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 John Ivison.
As part of his trip to Beijing last month, Prime Minister Mark Carney met with Zhao Leji, the third-ranking member of the 20th Chinese Communist Party Politburo and chair of the standing committee of the National People’s Congress. The readout that emerged from the meeting said they talked about the importance of ongoing parliamentary exchanges and “opportunities for enhanced understanding...
School shootings are the most senseless, shattering event that can befall a community. A feeling of ultimate loss grips the entire nation. Political leaders often have nothing more to offer than their condolences, but people want more than that. They are looking for reassurance, empathy and a sense that someone will do something about it.
The Canadian government’s response to the 20-year sentence imposed on Hong Kong publisher Jimmy Lai is the first test of the government’s new “pragmatic engagement” with China. The early signs are that Ottawa is broadly in favour of the pursuit of justice, as long as it doesn’t hamper its trade policy.
The unveiling of Stephen Harper’s official parliamentary portrait has provided a moment of unexpected catharsis in Canadian politics. Speaking at an event hosted by the Royal Canadian Geographic Society this week, the former prime minister said there is a tendency in Canada to focus on past mistakes, at the expense of pride in the country’s achievements. The same might be...
The main criticism of Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre’s convention speech on Friday was that in 40 minutes or so, he didn’t mention the words “Donald Trump” — or how he would respond to the president’s intimidation.
In his speech at his party’s convention in Calgary on Friday, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre expressed his wariness about the “strategic partnership” the Carney government has struck with China. Cognizant that many western Conservatives welcomed Beijing’s tariff relief on canola provided by an agreement to allow 49,000 Chinese electric vehicles into Canada, he did not expand on his misgivings.
In the spring of 2001, a group of MPs resigned from the official Opposition Canadian Alliance caucus, in protest at the faltering leadership of Stockwell Day, to form the so-called “Rebel Alliance.” By fall, seven MPs established the Democratic Representative Caucus (DRC), led by their parliamentary leader, Chuck Strahl.
The petulance displayed by the U.S. ambassador to Canada is exactly what you might expect from Pete Hoekstra if he had just been informed that Canada intends to spend half the money earmarked for new F-35 fighter jets on the rival Swedish Gripen. Hoekstra apparently skipped the class on diplomacy being about saying the nastiest thing in the nicest way...
There is a reason why the United States and Canada consider China a “non-market economy.” Beijing, rather than market forces, determines production and prices. Since China joined the World Trade Organization in 2000, it has been able to access Western markets, without offering reciprocal access. A very good case study is currently before the Canadian finance minister, François-Philippe Champagne.
One of the most sage voices on social media in these nebulous days is that of Polish academic Slawomir Debski. To those lamenting that NATO is dead as a result of Donald Trump’s intrigues over Greenland, and the imposition of tariffs on allies that deployed troops to Greenland, he pointed out that the alliance has survived worse. He cited the...
Steve Bannon is in the ratings business these days, so he can say outrageous things with impunity. On his influential War Room podcast last week, he talked about Prime Minister Mark Carney’s “kowtowing” visit to China and said: “Let me be blunt, you are playing with fire. You will rue the day you did that. President (Donald) Trump is not...
What do you do about a superpower you don’t trust but can’t afford to ignore? Prime Minister Mark Carney will hope he can find the answer to that puzzle during his visit to Beijing this week. Canada is caught in the crossfire between a Trump administration that has veered sharply towards protectionism and a Chinese regime whose actions are often...
It’s very apparent the Metlakatla won't back any new developments until Ottawa addresses their anger over a questionable propane contract One oil spill would destroy a way of life, is what Marilyn Slett said she told Mark Carney when he visited Prince Rupert, B.C. to discuss conservation and economic opportunities in the region.
Canada is offering to contribute military assets to a multilateral force being proposed by Germany and Britain to boost NATO’s presence in Greenland, government sources said. One official said that Prime Minister Mark Carney raised with allies the issue of reinforcing the Arctic, including Greenland, when he was in Europe last week. “We welcome the German and British plan and...
The Danish people are feeling shocked, and not a little betrayed, by President Donald Trump’s threats to annex Greenland, a constituent part of the Kingdom of Denmark, says one of the country’s most senior diplomats. “Denmark has done everything the U.S. has asked of us. They called and we delivered: in Iraq, Libya and especially in Afghanistan, where we had...
In the past days and weeks, we have witnessed the Finlandization of Canada. In Finland’s case during the Cold War that meant, in the words of the Finnish political cartoonist Kari Suomalainen, “bowing to the East, without mooning the West.”
It seems clear that there was great excitement in the Poilievre household on Saturday morning, as news of the surgical strike by U.S. special forces in Venezuela filtered through. Pierre Poilievre’s wife, Anaida, is Venezuelan, and like many of her fellow citizens, she likely rejoiced in the arrest and deportation of the illegitimate president Nicolás Maduro.
It has been curious to watch Prime Minister Mark Carney’s parade of year-end interviews while reading Paul Litt’s excellent 2011 biography of former prime minister John Turner: Elusive Destiny. Many of Turner’s qualities, as noted by journalist Ron Graham in a Saturday Night magazine profile ahead of the 1984 Liberal leadership election, could equally be said of Carney.
In the immediate aftermath of Donald Trump’s Sunday meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the U.S. president said he spoke with the leaders of France, Finland, Poland, Norway, Italy, the U.K. and Germany, as well as the presidents of NATO and the European Commission. Canada was notable by its absence, despite committing an additional $2.5 billion in financing and loan...
In these dark days, look to Irwin Cotler. No wonder hope seems so much harder to conjure up than despair when one reads the daily news. In particular, the counter-revolution against the post-war liberal consensus being led by Donald Trump inspires dread and fear.
Osman Azizov, who allegedly hunted Jewish women, has been released on bail. How warped are our values in the name of accommodation and diversity
It is a rare thing to have one’s mind changed by a politician. In the words of the late prime minister Pierre Trudeau, MPs are “nobodies…like pawns in a chess game.” And yet, as I prepared to write a column questioning the Conservative opposition to C-9, the legislation designed to combat hate crimes and intimidation, I reconsidered my position after...
A politician’s worst nightmare is to be thought of as yesterday’s breakfast by voters. When prime minister, Mark Carney, signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) on energy development with the premier of Alberta two weeks ago, federal Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre was made to look as relevant to the big issue of the day as the leader of the NDP...
Whether the government’s argument will hold water, only a Federal Court judge, who stands to gain $28,000 by saying it doesn’t, can know
The panel’s discussion focused on the ability of Mark Carney’s government to deliver on its agenda. Article content Lang, a former chief of staff to two Liberal defence ministers and now acting director at the School of Policy Studies at Queen’s University, pointed out that Carney faces the frustrations of attempting to move at speeds the bureaucracy was not designed...
Prime Minister Mark Carney has displayed a remarkable willingness to dismantle the legacy of his predecessor across the public policy board. In the coming months, he may be tempted to take another look at one of the more indefensible decisions made by former prime minister Justin Trudeau’s government: the expansion of its medical assistance in dying legislation.
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith credited former prime minister Justin Trudeau for creating the independence movement in her province, thanks to a litany of nine “bad laws” — and his successor, Mark Carney, for taking the wind out of separatism with “good policy that genuinely addresses the concerns of Albertans.”
The Carney government cannot follow its conscience on Sudan because that would take it in a different direction from its trade policy
Point number four of President Donald Trump’s plan to bring peace to Ukraine screams the quiet part about the new world order at top volume: “a dialogue will be held between Russia and NATO, mediated by the United States, to resolve all security issues.”
After two years of benign neglect, Ottawa seems to have woken up to the threat to its plan to double non-U.S. exports from an obscure dispute at the Port of Prince Rupert in British Columbia. There are now seven separate lawsuits, and threats of further escalation, centred on claims by the Lax Kw’alaams and Metlakatla First Nations (collectively the Coast...
The Carney government’s self-proclaimed strategy of dealing with Donald Trump has been to hope the obvious contradictions in the U.S. president’s tariff policy would eventually compel him to strike an acceptable trade deal. “We are confident domestic pressures will create an opportunity to come to an agreement in the interests of both economies that puts us in a better position...
When Mark Carney launched the Major Projects Office in late August, he said it was designed to streamline regulatory approvals and help structure financing for proposals deemed to be in the national interest. Article content The impression left was that the government would move “at speeds not seen in a generation” to secure community consent and unlock private-sector investments for...
Separate from those comments, the federal Conservative leader lauded his party for behaving like a government-in-waiting. “We’ve had very little dissent over the past year. When was the last time you saw an internal fight? This isn’t the Jerry Springer show; we’re not throwing chairs at each other,” he said. This was obviously long before Conservative House leader Andrew Scheer...
When you have been calling for something for years and it finally turns up, it’s churlish to nitpick. So, I won’t. Article content The 2025 federal budget is clearly not a one-and-done exercise. It will take more than a single document to compensate for a decade of mismanagement — and it will be judged years from now on its results...
It’s not often that you bump into a Canadian while walking the dog in my neck of the woods in Costa Rica. But when a lady in a Toronto Blue Jays ballcap meets a man sporting an Elbows Up hat (now as passé as the Yellow Pages), a dialogue on sport and politics is bound to ensue.
The idea that the Liberals might take a hatchet to their treasured social programs seems counterintuitive, but that's where the savings are
The Conservative leader's tone and temperament aren't shifting with the post-Trump times
Prime Minister Mark Carney made a revealing comment during his recent appearance at the BMO-Eurasia business summit in Toronto when the idea was raised of Canada and the U.S. coming together to compete with China. Article content “I wouldn’t assume that that’s always the organizing principle,” he said of Canada-U.S. collaboration. “If it were, there would be more immediate progress...
The assessment that he was the best leader to deal with Trump may be borne out — just not in the ‘elbows up’ way we were led to believe
“Jam tomorrow” is a flimsy pledge to make to impatient, jaundiced voters. But that is the crux of the government’s position on Canada-U.S. trade negotiations. The opposition parties have the field to themselves at the moment. Donald Trump continues to promise more new tariffs on Canadian goods — the latest being a 25 per cent levy on cabinets and furniture...
On this national Truth and Reconciliation Day, the federal government is facing the prospect of a meltdown in its relations with two B.C. First Nations that could bring the development of the Prince Rupert Trade Corridor to a grinding halt.
Faced with a malfunctioning teleprompter during his address to the United Nations General Assembly, Donald Trump decided to extemporize. Babbling like an accident victim on his way to hospital, the president ventured the opinion that he has been “right about everything,” and that he has created the “hottest” country anywhere in the world, with the strongest economy, strongest borders, strongest...
Chrystia Freeland’s exit from cabinet, while not expected, is no great surprise. Article content The job of transport minister is unglamorous, dominated by regulation of railway rolling stock and of passenger bills of rights. The minister’s path is potholed with potentially career-limiting port, railway or airline strikes.
Prime Minister Mark Carney has been trying to frame his October budget without inducing panic. In a rare slip earlier this month, he said that it would be “an austerity and investment” budget.
By all accounts, growing canola requires careful management: the small, shallow-planted seeds are sensitive to moisture, extreme temperatures and competition from weeds. But skillfully managing the elements turns out to be nothing compared to the perfect diplomatic balance that is required to get the product to customers. The U.S. is the biggest market for Canadian canola; China is the second...
From a political perspective, it’s not an obvious win for Poilievre, even if the public is sympathetic to the intent
His political authority rests on the perception of competence and, if the economy slows further, people will start doubting he has it
Recognition of a Palestinian state would vindicate Hamas’s strategy that jihad, violence and blood sacrifice is how you get what you want
My suggestion in a column last week after Japan struck a trade deal with the United States — that it might be better if Canada didn’t settle with President Trump just yet — was ridiculed in certain quarters.
Mark Carney told the premiers in Huntsville, Ont., on Tuesday that the federal government’s new major projects office will be open by Labour Day, representing a shift in attitude towards building big things, the prime minister said, “from ‘why?’ to ‘how?’” The statement expressed a confidence that, as with deceased baseball players in the movie Field of Dreams, “if you...
The prime minister risks becoming the man who fell to earth if the spending reductions are miscalculated
The auditor general’s report is a reminder that they're part of the solution to air security, but Canada also needs a more practical option
Justin Trudeau went to Washington for last year’s NATO summit and unveiled what he called a “credible, verifiable path” to spending two per cent of Canada’s GDP on defence … by 2032. Article content The lack of urgency and ambition was reflected in the then prime minister’s belief that two per cent is a “nominal target” that makes for easy...
Wooing Sikh voters while turning a blind eye to Khalistani sympathizers worked well for Poilievre's party during the election. Conservative party deputy leader Tim Uppal posted on social media on Wednesday morning, urging Sikhs to remember 1984. “Forty one years ago, a pre-planned attack by the Indian army named Operation Blue Star was executed against one of the Sikh’s holiest...
The Main Estimates suggest that the prime minister's message of restraint has fallen on deaf ears in Ottawa
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.
There have been concerns about the “presidentialization” of the Canadian prime ministership for years — worries that have been exacerbated by Mark Carney’s tendency to sign Trump-style legislative orders to grant tax cuts.
As the new prime minister reflects with pride on his unsullied cabinet, he should remember the words of P.G. Wodehouse’s Bertie Wooster: “It’s always when a fellow is feeling particularly braced with things in general that Fate sneaks up behind him with a bit of lead piping.”