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 Stephanie Levitz.
Prime Minister Mark Carney’s plan to bring the world’s most powerful investors to Toronto next week was always a gambit to ease the economic pressure from the Trump administration’s trade crusade by pitching Canada as an alternative, more reliable place to put money to work. What event planners could not have predicted is the way a feud over tariffs would...
Prime Minister Mark Carney is hosting a fundraiser for the Liberal Party on the eve of a marquee summit where he’ll be courting billions of dollars in investment for Canada. The invite-only fundraising event will take place in Toronto on Sunday night. Beginning on Monday evening, hundreds of senior executives from around the world are gathering in the city at...
Prime Minister Mark Carney set up the Major Projects Office as the centrepiece of his strategy to ignite a national construction boom, giving the Calgary-based agency the clout to clear away regulatory roadblocks and help arrange tens of billions of dollars in funding for “nation-building” development. Nearly 12 months in, the MPO, led by veteran energy executive Dawn Farrell, is...
More people donated to the Liberal Party than the Conservatives in the second quarter, as the gap in the amount raised for the two parties narrowed. Financial data published by Elections Canada showed Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives brought in just over $5-million compared with the Liberals’ $4.36-million in April, May, and June. But Mark Carney’s Liberals had 33,439 donors, while the...
Two other members of Prime Minister Mark Carney’s inner circle are getting a boost as part of a staff shuffle prompted by the appointment of his principal secretary to the Senate and a deputy chief of staff departing to run for office. Three sources told The Globe and Mail that Scott Gilmore, currently Mr. Carney’s senior adviser on foreign, defence...
A staff shuffle is under way in the highest ranks of the Prime Minister’s Office after Mark Carney appointed his chief strategist to the Senate and a key staffer decided to step down. Braeden Caley, one of Mr. Carney’s deputy chiefs of staff, told his colleagues on Sunday that he has left the PMO to consider running for the Liberal...
The Conservative Senate caucus added a member to its ranks a day after Prime Minister Mark Carney moved to appoint one of his closest allies to the chamber. Leo Housakos, the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate, announced that independent Senator Jim Quinn is joining the Conservative Senate caucus. “Senator Quinn’s decades of public service, leadership and commitment to...
Mark Carney is appointing his chief strategist to the Senate in one of the prime minister’s first moves to fill a growing number of upper chamber vacancies. Tom Pitfield has been serving as principal secretary to Mr. Carney since he became prime minister last year and also played a central role in the government’s AI strategy. The announcement of his...
The Alberta government will propose a southern route for its new oil pipeline to the West Coast, relenting on its insistence that a conduit to the Pacific be routed to B.C.’s northern coast, three government and industry sources say. Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has said from the start of the planning that the new, one-million-barrel-a-day pipeline should run to a...
Alberta’s initial proposal for a new oil pipeline to the West Coast, which it is due to submit to Ottawa’s Major Projects Office this week, will not be backed by any private-sector proponents, two sources say. The province set itself a July 1 deadline to submit the proposal for fast-tracked federal consideration, against opposition from some British Columbia First Nations...
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is shuffling his front bench in a reset that includes putting one of his party’s longest-serving MPs into the key position of finance critic. Michael Chong, who has been the MP for the Ontario riding of Wellington-Halton Hills North since 2004, will move to finance after serving as the party’s foreign-affairs critic for nearly six years...
Israel’s defence attaché is departing for home and will not be replaced at the country’s embassy in Canada – a sign, experts say, of an erosion of bilateral relations with Ottawa as ties remain strained over Gaza. Colonel Ilan Or is returning to Israel at the end of July, the embassy said. The responsibilities will be taken over by a...
Prime Minister Mark Carney has tapped Morgan Breitkreutz, a veteran Liberal organizer, to quarterback his government’s response to the Alberta separatist referendum vote scheduled for October. Mr. Breitkreutz joined the Prime Minister’s Office this month as a senior special adviser. Before then, he was the chief of staff to Eleanor Olszewski, an Edmonton MP who has two ministerial roles for...
Behind the closed doors of a Liberal caucus meeting this spring, things grew heated between Prime Minister Mark Carney and Nova Scotia MP Jaime Battiste. The two traded responsibility for the government’s shaky relationship with Indigenous groups, in an intense exchange that played out in front of all the other Liberal MPs gathered on the second floor of West Block...
Ottawa and Alberta are close to finalizing a new accord on industrial carbon pricing that would result in the fee going up to $130 a tonne by 2040, two government sources, one federal and one provincial, said Tuesday. If approved, the agreement would dramatically roll back former prime minister Justin Trudeau’s marquee climate policy and set the stage for the...
Any attempt by Alberta to separate from the rest of Canada must follow the strict rules set out by the Clarity Act, Prime Minister Mark Carney said Tuesday, while making the case that he can stop the secessionist push by demonstrating that the federation works. On Monday, the leaders of Alberta’s separatist movement said they had gathered enough signatures to...
Azam Ishmael, who has served as the Liberal Party’s national director for more than nine years, is stepping down. Mr. Ishmael announced his decision in a letter to party staff, but did not say why he is leaving. Mr. Ishmael said he is sad his time in politics is ending but he goes with “a full heart, deep gratitude, and...
Prime Minister Mark Carney will announce plans to create a sovereign wealth fund Monday, a day ahead of the spring economic statement, according to a senior government official. The fund will be used to invest alongside the private sector in major projects that the Carney government has committed to building over the coming years, and the government also plans to...
Liberals MPs are among those throwing their support behind former federal cabinet minister Navdeep Bains, who is considering a run for leader of the Ontario Liberals – a move that could shake up the provincial political landscape. Several federal and provincial Liberals told The Globe and Mail that they are encouraging Mr. Bains to seek the leadership and that he...
As many as eight more opposition MPs are being courted to cross the floor, three Liberal sources told The Globe and Mail. Conservative and NDP MPs are in the mix, the sources said, though it remains unclear if any will make the jump – or when. The sources are all veteran Liberal organizers, and two are directly involved in reaching...
As Prime Minister Mark Carney made the rounds on day two of his party’s Montreal convention, two types of Liberals kept trying to shake his hand. One, the lifetime Liberals, who’ve known every party leader for decades. The other, young Liberals, whose introduction to the party was through former prime minister Justin Trudeau’s progressive values.
Prime Minister Mark Carney issued a call for politicians to be humble in their service and think broadly about their legacy as he offered his perspective on faith and public life Tuesday morning. Mr. Carney, as well as Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, were among the MPs who attended the National Prayer Breakfast, an annual Christian event held in downtown Ottawa...
Prime Minister Mark Carney will attend question period Tuesday after a day’s worth of criticism from opposition MPs that he was hiding from a debate on his Middle East policy. Mr. Carney did not attend Monday night’s take-note debate on the hostilities in the region and Canada’s response, prompting criticism throughout the evening about his absence. The Conservatives, Bloc Québécois...
Prime Minister Mark Carney said Canada has not yet received requests from Persian Gulf states for military aid to help them defend against attacks from Iran. And, he suggested, these requests might not arrive. The Prime Minister spoke to journalists in Tokyo near the end of a two-day visit to Japan. Earlier this week, Canada’s Chief of the Defence Staff...
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre said he’s open to meeting with U.S. leaders if it will help Canada’s efforts to end the continuing trade dispute. Mr. Poilievre also said he “can’t stand” U.S. President Donald Trump’s talk about Canada becoming the 51st state, doesn’t like Mr. Trump’s tariffs and doesn’t like the way he’s treating Canada. “At various times, I’ve been...
Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Liberals are beginning to prepare for the next election. The Liberal Party unveiled its rules for selecting candidates on Wednesday and said it will begin the process of nominating people in ridings held by other parties in the coming days. The preparations follow two recent polls suggesting the party is widening its lead over the Conservatives...
The federal Conservative Party is limiting access to its databases for the duration of the B.C. Conservative Party leadership race after a federal riding association appeared to be using its mailing list to promote a candidate. The letter from the Conservative Party notified riding associations of the move a day after the Vancouver Centre Conservative Association sent an invitation to...
The head of the Conservative Party’s powerful fundraising arm stressed Leader Pierre Poilievre’s role in raking in millions of dollars as delegates prepared to vote Friday on whether he should remain as leader. Robert Staley, the chair of what’s known as the Conservative Fund, also says the party’s war chest is full enough to fight an election at any time...
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre and a team of loyalists are working to ensure that party members are on side with his leadership ahead of a vote on his future later this month. Though Mr. Poilievre is widely expected to win the Jan. 30 vote, they are not leaving the end result to chance. Mr. Poilievre is holding private meet-and-greets across...
Stephen Harper’s official prime ministerial portrait will be unveiled next month as part of commemorations of the 20th anniversary of the modern Conservative Party first winning power. The painting, by Canadian artist Phil Richards, will be revealed at an event on Parliament Hill on Feb. 3, three years after work first started on the project. The next night, Mr. Harper...
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre paused when asked how he’d describe the last year. He was speaking with The Globe and Mail as part of a run of year-end interviews, many of which focused on the news of the two MPs who quit his party and joined Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Liberals. The surprise defections brought the minority Liberals to within...
Mark Carney became Prime Minister on a promise to reduce Canadian dependence on the increasingly protectionist and unreliable United States under Donald Trump. “It’s clear the U.S. is no longer a reliable partner,” Mr. Carney said after taking office. “The old relationship” Canada had with the United States, he said, is over. Significant parts of his travel reflect this, with...
Prime Minister Mark Carney is trying to circumvent the democratic will of Canadians by using floor-crossers to get a majority government, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre said in a year-end interview. Mr. Poilievre told The Globe and Mail that Canadians will react badly if another MP joins the Liberals and gives them a majority, because that’s not what they voted for...
Conservative MPs no longer have a lock on running as candidates in the next election under new rules adopted by the party’s national council. Two party sources told The Globe and Mail the new rules allow a majority of party members in a riding to force an incumbent MP into a nomination race in minority Parliament situations. In majority Parliaments...
A data breach at Conservative Party headquarters involved more people than initially believed. The party first became aware of the breach on Nov. 17, after the personal financial records of 15 members of Parliament were e-mailed to party insiders and others. All except one of the MPs were elected for the first time in April. The subsequent internal investigation revealed...
Natural Resources Minister Tim Hodgson travelled to British Columbia Friday for a meeting with Premier David Eby, who continued to express frustration over his province’s exclusion from negotiations for the landmark deal Ottawa signed with Alberta. The political fallout from the memorandum of understanding signed Thursday also continued internally for Liberals after the sudden resignation from cabinet of long-time environmentalist...
The Conservative Party is investigating a data breach involving the financial records of 15 of its MPs. The documents detail the individuals’ financial histories, including loans, mortgages or other money owing and details about whether they make their payments on time. In a statement, party spokesperson Sarah Fischer said the party became aware of the breach on Monday. “We are...
Ottawa and Alberta appear close to striking an energy accord long sought by Premier Danielle Smith to boost her province’s oil and natural gas sector, with Privy Council Clerk Michael Sabia playing a key role in the negotiations, two sources say. Two federal insiders said the broad outlines of the agreement, which would take the form of a memorandum of...
The Liberals are pursuing other Conservative MPs to cross the floor after Nova Scotia MP Chris d’Entremont stunned Conservatives by joining Mark Carney’s caucus. Two Liberal sources say the minority government has been in discussions with a number of Conservative MPs to gauge their willingness to either cross or sit as independents before a vote is held on the federal...
Prime Minister Mark Carney’s corporate connections will be scrutinized again by the House of Commons after opposition MPs voted Tuesday to review the Conflict of Interest Act. Prior to entering politics, Mr. Carney served as chairman of Brookfield Asset Management Inc., a major investment company, and also sat on the boards for numerous other companies and initiatives.
The Conservative Party is pursuing changes to how it nominates candidates after widespread frustration over the process for the April federal election. Unexplained candidate disqualifications, last-minute nomination votes and complaints that national party officials overruled local desires were among the concerns raised by grassroots members both before and after the election. The Conservatives did add to their seat count and...
Mark Carney was the front-runner heading into this year’s Liberal leadership contest, but receipts for his $3.8-million campaign give a glimpse of exactly what it took to get across the line. Invoices submitted to Elections Canada also show that even as his leadership campaign was winding down, he was getting ready for the next one, a general election he’d call...
The Conservative Party’s governing council suspended one of its members after a complaint about his treatment of a young volunteer. A majority of the party’s national council voted at a meeting on Saturday to suspend Alex Corelli to allow for further investigation, two sources told The Globe and Mail. The Globe is not naming the sources as they are prohibited...
Contractors working on the renovation of Parliament Hill’s iconic Centre Block were told to use only Canadian-sourced steel after the trade dispute between Canada and the U.S. began in March, documents tabled in the House of Commons show. Public Services and Procurement Canada, the department overseeing the work, also told contractors it would pick up the tab if the Canadian-sourced...
Prime Minister Mark Carney will no longer open all of his speeches at fundraising events to the media in a break from the practice under the Justin Trudeau Liberal government. Mr. Carney held an event in Edmonton Tuesday evening ahead of meetings with his MPs, but reporters from The Globe and Mail and Global News were turned away. A volunteer...
Just over a year ago, the Liberal caucus was in turmoil over the government’s responses to the war between Israel and Hamas. Factions broke publicly with then-prime minister Justin Trudeau and one MP even threatened to quit. But the reaction has been far more tempered to Prime Minister Mark Carney’s announcement Wednesday that Canada intends to recognize a Palestinian state...
Prime Minister Mark Carney’s top aide has joined Canada-U.S. negotiations in Washington as the two countries try to strike a deal to end a five-month trade war. The Prime Minister’s Office said Marc-André Blanchard, chief of staff to Mr. Carney, has headed to the U.S. Capitol with officials, including Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Dominic LeBlanc, who has travelled there to talk...
Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservatives have scheduled a party convention the same weekend as federal Conservatives will gather to test Pierre Poilievre’s leadership. The duelling conventions highlight the growing distance between the two parties that was laid bare during the recent federal election.
The Liberal Party’s campaign co-director is launching a new strategic firm with a roster of political, governance and policy experts in a bid to translate the party’s successful campaign blueprint into one for the private sector. Andrew Bevan’s new firm is called Catalyze4, a deliberate riff off a word Prime Minister Mark Carney used repeatedly during the campaign and since...
A six-year-old child’s teacher told her she was “half human” because one of her parents was Jewish - one of nearly 800 antisemitic incidents in the Ontario elementary and high school system since 2023 reported to a federally commissioned survey. Others included a 13-year-old girl being swarmed several times a day by classmates who raised their hands in a Nazi...
It took 20 days for Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government to get legislation through Parliament allowing for the fast-tracking of national projects. The actual implementation of that law, the Building Canada Act, is on a slower track. Turning Canada into an “energy superpower” and reducing reliance on the U.S. were central promises of Mr. Carney’s election campaign this spring, and...
Prime Minister Mark Carney’s promise to reduce internal trade barriers and speed up natural resources development is set to be fast-tracked after a vote late Monday that highlighted the political realignment in the House of Commons. The minority Liberals’ effort to have C-5 pass by the end of this week won support from the Opposition Conservatives in a vote of...
Conservative Party members will vote in January on whether Pierre Poilievre should remain as leader after his party failed to win April’s election. The vote will take place in Calgary, the party’s national council determined during a meeting Saturday, three sources told The Globe and Mail.
The Conservative party’s national council is expected to meet mid-June to determine when leader Pierre Poilievre will face a leadership review, but there’s still no sign of an overarching review of the party’s failure to defeat the Liberals on April 28. The election returned a Liberal minority government, and while some Conservatives privately say Prime Minister Mark Carney could govern...
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre says his party will vote against the federal government’s request to spend $486.9-billion on government programs and transfers. Mr. Poilievre’s announcement that his party won’t support what’s called the main estimates will be an early test of Prime Minister Mark Carney’s minority mandate. The Liberals have 169 seats in the House of Commons, three short of...
The Conservative caucus will meet on Tuesday to mull over the party’s election defeat and select an interim Opposition Leader to replace Pierre Poilievre amid concerns that the Liberals are trying to poach some of their MPs. Front-runners for the job of Opposition Leader are former leader Andrew Scheer and deputy Conservative leader Melissa Lantsman, according to a caucus source...
Allies of Pierre Poilievre spoke out in support of his continued leadership after the Conservative Leader lost his own seat in Monday’s election and failed to form government. Among them was former party leader Andrew Scheer, who was forced to step down after his failure to defeat the Trudeau Liberals in the 2019 election despite winning the popular vote and...
Conservative MPs used their parliamentary privilege to seek details on the scope of the federal government’s diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives in areas that line up with what party leader Pierre Poilievre is now pledging to cut. The efforts to gather information began in March, 2024, with two MPs using order paper questions to probe spending on government and military...
Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives are promising $34-billion in new spending and $75-billion in tax cuts over the next four years. They would help fund these expenditures with $56-billion in spending reductions over the same period, the Conservatives say. The party’s 2025 election platform, released Tuesday, also shows the Conservatives are betting that economic growth from their policies will generate significant tax...
