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 Max Fawcett.
Even before the 51st state threats, before the tariffs, before the ICE raids and now the flagrantly illegal attack on Venezuela, Donald Trump was the least popular American president in Canadian history by quite some distance. But if there was a relative bastion of support for America's 45th and 47th president, it was in Alberta — and especially its oil...
At some point, Danielle Smith is going to have to pick a side. For months now, Alberta’s premier has been catering to the separatists who dominate the membership of her United Conservative Party while insisting she doesn’t explicitly support their cause. But their appetite just keeps growing, and with Smith’s government clearing the way for a referendum on Alberta independence...
Liberal prime ministers aren’t supposed to get standing ovations in Calgary, much less from a room packed full of mostly-Conservative business leaders and provincial cabinet ministers who spent the better part of a decade honing their hatred of the Trudeau government. But Mark Carney, for better or worse — more on that in a moment — is clearly not your...
Another day, another attack on freedoms by Alberta's supposedly libertarian premier. In announcing her government’s plan to apply the Notwithstanding Clause to three separate pieces of legislation targeting transgender youth and adults in Alberta, Smith told reporters that “this is one of the most consequential actions our government will take during our time in office.” In time, it might be...
It’s coming. That’s the word from Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, who promised Albertans a memorandum of understanding between her government and Mark Carney’s that would spell out the path for a new oil pipeline — and the promises she would make on things like the industrial carbon price and support for carbon capture and storage projects to get it. “We...
Most people covering Mark Carney’s first budget are understandably focused on the big-ticket items, whether it’s the massive funding commitments to new economic infrastructure or the cuts being used to help pay for them. I’m more interested in a line buried on Page 220, under the heading “Improving the Efficiency of the Tax System,” that declares the government’s intention to...
Mark Carney clearly cares about climate policy. He spent much of his career, and especially the more recent portion, articulating the key role he saw for financial markets in pricing and ultimately reducing greenhouse gas emissions. And yet, during his almost eight months as prime minister, he has been conspicuously quiet about an issue that seemed to define his politics...
By the time the Grey Cup rolls around in a little over three weeks, Prime Minister Mark Carney expects to announce the next tranche of “nation-building” major projects. Given all the chatter around a “grand bargain” between his government and Alberta, one that would effectively trade the elimination of the emissions cap for a major investment in carbon capture and...
He just can’t help himself. As the federal budget approaches and Canada’s relationship with the United States continues to hang by an increasingly tenuous thread, Pierre Poilievre apparently decided that it would be a good use of his time as official opposition leader to re-litigate one of his oldest (and dumbest) arguments: that Nazism was, in fact, socialism.
The leaders and senior executives within Alberta’s oil and gas community — and the politicians they fund and support — have had more than a decade to absorb the lessons of the Northern Gateway pipeline fight. It is becoming more apparent with each passing day and each new statement from political leaders in British Columbia opposing Danielle Smith’s attempt to...
It’s hard enough to get a pipeline built in Canada, much less one carrying oil to British Columbia’s northern coastline. But Alberta Premier Danielle Smith seems determined to make it nearly impossible. Never mind, for the moment, that her latest proposal is missing both a specific route and a private sector company that would actually put its money where her...
At long last, Danielle Smith’s government has found a proponent for her province’s latest pipeline dream: itself. On Wednesday, Smith announced that the province, with the “support” of a trio of pipeline companies, will draw up plans for a new pipeline that would bring Alberta’s oil to Pacific tidewater. She also effectively dared the federal government to oppose it. “This...
Mark Carney told Canadians that he knew how to deal with Donald Trump. April’s federal election results showed that voters wanted to believe him. But now, more than three months in and with the latest economic data starting to show signs of tariff-driven deterioration, Canadians are starting to wonder whether his handling of our relationship with America is going according...
Among all the reasons that Pierre Poilievre chose Battle River-Crowfoot as the riding that would return him to Parliament, one seems to stand out above the rest: it wouldn't take a lot of work to win. After all, Damien Kurek took the riding with almost 83 per cent of the vote in April's election, and it's hard to imagine a...
One vote. That’s all that separated the Liberal and Bloc Quebecois candidates in the riding of Terrebonne after a judicial recount that moved the Liberals one seat closer to a majority government. Unfortunately, it’s also apparently all that separated some Conservative Party of Canada candidates from flirting with election conspiracy theories — the very sort that now defines the MAGA...
It’s time to build. That was Mark Carney’s message to Canadians during the election campaign, and it ought to be one of his top priorities as he continues his job as prime minister. That means more housing, more healthcare and more (heck, any) high-speed rail. But it also means more energy — and more of the infrastructure that moves and...
In a leaders' debate that was supposed to be all about Pierre Poilievre and Mark Carney, Jagmeet Singh ended up stealing the spotlight. While logic would have dictated that Singh set his sights on Carney and win back some of the voters who had fled to the Liberals, he instead took his biggest swipes at Pierre Poilievre — often at...
At least he still has his rallies. While public polling shows a large and durable Liberal lead, and global betting markets putting overwhelming odds on a Mark Carney victory on April 28, Pierre Poilievre can still comfort himself with the fact that thousands of people are willing to line up to hear him talk. In Edmonton, somewhere between 9,000 and...
Pierre Poilievre has been witness to a lot of change over the 21 years he’s served as a member of Parliament. He proudly resisted most of it, whether it’s changes to our social norms and mores or changes to how we see our own country and its past. That helped him win the leadership of his party and build a...
It was supposed to be a cakewalk. Instead, as Pierre Poilievre kicks off the election campaign that was supposed to be a mere formality, his odds of becoming Canada’s next prime minister get longer with each passing day. And now, for some reason, his closest provincial ally just gave Mark Carney’s Liberals a gift-wrapped political sledgehammer to celebrate the launch...
Naheed Nenshi isn’t used to asking for the spotlight. The Alberta NDP leader's unique brand of politics — politics in full sentences — made him an overnight sensation after he won the 2010 Calgary mayoral election, and he’s been able to count on the interest of journalists in Alberta and abroad ever since. Now, after winning the Alberta NDP leadership...
Pierre Poilievre knows he has a Donald Trump problem. After spending the last two-plus years imitating Trump’s approach to politics and winning plaudits from the people in his orbit, his proximity to the U.S. president and his anti-Canada policies has suddenly become an obstacle to his once-inevitable election victory. As it turns out, the reaping isn’t nearly as much fun...
After years of promising to axe the carbon tax, Conservatives watched in obvious horror as Prime Minister Mark Carney did it for them on his first day in office. They could have chosen to take a victory lap here, celebrating the elimination of a policy they’d sunk huge amounts of political time and treasure into attacking, and moved on to...
The legendary 1974 heavyweight fight between an aging Muhammad Ali and the unbeaten (and seemingly unbeatable) world champion George Foreman looked at the time like a dangerously one-sided affair. Bookies had pegged Ali as a 4:1 underdog, and his more ardent fans thought avoiding major injury — and even death — would be the real victory for the former champion...
By now, most politicians understand that the best way to deal with Donald Trump and his reckless pronouncements and policies is to take him seriously rather than literally. That was former adviser Anthony Scaramucci’s advice back in 2016, and it held true throughout Trump’s first term. And yet, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has repeatedly chosen to take him at his...
On Sunday, the sprint to replace Justin Trudeau as Liberal leader will hit the finish line. If Mark Carney wins, as most political observers expect, he should call a federal election on Monday. No waiting around for NDP leader Jagmeet Singh to change his mind again, and no bothering with testing the confidence of the House of Commons. On Monday...
“Elbows up.” That was the message Mike Myers sent to fellow Canadians at the end of last weekend’s Saturday Night Live, and it’s already resonating across the country in the wake of Donald Trump’s delivery of his long-threatened tariffs. It was the perfect hockey-oriented counterpoint to Wayne Gretzky’s repeated displays of cowardice, and a reminder of how Canadians ought to...
Canada, as it turns out, isn’t broken. That was the message coming out of Pierre Poilievre’s big rebrand rally, where he tried to reposition himself as a champion of Canada’s virtues rather than just another critic of its failures. And while Liberal partisans will look skeptically on this attempted political metamorphosis, the biggest doubters might actually be some of his...
Even Danielle Smith should be getting the memo by now. After she and Canada’s other premiers traveled to Washington to make their case against America’s proposed tariffs, only to be publicly humiliated by a Trump administration staffer after their meeting, it should be obvious that her brand of not-so-quiet diplomacy isn’t working. As CBC Washington correspondent Alex Panetta noted on...
“Everything Trump touches dies.” That’s the phrase coined by Rick Wilson, the former Republican strategist turned anti-Trump activist and Lincoln Project co-founder, who documented its many examples in a 2018 book by the same name. Now, it seems, we may have a Canadian case study to add to his list: Pierre Poilievre’s once-insurmountable polling lead.
Donald Trump isn’t joking about annexing Canada. That’s the message that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau shared with a group of business leaders at his hastily-convened “Canada-U.S. Economic Summit”, one that sought to address the growing threat posed by America’s president. In a so-called “hot mic” moment, Trudeau was heard saying that “Mr. Trump has it in mind that the easiest...
The Carney bounce is real. After polls by EKOS and Mainstreet showed a surprising surge in Liberal fortunes, the Angus Reid Institute — long viewed as a more Conservative-friendly pollster — reported a similar uptick in its latest soundings. After bottoming out at 16 per cent support in late December with Trudeau still at the helm, they now have the...
The race to replace Justin Trudeau as Liberal leader and Canada’s prime minister won’t officially conclude until March 9. Based on the way some people are reacting, though, it might already be over. After yet another round of high-profile endorsements for Mark Carney — this time from industry minister and Quebec political heavyweight François-Philippe Champagne, Transport Minister Anita Anand and...
As an annoyingly stubborn optimist, I try to find the good in even the worst situations. And so, as new U.S. President Donald Trump threatens Canada’s sovereignty and promises our imminent economic ruin, I’ve been racking my brain for the silver lining in all of the dark clouds forming over our country. I think I’ve found it: he’s going to...
So much for that reprieve. The pro-appeasement Postmedia pundits and Conservative politicians in Canada hadn’t even completed their victory lap over the apparent postponement of Donald Trump’s promised tariffs when Trump himself announced that he’d changed his mind. “We’re thinking in terms of 25 per cent on Mexico and Canada,” he told reporters on Monday. “I think we’ll do it...
History may often rhyme, but it gets downright poetic when it comes to the Trudeaus and Alberta’s oil and gas industry. Take Pierre Trudeau’s National Energy Program, which has been the bête noire of Albertans for more than 40 years now. It sought to grow Canada’s oil sands sector, build pipelines from coast-to-coast, and wean the country off its dependence...
Petroleum over country. For Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, that appears to be the guiding philosophy behind her unscheduled visit to Mar-a-Lago this week. Appearing as a guest of Kevin O’Leary, the television celebrity who openly petitioned for an economic union with the United States, Smith tried to sell incoming President Donald Trump on the value of exempting oil and gas...
Christy Clark almost certainly won’t win the leadership of the Liberal Party of Canada, but at least she’s already made some history: never before has a candidate so quickly and thoroughly torched their own credibility as she did last week. In a recent interview with the CBC’s Catherine Cullen, she claimed the mantle of a “lifelong Liberal” — and denied...
If the road to hell is paved with good intentions, Justin Trudeau has laid down more than his share of blacktop during his nine-plus years in office. After almost a decade of Stephen Harper’s miserly approach to governing, his open-hearted approach to politics was a refreshing and welcome change. He won a majority government on a promise to make government...
When Justin Trudeau took over as the leader of the Liberal Party of Canada in 2013, his job was to rescue it from political oblivion. Two years later, he accomplished that. Now, after more than a decade in charge, he’s about to send it back there. And while there are at least a handful of Liberals left in Canada who...
“The greatest happiness,” Genghis Khan famously said, “is to scatter your enemy, to drive him before you, to see his cities reduced to ashes, [and] to see those who love him shrouded in tears.” That’s something Conservative Party of Canada leader Pierre Poilievre must be feeling deeply right now. With a seemingly insurmountable lead in the polls and the Liberal...
Chrystia Freeland has only just begun to fight. That’s one of the many possible conclusions you can draw from her remarkable resignation letter. It clearly points the blame for her government’s recently announced (and widely criticized) GST holiday and $250 rebate cheques — that she describes as “costly political gimmicks” — back at the Prime Minister. It also clearly signals...
For all the money and privilege he was handed by his parents, Donald Trump’s most valuable inheritance might be his instinctive ability to detect and expose weakness in others. He’s used it to devastating effect on any number of political foes in his own country, from former opponents like Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz to his own vice-president, JD Vance...
Justin Trudeau’s Liberals haven’t technically lost the next election yet. But in the broader battle of ideas, it sure looks like they’ve already surrendered to the Conservative Party of Canada. Last week, the Liberal government announced a temporary pause on the GST for two months on an eclectic basket of goods that includes diapers, toys, beer, wine, Christmas trees, snack...
Donald Trump’s return to the White House will transform any number of issues here in Canada, from trade and energy to immigration and our relationship with NATO allies. One aspect of Trump’s second presidency that’s gotten less attention so far is what it means for the CBC and the Conservative Party of Canada’s repeated promise to defund it. But make...
This was not the election result that most Canadians hoped for. According to a Leger poll taken in late October, 64 per cent of Canadians wanted to see Kamala Harris win, and only 21 per cent rooted for Donald Trump. Alberta, perhaps unsurprisingly, had the highest level of support for Trump with 29 per cent backing the Republican nominee. Ironically...
For most Canadians, Remembrance Day is a moment to reflect on the sacrifices of the past and how they helped underwrite much of the freedom and prosperity we take as a given. For Pierre Poilievre and the Conservative Party of Canada, it was apparently an opportunity to sow division within Canada — and confusion within its Christian community. “Contrary to...
As I write this, America is in the process of deciding who will be its next president. By the time you read it, the answer may already be clear. And while voters in America will either be delighted or depressed by the outcome, the calculus is a little more complicated for Canadians. That’s because barring the sort of Reagan-esque landslide...
Like most governments that are long in the tooth and low in the polls, there aren’t many issues left that look like winners for Justin Trudeau’s Liberals. But their newly-released emissions cap on oil and gas producers, and the reflexive Conservative backlash against it, might just be one. If the Liberals are smart, they’ll lean into it as hard as...
Live by the youth vote, die by the youth vote. That’s been the story of Justin Trudeau’s nine years in power, which began with his party catapulting from third place into a majority government largely on the strength of their support among young voters. As that support started to erode, so too did the Liberal Party’s grasp on power, first...
With just a week to go until the United States election and the polls somehow deadlocked between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, Canadians are left to wait and wonder. Will we be plunged back into the blender of chaos and calamity that coloured the first four years under Trump? Or will we get the conspiracy theories and rioting that followed...
Canada officially has an immigration problem. No, it’s not the one we’ve been hearing about for months now, which the federal government has belatedly addressed through policies that cap both the number of foreign students coming to this country and temporary foreign workers being used by our business community. With rents in major urban centres already dropping, the impact of...
Brent Chapman, the BC Conservative candidate for the riding of Surrey South, once wrote that Palestinians were “inbred walking, talking, breathing time bombs”. More recently, he suggested the 2012 massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary, the 2017 killings at a mosque in Quebec City, and the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando may have all been faked. And just last month, while...
Who are you going to trust: the Government of Alberta or your lying eyes? That was essentially the message coming from Premier Danielle Smith and the trio of UCP ministers flanking her at a press conference Tuesday announcing the province’s latest multi-million dollar ad campaign against federal climate change policy. This time it was objecting to the proposed cap on...
Sometimes, it’s what you don’t say about something that tells the real story. That seems to be the case with Conservative Party of Canada leader Pierre Poilievre’s silence following Monday’s shocking allegations from the RCMP about the Indian government’s illegal activities. Poilievre is the most terminally online political leader in Canadian history, and he rarely misses an opportunity to share...
Could more urgent climate coverage save the CBC from a Pierre Poilievre government? That’s the theory that was floated by five of the mothercorp’s most famous personalities in a letter they sent to editor-in-chief Brodie Felon back in 2023. In their shared missive, former broadcasters David Suzuki, Peter Mansbridge, Adrienne Clarkson, Paul Kennedy and Linden MacIntyre recommended describing climate change...
Can Conservative thinkers convince Pierre Poilievre to take climate change seriously? That’s the question that centre-right website The Hub, with some financial support from the pro-carbon pricing advocacy group Clean Prosperity, is trying to answer. In the process, they’re raising some questions about their own approach to the issue.
Chip Wilson might be a billionaire, but he can’t buy himself a clue when it comes to politics. It’s not for a lack of trying: the Lululemon founder has dabbled in more partisan affairs of late, including throwing $380,000 at something called the “Pacific Prosperity Network” (also known as the Pacific Prosperity Foundation) in 2022 and trying to defeat the...
If you ran an oil and gas company into the ground while also helping dump hundreds of millions of dollars in environmental liabilities onto the Orphan Well Association, you’d think it would be cause for a bit of embarrassment. In Alberta, it’s apparently worthy of celebration. On Sept. 18, the Canadian Chamber of Commerce honoured Perpetual Energy CEO Sue Riddell...
Live by the conspiracy theory, die by the conspiracy theory. That seems to be Alberta Premier Danielle Smith’s guiding principle right now, as she stares down a vote on her leadership at November’s United Conservative Party AGM in Red Deer. During a recent town hall, Smith made it clearer than ever that there’s no rabbit hole too deep for her...