David Akin
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 David Akin.
Do government ridings get more federal cash? Evidence is mixed
As she faced reporters for the first time after announcing herself as a Liberal, Marilyn Gladu seemed to hint that, as an MP on the government side of the House, her riding of Sarnia-Lambton-Bkejwanong would get access to government funding that it was not getting so long as she was a Conservative MP.
Keen to seem ‘tough-on-crime,’ Carney government looks to polls for answers
Prime Minister Mark Carney‘s government, keen to improve its standing in the public’s eyes when it comes to law and order issues, ordered up several taxpayer-funded polls late last year to take stock of how Canadians view their work on justice issues and identify their priorities when it comes to fighting crime.
As prime minister, Mark Carney makes Question Period a low priority
When he’s in the House of Commons during the daily 45-minute Question Period, Mark Carney seems to enjoy himself. While it’s never shown on TV cameras — House of Commons personnel and not broadcasters control the visuals — those in the galleries will often see Carney smiling and joking with members of the opposition, including Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre. Judging...
To chop spending, Ottawa will cut science, tourism, foreign aid programs
The federal government has tabled details of how it plans to cut billions of dollars from programs that support science, tourism, harbour improvements, journalism, foreign aid, and even the development of a Canadian-made lunar rover module. The cuts are detailed in hundreds of pages of departmental plans tabled in the House of Commons last Friday as MPs were preparing to...
Poilievre to fly to UK, Germany on first international trip as Opposition leader
As Prime Minister Mark Carney gets set for his second circumnavigation of the globe in as many months, his chief political opponent will also head overseas, Global News has learned.
Carney protegé eyed to succeed Hillman as Canada’s U.S. ambassador: sources
Canada’s ambassador to the U.S., Kirsten Hillman, said Tuesday she will be leaving her diplomatic post in the new year, after serving as the top envoy representing Canada in Washington, D.C., since 2020. Her replacement will be Mark Wiseman, two sources close to the government say. Wiseman is a 55-year-old financier and is said to be a close friend of...
Ipsos poll: With MPs returning, Carney government has decade-high approval
Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government will face the House of Commons next week for the first time since June. It begins the fall sitting of Parliament with an approval rating among Canadians that no government has seen in nearly a decade, according to new polling done exclusively for Global News by Ipsos. While Opposition Leader Pierre Poilievre has derided the...
Internal PMO polls show huge support for major hydro, road, port projects
As the Carney government prepares to release its list of major projects it is prepared to fast-track to completion, new internal government polling done earlier this summer under the supervision of the prime minister’s office shows that Canadians overwhelmingly support projects that build up hydroelectric generation and transmission, highway system upgrades, and improved port infrastructure. A majority of Canadians also...
Threats of political violence rose rapidly through the Trudeau years, new data shows
Catherine McKenna noticed the first serious wave of threats aimed at her in 2018, on the same day the Trudeau government’s carbon-tax-and-rebate policy went into effect. She was then the environment minister in former prime minister Justin Trudeau’s cabinet and became the lightning rod for opponents of the policy. “Pretty quickly, things got really weird,” McKenna, who left politics after...
Carney arrives in Alberta for G7 summit with Trump meeting 1st on agenda
Prime Minister Mark Carney will sit down with U.S. President Donald Trump for a one-on-one meeting first thing Monday morning before overseeing the official start of the G7 Leaders’ Summit in Alberta. Carney arrived in Calgary on Sunday afternoon for the high-stakes gathering, where he was greeted at the airport by Alberta Premier Danielle Smith and Calgary Mayor Jyoti Gondek...
Just before the election, Liberals handed out 411 cheques worth $3.86B
In the week before the 45th general election got underway on March 23, Liberal MPs engaged in a pre-election spending blitz, announcing $3.86 billion in funding commitments for 411 different projects across the country, a Global News analysis shows. Press releases and announcements about those funding commitments were made by 38 different Liberal MPs in that final week, who handed...
Carney government tables $486 billion spending plan with few details
The Carney government presented Parliament Tuesday with a plan to spend about the same amount of money in the fiscal year ahead as the Trudeau government did in its final year — about $486 billion, a plan that left the Conservatives unimpressed.
Trudeau advised to focus on the economy ahead of 2024 Trump Mar-a-Lago dinner
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was advised to press U.S. President Donald Trump on the close integration of the Canadian and American economies — with a particular focus on America’s reliance on Canadian energy and minerals — ahead of his Nov. 29 dinner at Trump’s Florida resort of Mar-a-Lago, according to documents obtained by Global News through a federal Access-to-Information request.
Conservative MP threatened with eviction notice from taxpayer-subsidized apartment
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...
ANALYSIS: Voters surge to advance polls for a most ‘consequential’ election
In 2015, as a Liberal wave swept Justin Trudeau to a majority government, the Conservative candidate in the riding of Carleton barely managed to avoid being swamped on election day. That candidate, Pierre Poilievre, won by just 705 votes over his Liberal rival whose support, like many Liberals across the country, was surging in the final week. The totals in...
Then there were five: Liberal race narrows with Carney the choice of caucus
By day’s end on Thursday, the race to become the next leader of the Liberal Party of Canada — and the country’s 24th prime minister — had narrowed to five candidates. One of those remaining candidates vows to deport 500,000 “illegal immigrants”; another would halve the size of cabinet; another would cut the GST while raising corporate taxes; just about...
Canadians overwhelmingly support retaliation to Trump tariffs: poll
An overwhelming majority of Canadians think their country should fight fire with fire if Donald Trump carries through on his threat to impose a sweeping 25 per cent tariff on Canadian goods and services sold into the U.S. market.
Karina Gould set to enter Liberal leadership race: source
Government House Leader Karina Gould is set to enter the Liberal leadership race, a source close to her confirmed to Global News. Gould, who has served as leader of the Government in the House of Commons since 2023, is expected to make an announcement about her intentions on Tuesday.
Mark Carney makes his leadership pitch to a skeptical Liberal caucus
The novelist Margaret Atwood once met a neurosurgeon who told her he was a big fan of hers, that he’d read all of her books and that, when he retired, he, too hoped to write some books. “What a coincidence,” Atwood is said to have replied. “Because when I retire, I hope to take up neurosurgery.” That anecdote was passed...
Chrystia Freeland, popular with some MPs, criticized by others
Chrystia Freeland, now a member of the Liberal backbench, is the pick of several of her backbench peers to succeed Justin Trudeau as leader and as prime minister of Canada. But her popularity is not universal, some MPs have told Global News. In fact, some of Trudeau’s ministers resent the method and timing of her departure, a sharply worded resignation...
Halifax school asked military to ditch the uniforms for Remembrance Day
An elementary school in Halifax — home to Canada’s largest military base — is backing down on a request it made asking veterans and current Canadian Armed Forces members who might attend the school’s Remembrance Day services to ditch their military uniforms if they plan to attend.
The Liberal revolt is about Trudeau, communications, and the carbon tax
The hopes of an anxious Liberal caucus were first raised at the end of the summer of 2022 in the resort town of St. Andrew’s, New Brunswick. Liberals had gathered that August for the first in-person retreat after the pandemic to confront a series of polls that found them trailing the leaderless Conservatives by a few points.
ISIS suspect came to Canada on student visa in June 2023, minister says
A Pakistani man arrested in Quebec as he was allegedly on his way to New York to conduct a mass shooting at a Jewish centre entered Canada last year on a student visa, Immigration Minister Marc Miller said Tuesday. Muhammad Shahzeb Khan, charged last week in an ISIS terrorism plot, received a student visa in May 2023 and arrived at...
Mark Carney tapped by Liberals to lead new task force advising Trudeau
Former Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney will take on a new role as chair of a Liberal Party task force advising Justin Trudeau, the party leader, about economic growth. The new role for Carney was announced Monday and will see him advising the party leader on how to “develop and shape ideas for the next phase of Canada’s strategy...
ANALYSIS: Singh decision about cutting NDP ties to Trudeau, not an election prelude
There was likely no New Democrat more relieved to learn that federal NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh had ripped up his deal with Justin Trudeau than Saskatchewan’s NDP Leader Carla Beck. Beck is in a tough election fight this fall, trying to break the hold on power that the conservative Saskatchewan Party has held on that province since 2007.
In Northern Ontario, peril for Liberals, opportunity for Conservatives, NDP
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre opens a week of campaigning for votes in Northern Ontario on Monday with a rally in Fort Frances, Ont., in the riding of Thunder Bay—Rainy River, a region that a small-c conservative candidate has not won since 1930. The incumbent MP for the riding, a Liberal and former emergency room physician Marcus Powlowski, is not surprised...
While Liberals chase Carney, Conservatives crow about a blue-collar candidate
The Trudeau Liberals and former Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney have been engaged in the strangest of dances for more than a few years now. Carney came out as a Liberal Party of Canada supporter in 2021. His priorities — dealing with climate change above all else — are Liberal priorities. Some Liberal MPs want him in Parliament on...
Under Trudeau, the civil service has grown twice as fast as Canada’s population
The size of the civil service has exploded during the Trudeau Liberals’ nine years in power: growing more than 43 per cent, even though the country’s population has grown by less than 15 per cent in the same period. As of March 31, the federal government’s payroll included 367,772 persons, according to data just published by the federal Treasury Board...
In groundbreaking move, Poilievre campaigns among evangelical Christians
Opposition leader Pierre Poilievre went to church last Sunday, not once, not twice, but three times — to three evangelical churches in the Toronto area where he briefly participated in the services, made a short political speech and moved on. The three churches are all in ridings held by Liberal MPs and the congregants are mostly members of ethnic minority...
NDP MP raps Conservative over ‘fake news’ video
NDP MP Matthew Green says Conservative MP Branden Leslie should apologize for a video published on Leslie’s social media accounts that mixes clips from television newscasts with doctored clips and out-of-context clips. “It ought to be absolutely unacceptable,” Green said. “And and there should be an ethical consensus amongst parties that we will not partake in this type of misinformation...
Conservatives ask interference inquiry judge to rule elections were flawed
The Conservative Party of Canada has urged the judge overseeing the Public Inquiry into Foreign Interference to conclude that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau ignored repeated warnings about foreign interference in the last two general elections for partisan gain, the first time the party has formally made such an accusation.
CSIS intel suggests China attempted to funnel $250K, possibly for election interference
CSIS director David Vigneault says his agency had intelligence ahead of the 2019 federal election that the government of China attempted to funnel — through a network of “threat actors” — approximately $250,000, possibly to interfere in Canadian elections. The document was shown Thursday at Canada’s inquiry into foreign election interference, which is examining attempts to meddle in Canadian democracy...
4 premiers expected to testify at committee against carbon price increase
Four conservative premiers are expected to tell a House of Commons committee this week that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau should ditch the planned increase in the federal carbon tax, set to take effect on Monday. Premiers Scott Moe, Danielle Smith, Blaine Higgs, and Tim Houston had all written letters to the chair of the House of Commons finance committee, Peter...
Harper-era cabinet minister Ed Fast will not seek re-election
Ed Fast, the long-serving Conservative MP for the Lower Mainland riding of Abbotsford, B.C., will not seek re-election, he says, setting up what is expected to be a vigorous nomination fight that could include former B.C. finance minister Mike de Jong.
A closer look at the growing diversity of Conservatives under Poilievre
Jamil Jivani, earlier this week, won the right to be the next member of Parliament for the Ontario riding of Durham, succeeding former Conservative leader Erin O’Toole. In doing so he also became the first Black man to hold a seat in the 20-year-old history of the modern Conservative Party of Canada. Jivani’s byelection win follows two sets of byelections...
Ottawa ends pandemic programs, shifts priorities in $449B spending plan
The federal government’s spending priorities are shifting dramatically in the next fiscal year as federal programs put in place during or after the pandemic wind down and the government looks to trim costs across a variety of departments. The budgetary shift out of pandemic mode is most evident at the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC), which is asking parliamentary...
Canadian authorities cautious, nervous about AI in political campaigns
As American regulators and state legislatures quickly implement new rules governing the use of artificial intelligence tools in this presidential election year, Canadian legislators and election authorities are taking a more cautious approach in a year in which three provinces will hold general elections. And while campaign operatives in the United States increasingly explore the legitimate use of artificial intelligence...
What’s driving New Democrats in the West away from Jagmeet Singh’s NDP
Earlier this week, Edmonton MLA Rakhi Pancholi said that buying a membership in the party she hopes to lead — the Alberta NDP — should not automatically bring a membership in the party Jagmeet Singh leads — the federal NDP — as it does now. And even before that, the Alberta NDP and Saskatchewan NDP took it upon themselves to...
In Generation Z, a new kind of voter emerges, focused more on issues, less on parties
When the country next elects a national government, there will be about 4.5 million Canadians under the age of 30 eligible to vote, a group that demographers have labelled Generation Z, and that pollsters here and around the world say engage in politics in different ways than older voters.
Internal government polls capture desire for balanced budget, housing spending
Finance Minister Chyrstia Freeland will not present the 2024 budget until early spring but as early as last July the federal government has been actively seeking input from Canadians on that budget’s major themes as early as July. Indeed, internal government polls obtained by Global News, from July through to the beginning of October, found nearly 60 per cent of...
PCO poll finds many do not trust the media and do not believe news outlets are closing
Slightly more Canadians say the media cannot be trusted to make decisions in the public interest as say they have trust in the media to act in the public interest, according to internal federal government polls obtained by Global News. But the same polling shows high levels of distrust among many other institutions: provincial and territorial governments, Canadian financial institutions...
Poll finds 2023 Poilievre ads spur same voter response as 2015 Trudeau ads
Just ahead of the 2015 election, the Liberal Party of Canada released a series of ads featuring its leader, Justin Trudeau, that seemed to seal the deal with much of the electorate and help Trudeau and the Liberals push out a tired and increasingly unpopular Conservative government. Fast forward eight years, and the Conservative Party of Canada has run a...
NDP ridings got more federal housing cash; Conservative ridings got less
Funding from a multi-billion-dollar federal government program to house homeless individuals or those at risk of being homeless has so far been disproportionately distributed in favour of ridings held by New Democrat MPs, while Canadians in ridings represented by Conservative MPs saw significantly fewer funds, fewer new housing units and fewer projects approved, according to a Global News analysis.
Would replacing Trudeau help the Liberals? It’s probably unlikely
When Brian Mulroney announced his retirement from office in February 1993, his personal approval ratings were in the teens and his majority Progressive Conservative government had the support of less than 20 per cent of voters. Mulroney would insist those numbers had nothing to do with this decision to leave but when he did, in the early summer of that...
Poll says three in four want Trudeau to go, but Trudeau insists he’ll stay
On Feb. 28, 1984, Pierre Trudeau went for his famous walk in the snow where he made a decision about his political future. The next day — a leap year Feb. 29 — his boys, including a future prime minister, tumbled into his bedroom to say goodbye to dad before heading to school. It was then that Pierre told them...
Conservatives promise unanimous support for national carbon tax pause
The federal Conservatives are promising to unanimously approve fast-tracking of any government legislation that would give Canadians who use natural gas to heat their homes the same carbon tax break that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau extended late last week to those who heat their homes with oil. Late Thursday in Ottawa, Trudeau announced a three-year pause on the federal surcharge...
Trudeau government’s own polling program is saying it’s in trouble
A detailed series of internal government polls obtained by Global News paints a picture of a government struggling to win approval from Canadians on just about any issue, while showing sharp regional differences when it comes to the top priorities voters want Ottawa to tackle. Weekly polls commissioned by the Privy Council Office from January through to June show a...