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 Tonda MacCharles.
Prime Minister Mark Carney, in unveiling $9 billion in new defence spending, revived tough talk against the United States Monday, describing America as hustling its allies to pay now or risk losing their ability to sell products to American consumers. Speaking in Toronto, Carney did not use words like “grift” or “hustle” but he also did not mince words when...
The Charlevoix curse looms over Prime Minister Mark Carney as he gets ready to host leaders of the so-called Group of Seven major western economies. Carney’s decision to invite India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the G7 amid an ongoing RCMP investigation into Modi’s government’s alleged role in the assassination of a Canadian citizen has stirred sharp criticism at home...
President Donald Trump’s envoy to Canada says some level of American tariffs on Canadian products is the new normal, holding out only slim hope that direct talks between Trump and Prime Minister Mark Carney could see them lifted entirely. U.S. Ambassador Pete Hoekstra said in an interview with the Star that the president and U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick are...
Justice Minister Sean Fraser says the federal duty to consult and engage Indigenous people on major nation-building projects does not amount to granting those communities a veto. After the Assembly of First Nations (AFN) warned Prime Minister Mark Carney he must secure Indigenous Peoples’ consent to his plans to expedite massive infrastructure projects, citing the United Nations Declaration on the...
With a successful election and a high-stakes trip to Washington behind him, Prime Minister Mark Carney is grappling with a tangle of considerations and big decisions as he launches his first governing mandate for Canada’s incoming minority Parliament.
Prime Minister Mark Carney says his goal in meeting with President Donald Trump is to achieve a new comprehensive economic and security deal with the United States. Insiders say the first order of business is less ambitious: get the tariffs lifted.
U.S. President Donald Trump, the elephant in the room of the 2025 Canadian election, agreed to meet Prime Minister Mark Carney in the days ahead after calling to congratulate the Canadian leader who squeaked through with a minority win, not the “strong mandate” Carney sought for their looming trade negotiation. The congratulatory call from Trump came around midday, as Carney...
The federal Conservatives are funnelling resources into Pierre Poilievre’s local campaign, shoring up volunteer support in the leader’s Ottawa-area riding over concerns that winning his seat is not guaranteed, the Star has learned. One Conservative source involved in Poilievre’s campaign told the Star that the leader appears to be in trouble in Carleton, the sprawling riding Poilievre has held since...
The stakes for Carney, for the Liberals fighting for a fourth term, and for the country with Donald Trump’s eyes on Canada’s resources and sovereignty, couldn’t be higher.
Canada could be on the lower end of U.S. President Donald Trump’s threatened global tariffs next week, the Star has learned. Nothing, however, is guaranteed until Trump decides ahead of his April 2 deadline — which he’s dubbed “liberation day” for America — and no government officials are taking any assurances for granted, sources said.
Canadians will decide their next government, Carney said at a Friday news conference, adding any trade talks will only come after the U.S. president shows respect for Canada’s sovereignty.
The prime minister’s call to review the purchase of U.S.-made fighter jets could hint at what Carney has set in motion after meeting with European leaders earlier this week, sources told the Star. In an effort to pivot away from Canada’s overreliance on the U.S., Prime Minister Mark Carney is looking to Europe to build new security alliances and a...
Mark Carney marked his debut as Canada’s 24th prime minister by killing the Trudeau-era consumer carbon tax, paring back his governing cabinet, and promising a more businesslike approach to U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade war. A rare unelected prime minister, Carney took up the top political office of the country after Justin Trudeau officially resigned Friday, ushering in new federal...
On top of threatened U.S. tariffs, China has brought down another hammer on many Canadian farm and seafood exports, hitting them with a “double trade war” that industry leaders say will slam Canadian producers. In response, B.C. Premier David Eby called on Ottawa to drop its tariff fight against China, saying Canada got nothing out of trying to align trade...
Canada offered to delay its second phase of counter-tariffs against the U.S. if Donald Trump drops tariffs on all Canadian products — not just in the auto sector — that are covered by and comply with the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Free Trade Agreement, the Star has learned. High-stakes talks continued between Canadian and U.S. officials with no word about whether there would...
Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly responded in part to the U.S. president’s claims by saying the U.S. is a “net exporter” of illegal fentanyl, guns and migrants to Canada.
U. S. President Donald Trump now says he will slap 25 per cent tariffs on all auto imports on April 2, accusing European countries — as he has Canada — of “unfair” trade practices. Trump’s latest trade comments, along with a surprising attack on the legitimacy of Ukraine’s president and assertion that Ukraine needs new elections, capped off several days...
U.S. President Donald Trump’s annexation threats should be met with determination to preserve this country’s independence at any cost, says former prime minister Stephen Harper. Speaking Tuesday in Ottawa at the launch of his latest history book, “Flags of Canada,” Harper welcomed a surge in Canadian nationalism including, he said, from the current Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
American President Donald Trump raised a long list of complaints against Canada and said the Canada-U.S. boundary could disappear when he spoke with the prime minister Monday, according to details Justin Trudeau revealed behind closed doors on Friday, the Star has learned. The Star first broke news that Trudeau told a group of nearly 200 business, industry and union leaders...
Keep calm, Canada. And bring it on. U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariff threat has galvanized a political shift in Canada, sparking not just impassioned public displays of patriotism in the True North but also forcing Liberals and Conservatives to reframe their electoral pitches with a strong dose of nationalism as they seek to replace Justin Trudeau.
The onset of a U.S.-led tariff war with Canada, Mexico and China triggered turmoil in global markets and prompted Ontario to cancel its contract with Elon Musk‘s Starlink satellite company and to ban American companies from provincial contracts. “We’ll be ripping up the province’s contract with Starlink. Ontario won’t do business with people hellbent on destroying our economy,” said PC...
It is a basic tenet of Tariffs 101, and an essential argument in Canada’s fight against Donald Trump’s 25-per-cent tariff threat: that consumers and businesses on your home turf are the ones who pay the cost of tariffs, or counter-tariffs, not the other country’s government or people. So it was baffling to see Chrystia Freeland, the former finance minister vying...
Canada would not immediately match any U.S. tariffs with “dollar for dollar” penalties on American products coming into Canada — an approach that Ontario Premier Doug Ford views as not “proportional” or strong enough to counter Donald Trump’s threats, the Star has learned. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told premiers “everything is on the table” as he met them behind closed...
Mark Carney — who is not yet a marquee name in Canada — took to the stage of Jon Stewart’s U.S. satirical news and comedy show to reveal a side of himself to Americans that he has yet to show Canadians. But hey, it’ll go viral won’t it?
Canada should “cut off the flow of critical minerals” to the U.S. to exact a painful toll in response to Donald Trump’s proposed tariffs, says New Democrat Leader Jagmeet Singh. Singh called the incoming U.S. president “a threat” and a “bully” who is “not rational,” and only understands “force” and “pain,” at a news conference in Ottawa Monday, seven days...
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau once considered quitting politics long before Monday. On the day he announced his coming resignation, Trudeau wrote his own first draft of history. He told the nation he is a fighter who never backs away from a fight — that he wouldn’t be stepping down if it weren’t for his internal caucus struggles that eclipsed his...
Let the political games begin. With Justin Trudeau’s decision to step down, the unofficial race to replace him is on. By convention in Canada’s parliamentary system of democracy, whoever leads the party that holds the confidence of the House of Commons becomes prime minister. So the stakes couldn’t be higher.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is fighting once again for his political life, behind closed doors. At an emergency meeting Monday evening — called after Chrystia Freeland, Trudeau’s now former top deputy and one-time “minister of everything” quit as finance minister — the prime minister came face to face with Freeland along with an angry and bewildered caucus before he planned...
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau took an indirect dig at Donald Trump ahead of a first ministers’ meeting Wednesday on how to best handle the unpredictable incoming U.S. president-elect. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau took an indirect dig at Donald Trump ahead of a first ministers’ meeting Wednesday on how to best handle the unpredictable incoming U.S. president-elect.
As Canadian politicians jockey to position themselves as the best to deal with a mercurial incoming U.S. president Donald Trump, a wary Canadian public is cool to any compromises and supports a tough approach, according to a pair of new polls.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s team came away from a Mar-a-Lago Friday night dinner with Donald Trump with no guarantee but believing it is possible for Canada to escape his 25-per-cent tariff threat if the Liberal government can address the president-elect’s concerns on border security. Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc who accompanied Trudeau to Trump’s resort in Palm Beach, Fla. told...
It’s Show-Don’t-Tell time. The Trudeau government’s strategy in the face of Donald Trump’s latest 25 per cent tariff threat is fourfold: prove Canada is a reliable neighbour bent on securing borders against illegal migration and drugs.
Don’t let anyone tell you the re-election of Donald Trump is not a jolt to Canada’s political landscape. Or that we’ve been there, done that. The fallout is about to overwhelm the Canadian government’s agenda for the next four years.
Word came unexpectedly in January 2017 that President Donald Trump wanted to talk to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Officials scrambled to connect the two leaders and racked their brains: what urgent matter had they not foreseen?
Justin Trudeau’s Liberal party is testing a group of digital ads and is producing a series of broadcast advertising, including negative ads targeting his Conservative rival, as the Liberal leader insists he is staying on to lead the party into the next election. The digital ads, in English and French, were produced over the past two weeks, while the broadcast...
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was all smiles as he walked into a Liberal caucus meeting Wednesday morning, where dissidents in his own ranks were prepared to challenge his leadership while his supporters harshly condemned the damaging show of disunity. At the same time, a grassroots petition describing an “existential crisis” in the Liberal party was demanding an urgent secret ballot...
Mark Carney, Justin Trudeau’s economic platform adviser, says he plans to enter elected politics but won’t say when, where or what job he wants, telling a fellow Liberal “you can’t map these things out.” As more than two dozen Liberal MPs are working behind the scenes to urge the prime minister to step aside for a new party leader, some...
More than 20 and as many as 40 of the Liberals’ 153 members of Parliament have signed a letter calling for Justin Trudeau to step aside as party leader, one of their number said Monday, with some believed ready to make the case at a national caucus meeting Wednesday. Publicly, however, many are holding their cards close, refusing to divulge...
An Indian government spokesman insisted Thursday the crisis in the Canada-India relationship was triggered by “baseless allegations” against Indian diplomats made by the Trudeau government for political reasons, and declined to say what India’s next step is, calling it an “evolving” situation. Asked whether India expected further sanctions from Canada, Shri Randhir Jaiswal, the official spokesman for India’s external affairs...
Is it déjà vu all over again? That’s a loaded question for the half dozen Liberal MPs who were part of the doomed Kathleen Wynne government that lost to Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservatives in 2018 and now sit in Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s federal caucus facing Pierre Poilievre’s surging Conservatives. Two of those veteran politicians wouldn’t touch it with a...
With no new campaign director, no new ad campaign rollout, no major cabinet shuffle, and no change at the top amid grim polling data for Justin Trudeau’s Liberals, anxiety and dread amongst MPs and insiders about their electoral prospects has ramped up, sources tell the Star. Most MPs head out Friday — some fled Ottawa earlier — into a Thanksgiving...
Federal Liberals and New Democrats blasted Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre Wednesday, saying his statement that Israel should proactively strike Iran’s nuclear facilities is disastrous foreign policy that would contravene international law and quash hope for peace in the Middle East. Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly told reporters Wednesday that Poilievre’s proposed pre-emptive strikes would trigger a broader war, and suggested...
In a nearly hour-long interview, Trudeau gave more revealing answers to fellow political traveler Liberal MP Nate Erskine-Smith than he has to any journalist in months.
Leaders of the world’s top economies agreed Wednesday that Israel has a right to defend against Iran’s missile attacks as they sought to avoid a response that would trigger an all-out war. After speaking with other G7 leaders Wednesday morning about Iran’s rain of ballistic missiles on Israel, and Israel’s revelation its military led ground raids targeting Hezbollah in Lebanon...
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau could see his government fall next week after the Liberals offered the Conservative Official Opposition the first chance at presenting a motion of non-confidence in the House of Commons, despite the Liberals’ loss Monday of a key Montreal-area seat, the Star has learned.
Mark Carney’s appointment as economic platform adviser to Justin Trudeau has prompted criticism by Conservatives and sustainable finance market watchers who say the executive at Brookfield Asset Management cannot balance his role in the Liberal party’s re-election effort with new marching orders at the corporate giant to double its massive trillion-dollar portfolio in the next few years.
The summer ride is over. So too is the Justin Trudeau listening tour. The prime minister spent much of two months meeting in small groups or individually with nervous Liberal MPs, many angry after the June loss of a supposedly safe Toronto seat to the Conservatives.
Trailing in the polls and suddenly facing the prospect of an early federal election, many Liberals say there is a welcome chance for renewal now that the governing party’s national campaign director is leaving his post. Jeremy Broadhurst, a veteran strategist who was set to quarterback the Liberals’ election campaign after serving as a top adviser in Prime Minister Justin...
Several ministers who spoke to the Star said nobody at the cabinet table is actively elbowing him out, but a tougher test is still to come. There was one unusually candid moment as a parade of Liberal ministers went before cameras at a cabinet retreat in a soulless downtown conference centre.
A top adviser to U.S. President Joe Biden urged Canada to consider heavily subsidized Chinese electric vehicles as not just an economic threat but as a security concern, and urged a united tariff front against cheap imports flooding the market. White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan spoke to reporters Sunday evening in Nova Scotia, where he met with Prime...
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump pumped hot air into an old and baseless conspiracy theory about Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, telling a controversial internet personality that the Canadian leader “could be” the son of former Cuban president Fidel Castro. In a fawning interview Monday with 24-year-old internet influencer Adin Ross, Trump rambled on about Democratic rival Kamala Harris and other...
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre says he is concerned about threats against his family and at one point sought increased security which they received, but rejected any notion Monday that politicians should tone down criticism of their rivals. Poilievre was among Canadian leaders who condemned political violence in the wake of the weekend shooting at a Donald Trump rally in Pennsylvania...
This is a moment of reckoning for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. The question of whether to stay or go, or to deliver some other kind of dramatic change the Liberal caucus is clamouring for, is one of the most sensitive and solitary exercises a prime minister can undertake.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was pushed to make serious changes to rescue the Liberals’ political prospects during a call with regional chairs from the party’s parliamentary caucus on Tuesday, according to two sources with knowledge of the conversation. According to one, Trudeau was pressed on whether he should resign the Liberal leadership during the call, but the main message was...
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has been working the phones to tamp down any caucus discontent, as his team convened a call Tuesday with national caucus representatives, following a week of pressure on him to relinquish the Liberal leadership. Senior government officials expressed optimism that, after a long weekend in which Trudeau told the CBC is he “committed” to his job...
David Axelrod, a top American Democratic political strategist, wasn’t talking about Canada or Justin Trudeau when he outlined a pessimistic view of U.S. President Joe Biden’s chances at re-election. Presidential campaigns are unlike other races, he said — quoting Bill Clinton who remarked that winning campaigns are not about the past, they’re about the future.
Canada’s EV-building strategy will cost Ottawa and provinces about $6 billion more than announced, the federal parliamentary budget watchdog says. A new report released by Parliamentary Budget Officer Yves Giroux says a total of $46.1 billion in government spending across the nascent EV supply chain has been announced. But the PBO estimates the total government support for capital and operating...
It’s a fascinating political petri dish under the microscope by parties, pollsters and pundits alike. Candidates and campaign volunteers will tell you what really matters to voters in the Toronto-St. Paul’s federal byelection is: housing, the high cost of groceries and staples, or how to tackle acts of rising antisemitism in a midtown riding that has the fifth largest Jewish...
If Canadians thought Trump 1.0 was crazily chaotic, they should expect Trump 2.0 will be crazily methodic. About all of the things. That includes his vow to impose broad 10 per cent tariffs on all imports — something Canada is unlikely to escape — his insistence that allies like Canada pony up billions more on defence; and his vow to...
It seems only a matter of time before an elected official in Canada gets seriously hurt. In March, somebody set fire to the garage at Liberal MP Brendan Hanley’s Yukon home.