties, will serve as Poilievre’s campaign manager in the next federal campaign. It will be Outhouse’s first time running the national campaign.
It’s safe to say these probably weren’t the headlines Pierre Poilievre and the Conservatives were hoping for this week. Two announced departures from the Conservative caucus have overshadowed Poilievre’s criticisms of Prime Minister Mark Carney’s inaugural budget, shifting the focus back to Poilievre’s leadership ahead of his party’s convention in January.
Northern Canadians see U.S. President Donald Trump’s America as a greater threat to Canada’s Arctic security than Russia or China, as the region attracts greater attention from both polar and non-polar powers, according to recent polling. The polling data comes as Canada’s foreign affairs minister is being warned that current tensions with Russia and China’s growing presence in the Far...
In December 2023, Jagmeet Singh posted pictures of his wife holding their newborn baby. Singh, then the leader of the federal New Democrats, gazed lovingly at the baby girl as his wife, Gurkiran Kaur Sidhu, cradled her. Not pictured in Singh’s social media accounts was the retinue of armed RCMP officers stationed outside the hospital room, there to ensure the...
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has scheduled a last-minute “whistle stop” rally in his rural Ottawa riding amidst reports that he’s in danger of losing his seat. On Sunday night, Poilievre will meet with constituents in the rural Ottawa riding of Carleton — a seat he’s held since being first elected in 2004 at age 25 — on the eve of...
Tucked away amid a host pledges in the Conservative platform is a promise to axe one of Parliament’s primary purposes. Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre announced Tuesday that under his government a referendum, not politicians, would decide if Canada needed to raise taxes. Poilievre would “ban” any new taxes or tax increases unless the Canadian public votes for them.
An outspoken Conservative ethics critic was threatened with eviction from his taxpayer-subsidized apartment over allegations of unpaid rent, Global News has learned. In 2023, Minto Apartment Limited Partnership – owners of an apartment building just steps from Parliament Hill – asked the Landlord and Tenant Board to intervene after it said Conservative MP Larry Brock failed to pay $16,4129.23 in...
Canadian domestic extremists are using the federal election to amplify “corrosive” narratives around democracy, immigration and conspiracy theories, a new report suggests. The Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) found Canadian extremists are capitalizing on the deteriorating relationship between Canada and U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration t
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre’s campaign desperately needs a reset, according to some veteran Tory campaigners and strategists. The question is whether the former frontrunner for Canada’s next prime minister and his inner circle will acknowledge and address that Donald Trump, not carbon taxes or crime, is the ballot box question, the sources tell Global News. The world changed with U.S...
National security leaks are rare in Canada. They’re even more rare during fraught election campaigns. So the allegations, delivered by the Globe and Mail on Tuesday, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) assessed the Indian government meddled in the 2022 Conservative leadership race came as a bit of a shock in the early days of this general election.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre says Danielle Smith is “free” to express her opinions on the U.S.-Canada trade war after the Alberta premier was accused of soliciting Donald Trump’s intervention in the federal election. Speaking to reporters in Brampton, Ont., Monday, Poilievre was asked if Smith’s recent comments to U.S. right-wing network Breitbart were “appropriate.”
Pierre Poilievre’s Conservative party and a conservative-linked pressure group are ratcheting up digital advertising targeting Mark Carney amidst a Liberal resurgence in national polls. The Conservatives’ latest English-language ad labels Carney as “sneaky” – Poilievre and co.’s preferred nickname for the former central banker – and was blasted out 198 times since March 11, two days after Carney’s landslide victory...
Canada’s most important security and intelligence alliance should be able to weather the current political storm engulfing Washington, according to journalist and filmmaker Richard Kerbaj. Kerbaj, the author of The Secret History of the Five Eyes, told The West Block’s Mercedes Stephenson the long-standing spy partnership has survived political disagreements between its member countries in the past.
The Liberal Party appears to be enjoying a polling bump at the expense of the Conservatives after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s announcement he will not lead the party into the next election, according to the latest numbers from Ipsos Research for Global News. Trudeau’s pending departure and the threat of U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade war seem to be tightening...
Liberal leadership hopeful Chrystia Freeland is expected to outline an aggressive plan to reach Canada’s NATO defence spending targets by 2027. The former finance minister and deputy prime minister is expected to lay out her plan to boost defence spending to two per cent of Canada’s GDP in just two years on Thursday.
Justin Trudeau often seemed most comfortable when he was playing the role of the underdog and overcoming expectations. Throughout his career he’s been dismissed as a lightweight, first by members of his own party, then by a Conservative regime that sneered at his eligibility to lead the country, and by his opposition critics ever since. His greatest electoral success —...
An Ontario court has tossed out Michael Chan’s nearly decade-old libel lawsuit against the Globe and Mail over reporting on the former provincial cabinet minister’s alleged ties to Chinese diplomats. The Ontario Superior Court dismissed Chan’s case in August, Global News has learned, after Chan failed to submit documentation in a timely matter.
An independent senator is calling evidence the Chinese government “targeted” MPs Michael Chong and Jenny Kwan “cavalier and flimsy,” downplaying Beijing’s efforts to collect “human intelligence” on Canadian parliamentarians. Sen. Yuen Pau Woo, whom the Liberals appointed to the Senate in 2016, has been a vocal critic of the federal government’s response to Chinese interference operations and skeptical of allegations...
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says Mexico has been a “solid partner” in North American trade negotiations, but acknowledged that Donald Trump’s concerns about Chinese investment in its economy need to be addressed. Trudeau was walking a delicate line at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting in Lima, Peru Saturday, as world leaders continue to grapple with Trump’s re-election and the...
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau suggested Wednesday that Canadian intelligence agencies have information that multiple Conservative politicians are “engaged” in or at risk from foreign interference schemes. But Trudeau later admitted that list of names include Liberal politicians as well as those from “other parties,” without expanding on what the parliamentarians were suspected of doing.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s office intervened in 2019 to keep Han Dong off a House of Commons committee probing Canada’s relations with China, according to testimony from Trudeau’s most senior staff. The Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) briefed security-cleared Liberal officials during the 2019 election about “irregularities” related to Dong’s nomination as the party’s candidate in Don Valley North...
A 2021 analysis of China’s foreign interference operations intended to spark discussion among senior government figures did not make it to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau or cabinet ministers, the Hogue commission heard Monday. The report, produced by the Privy Council Office (PCO) and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) and delivered in January 2022, was stalled for months in the...
Canadian diplomats have quietly but frequently raising concerns over foreign interference and surveillance with their Chinese counterparts over the past two years, newly-released documents show. A document published by the foreign interference commission Friday shows a total of 48 “representations” to People’s Republic of China (PRC) officials since September 2022. The general topic of “foreign interference” has been raised 3...
Former public safety minister Bill Blair said he “was not advised” for weeks after CSIS says it told his chief of staff that it was seeking approval to investigate an Ontario Liberal powerbroker in March 2021. What remains unclear is why, according to testimony from a CSIS official, the warrant application targeting Michael Chan, a former provincial Liberal cabinet minister...
Media outlets aligned with the Indian government “targeted” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau after he revealed Canada suspected India was behind the killing of B.C. Sikh leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar, new documents suggest. A report by the Rapid Response Mechanism (RRM), a unit with Global Affairs Canada that monitors state-sponsored disinformation, said commentators at outlets that backed Indian Prime Minister Narendra...
Federal officials told an Indigenous tribal council they could upload any document, including a “picture of a bunny,” to prove they qualified for a multi-billion dollar procurement program. Seeking to be listed on the government’s Indigenous Business Directory (IBD), a listing of Indigenous-owned and -operated businesses, a representative from the Algonquin Anishinabeg Nation Tribal Council asked the department what documents...
Thirty years ago, a mantra for the U.S. Democrats ran “it’s the economy, stupid.” Three decades later, that same energy has been captured by a Canadian politician that nobody would mistake for Bill Clinton. The Millennial and Gen Y Canadians who will vote for Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre – potentially for the first time, or their first time voting for...
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre told a Vancouver business networking breakfast that “corporate lobbyists” in Ottawa are “utterly useless” and said he would focus on Canadian workers if his party forms government. Speaking to the Greater Vancouver Chamber of Commerce Friday morning, Poilievre accused corporate interests of failing to stand up for workers, and vowed to make business leaders work harder...
Just hours before then-transportation minister Marc Garneau announced the grounding of Boeing 737 MAX-8 jets in March 2019, staff at his department prepared three very different speeches. They outlined three different scenarios: restricting the aircraft from Canadian airspace, as many countries already had, declaring the MAX-8 safe to fly, as the Americans did, or allowing the aircraft to operate “only...
Industry Minister François-Philippe Champagne is defending the Liberal’s plans to overhaul critical infrastructure protection in Canada amid continued concerns Bill C-26 could undermine both Canadians’ privacy and government transparency. Bill C-26 would give Champagne and his successors the ability to order private companies, such as banks and telecoms, in five critical sectors tied to national security to hand over potentially...
Foreign interference networks are “deeply embedded” in Canadian politics, and operate at every level of government, according to a declassified intelligence report obtained by Global News.
A “significant” spike in threats to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and other senior public figures during the 2021 federal election led to concerns that domestic extremist groups and anti-vaccine protestors could pose a threat to the vote, newly-released documents suggest. The documents, prepared by a multi-agency committee tasked with safeguarding federal elections from interference, show it wasn’t just hostile foreign...
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is positioning his party for the future with a promise to return to the past. In a public speech to the Conservative caucus Sunday, Poilievre laid all the troubles of the country – housing affordability, inflation, crime rates and uncertainty on the world stage – at the feet of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. A Conservative government...
The Canadian government is publicly naming 85 Chinese research institutions that “may pose” a threat to national security and sensitive research. The list, published Tuesday afternoon, also includes 12 Iranian and six Russian organizations the Canadian government believes have ties to “military, national defence or state security entities.”
Organized crime groups are attempting to “infiltrate” government agencies and departments, a report obtained by Global News suggests. The Criminal Intelligence Service Canada (CISC) reported in 2022 that 29 organized crime groups reportedly have “influence and access” within the public sector, while at least 369 groups are believed to be trying to gain a toehold in government..
Canadian governments have undermined their diplomatic corps for two decades by failing to spend money and recruit foreign service officers, a Senate committee has found. Ottawa needs to “reinvest” in the country’s diplomatic muscle to ensure that the country is “prepared to meet the complex global challenges of the decades to come,” the Senate’s Foreign Affairs Committee reported Wednesday...
Canadian governments have undermined their diplomatic corps for two decades by failing to spend money and recruit foreign service officers, a Senate committee has found. Ottawa needs to “reinvest” in the country’s diplomatic muscle to ensure that the country is “prepared to meet the complex global challenges of the decades to come,” the Senate’s Foreign Affairs Committee reported Wednesday...