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 Darren Major.
As Mark Carney closed out his victory speech on election night, he reminded Canadians — as he did through much of the campaign — of the challenges posed by the ongoing tensions with the U.S. administration. "We will build an independent future for our great country," he said to the crowd. "Vive le Canada." But after touting himself as the...
Candidates were dropping almost as fast as the writs in the first two weeks of the campaign. But after Monday, political parties will have an additional problem if they decide to remove someone from their ticket — they won't be able to put forward a backup contender. Between the Liberals and Conservatives, more than half a dozen candidates have stepped...
The four candidates vying to replace Prime Minister Justin Trudeau took the debate stage for the final time as the Liberal leadership contest enters the home stretch. Former deputy prime minister Chrystia Freeland, former Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney, former government House leader Karina Gould and former MP and businessman Frank Baylis squared off in an English debate Tuesday...
MP Chandra Arya shut down fellow Liberal Sukh Dhaliwal's motion on the 1984 anti-Sikh riots. Liberal MP Chandra Arya is accusing his caucus colleague Sukh Dhaliwal of threatening him in the House of Commons on Friday. The incident allegedly took place after Dhaliwal, MP for Surrey—Newton in B.C., attempted to get unanimous consent from the House on a motion to...
The federal government's pandemic-era loan program for small businesses faced a number of contracting issues due to a lack of oversight, Canada's auditor general has found. The Canada Emergency Business Account (CEBA) was introduced at the height of the pandemic to help out small businesses forced to close or limit their operations due to public health measures. The program offered...
Internal calls for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to resign as Liberal leader were aired out behind closed doors Wednesday as Liberal MPs met on Parliament Hill. All party caucuses meet weekly when the House of Commons is sitting. Liberal MPs who want Trudeau to step down used Wednesday's meeting to deliver their grievances to the prime minister in person. Here's...
Nearly 100 candidates on byelection ballot in Montreal riding of LaSalle–Émard–Verdun. Elections Canada says it's taking steps ahead of an upcoming Montreal byelection to avoid a repeat of the hours-long delays that hampered ballot counting in a Toronto vote earlier this summer. A total of 91 candidates will be on the ballot for the Sept. 16 byelection in LaSalle–Émard–Verdun, making...
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said in a recent podcast that he considered walking away from the job last year as his marriage began to fracture. Trudeau and his wife, Sophie Grégoire Trudeau, announced last August that they had agreed to separate. During an episode of the ReThinking podcast that was released Tuesday, psychologist and host Adam Grant asked Trudeau how...
The government has had to cancel at least $246 million in debts for thousands of Canadians it initially claimed had received pandemic benefits for which they weren't eligible. Since 2022, the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) has been collecting money from Canadians the government says received benefits — such as the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) and the Canada Recovery Benefit (CRB) — in error.
NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh said Monday his party still hasn't decided whether it will vote in favour of the federal budget introduced last week. The New Democrats have an agreement in place to back the governing Liberal Party on confidence and budgetary votes in exchange for movement on key policy priorities. The agreement is set to last until June of...
The RCMP says it has searched the office of a contractor who worked on the ArriveCan app. While the police force didn't name the business, an RCMP spokesperson told CBC News that it had executed a search warrant at a location previously listed as GC Strategies' mailing address in Woodlawn, Ont., just west of Ottawa. The RCMP spokesperson said the...
Trudeau said government can't 'correct the record' without giving adversaries access to Canadian intelligence. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told the Foreign Interference Commission on Wednesday that intelligence leaks to the media can't be refuted without declassifying secret information. The prime minister told the commission looking into foreign meddling in Canadian elections that revealing secret information to refute leaks would put...
MP Anthony Housefather will remain in the Liberal caucus despite his concerns over the party's support for a motion on Palestinian statehood. "The adoption of the motion and all the events that preceded it have angered me as much as they angered most of the Jewish Canadians that I have communicated with," the Montreal MP said in a press release...
One of the partners at GC Strategies is rebutting an auditor general's report that suggests his firm earned $19 million for the ArriveCan application, arguing that the government's poor record-keeping inflated that estimate. Kristian Firth is appearing today before the House government operations committee. It's the first time he's made public comments since Auditor General Karen Hogan released her report...
GC Strategies was hired to work on three other Canada Border Services Agency projects as it was working on the controversial ArriveCan app. The company has been facing heightened scrutiny ever since the federal auditor general cited excessive reliance on contractors as a major factor contributing to ArriveCan's ballooning costs. The CBSA has told CBC News that it contracted GC...
The company at the centre of the ArriveCan controversy has received more than $100 million in federal government contracts since 2011, says Canada's comptroller general. Roch Huppé told the House public accounts committee Wednesday morning that GC Strategies and its predecessor Coredal have been awarded 118 contracts totalling $107 million.
Kim Campbell, who served as Canada's prime minister in 1993, remembers her predecessor for his pragmatism. "He's had a remarkable and consequential life ... What's interesting about Brian Mulroney was his willingness to rethink things, and learn new things and change his mind," she told David Cochrane, host of CBC News Network's Power & Politics. "He spent much of his...
An IT firm run by a defence department employee has been awarded millions of dollars in government contracts since 2015. Dalian Enterprise has come in for scrutiny recently over its involvement in the development of the ArriveCan app. The company had received $7.9 million for its work on the project as of last March, according to a recent report from...
The Canadian government will begin airdropping aid into Gaza within the next week, a government source tells CBC News. Months of violence have followed the events of Oct. 7, when Hamas militants attacked Israel, killed approximately 1,200 people and took roughly 250 others hostage, according to Israeli accounts. Since then, Israeli strikes have killed approximately 29,000 people, according to Gaza's Hamas-led health authority.
The federal government is reimposing some visa requirements on Mexican nationals visiting Canada, a senior government source tells Radio-Canada. The new rules will take effect on 11:30 p.m. ET on Thursday. Quebec Premier François Legault has been calling on the federal government to do more to slow the influx of asylum seekers into his province. Last week, he said Ottawa...
A Quebec mother of six who is being held in Syria is bringing the government to court over its decision not to repatriate her to Canada.
Some small businesses say they might have to refinance their government-backed pandemic loans at higher interest rates if Ottawa doesn't extend the deadline for accessing the forgivable portion of the loans.
A diplomat who was ordered out of Canada in the wake of allegations about the killing of a Canadian Sikh activist has left the country, says a senior government official.