One of the more infamous scenes in the movie sketch comedy Monty Python and the Holy Grail involved a sword fight between King Arthur and the Black Knight. Almost immediately, things do not go well for the Black Knight. He quickly loses a limb, then another. Despite his losses he defiantly fights on: “Just a flesh wound … I’m invincible.”...
Progressive-leaning folks are having a hard time watching Mark Carney link arms with the same forces that spent the past decade demonizing the Liberals. Whether it’s making a deal with Alberta Premier Danielle Smith or playing to the “bro” culture with all the sports talk and walking back feminist foreign policy, it seems like the prime minister is determined to...
The leadership of two of our three major parties is in the course of being determined. It’s a big moment in the political trajectory of the country. The NDP leadership race could well decide the fate of that party – whether it revives itself or is reduced to a relic. The latter would see Canada devolving into a hollowed-middle, two-party...
The Montreal riding of Laurier–Sainte-Marie is ground zero for Quebec’s media elites and the beating heart of the province’s cultural industries. Not surprisingly, it skews progressive and has reliably sent left-leaning MPs to Ottawa for more than three decades. Last week’s resignation of local MP Steven Guilbeault from Prime Minister Mark Carney’s cabinet generated a minor earthquake in Laurier—Sainte-Marie whose...
Whether he intended to or not, Prime Minister Mark Carney cast aside a tenet of the Liberals’ brand last Thursday when he signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Alberta that jeopardizes the Grits’ work addressing climate change. For more than two decades, the Liberal Party of Canada told voters that it was the party that not only cared about...
Everyone could find something to hate about the energy agreement – technically, the Canada-Alberta Memorandum of Understanding – Mark Carney and Danielle Smith struck last week. For the right, the conditions on federal support for a heavy oil pipeline from Alberta to the West Coast – notably, a tightened provincial carbon pricing regime – are too onerous, if not altogether...
With hearings underway in Washington regarding the future of the CUSMA, U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade representative has signaled that the administration might withdraw completely unless it secures a “good deal.” To rattle our cages further, Trump recently reiterated his tired accusation that Canada and Mexico have taken advantage of the United States like just about every other country, threatening...
On the day last May when Mark Carney and his newly elected cabinet were sworn in, the Prime Minister promised, “Our government will deliver its mandate for change with urgency and determination. We’ve been elected to do a job. We intend to do it quickly and forcefully.” At the time, that sounded like a solid recipe for governing, but it’s...
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.
Back in October, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith wiped her hands clean of any scandal involving Alberta Health Services (AHS). Seven months earlier, the Premier had tapped retired Manitoba judge Raymond Wyant to probe alleged political interference involving the procurement of children’s medicine from abroad, and contracts for private surgical facilities in the province, both of which had ties to a...
When the Carney government’s honeymoon is over, and its missteps on a variety of fronts become more evident, the search will begin in earnest for “alternatives.” Looking ahead, what might such alternatives be? On the fiscal front, the recent federal budget gets off on the wrong foot by attributing Canada’s economic woes to major global events and Donald Trump’s tariffs...
Mark Carney didn’t run as a conventional politician. He ran as the outsider who wasn’t. It’s an appealing contradiction: a first-time candidate who also happened to be one of the most connected people in the country and abroad. Carney spent years at the centre of power in both Ottawa and London. He advised governments, soothed markets, briefed prime ministers, and...
Is Canada going continental? This week, Prime Minister Mark Carney quietly signed Canada up for the Security Action for Europe (SAFE) initiative, part of the European Union’s plan to rebuild its military industrial base by 2030. Membership gives countries access to 150-billion euros (C$243 billion) in loans to back defence manufacturing. Canada is the first non-EU country to join. In...
For weeks now, rumours have circulated that Mark Carney could be doing a major shuffle of his cabinet before the end of this year. The shuffle that happened on Monday wasn’t the one people were talking about — or expecting.
Let’s set the record straight: Mark Carney is not Justin Trudeau; and that is a good thing. The continued fixation of former Trudeau-era loyalists in insisting that Carney is pandering to the ‘bros’ because of his “rejection” of the word ‘feminist’ in Canada’s foreign policy reeks of nostalgia for a government that often mistook optics for substance. It’s time for...
They were among the few long faces at last Saturday evening’s annual Press Gallery Dinner. Stephen Guilbeault looked as though he had just lost his best friend. Green Party Elizabeth May looked as though she would break into tears. Guilbeault had resigned two days earlier from his job as heritage minister in the cabinet of Prime Minister Mark Carney over...
If you listen to the noise coming out of British Columbia, rather than pay attention to what’s actually going on, you might conclude the province’s NDP government simply hates pipelines. A new line to the B.C. coast, they keep saying, is a terrible idea. It’s just a pipe dream, a “fantasy” in the words of Premier David Eby. Worse, the...
More than eight months have passed and it’s now safe to bring friends of Justin Trudeau back into the cabinet. Marc Miller was one of the Trudeau-era ministers tossed over the side of the ship of state when Mark Carney became prime minister, when the political imperative was making Canadians see his government as something new and different.
Danielle Smith was flying high last Thursday as she and Mark Carney signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) in Calgary. Interesting that it was called an MOU and not an agreement, although most of the news media, and Smith herself, talked about it in those terms. So now Carney and Smith have an “understanding” that an oil pipeline may be...
You couldn’t have faulted Alberta Premier Danielle Smith for thinking she might receive something of a hero’s welcome at this weekend’s United Conservative Party convention. After all, she would be waving a freshly signed memorandum of understanding with Ottawa to build a new pipeline to the northwest coast of B.C. Sure, there were literally mountains to cross before it came...
Premier Danielle Smith faces an uphill battle with her own party, which appears to be increasingly untethered from Alberta’s current reality. The United Conservative Party annual general meeting was a fractious affair, marked by divisions over separatism and policy resolutions mired in the 1950s. Albertans would be wise to pay attention to those resolutions – they have a habit of...
Across Canada, at all times, we are an appropriately judgmental people when it comes to holding our political leaders accountable. This is particularly true when we think our leaders have failed us, disappointed us or misled us. Whether it is a municipal politician caught in a scandal, a provincial cabinet minister who makes a terrible decision, an opposition backbencher who...
It seems like a million years ago now, but do you remember the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership? It was signed between Canada and some Pacific nations plus the United Kingdom way back in that long-ago time of 2018. I remember being amused by it—not because of what was in the deal, but because of some of the...
What happens when a government survives a big test, but the country still feels stuck? That is where Canada finds itself today. The Carney government survived its first major budget vote and avoided a holiday election. On paper, that is a win. Our latest Abacus Data survey, conducted between Nov. 20 and 27 with 2,421 adults, shows the Liberals have...
Premier Danielle Smith is no dummy. She is well aware the pipeline deal she made with Prime Minister Mark Carney on Thursday would not be an easy sell but sell it she must. There are UCP voters and UCP members motivated enough to spend a couple of days at a political gabfest in Edmonton who have had it with Canada...
Premier Danielle Smith isn't personally challenged at this UCP convention, but still faces blowback from separatists and recall campaigns. Every United Conservative Party annual convention is odd in its own way, but this one is truly special. Article content Premier Danielle Smith faces pressure from separatists at the gathering in Edmonton this weekend. Recall campaigns are also a challenge for...
The CBC story landed with a thump on Monday afternoon: Prime Minister Mark Carney’s memorandum of understanding with Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, it suggested, would include a carve-out for her province on clean electricity regulations. Canadian Identity and Culture Minister Steven Guilbeault was stunned.
If, as the Liberals say, Pierre Poilivere is a terrible leader and the Conservatives are bankrupt of ideas, why does Prime Minister Mark Carney keep stealing them?
Basking in the glow of new-found friendship between Ottawa and Alberta, Premier Danielle Smith declared that this day would never have arrived if Justin Trudeau was still prime minister. “I can tell you 100 per cent that the former prime minister would never have moved this far on these issues,” Smith said, after she and Mark Carney unveiled a whole...
Former environment minister Steven Guilbeault has resigned from cabinet over the Carney government's memorandum of understanding with Alberta that sets a path for an oil pipeline to B.C.'s coast. The Power & Politics panel of party insiders discusses the politics around the deal and possible risks to Liberal seats.
Every so often a Canadian politician comes along and decides he or she is ready to challenge the orthodoxy. In the 1950s and 1960s, it was Saskatchewan Premier Tommy Douglas, who insisted that universal, publicly funded medical care was possible in Canada, despite strong opposition from health care providers, which culminated in a doctors’ strike.
I am starting to wonder if Mark Carney knows what he is doing. On Thursday, he met with Premier Danielle Smith in Calgary to sign a new agreement with Alberta, which includes federal support for a bitumen pipeline to northern British Columbia. On the surface, this is splendid news. It was good to see Smith and Carney working together on...
Before leaving for the recently held G20 in Johannesburg, Canada had laid out its priorities, for the summit: “improving critical mineral supply chains, using AI for sustainable development, preventing wildfires and natural disasters, reforming development funding and debt, and advancing gender equality through economic growth.” During a press conference at the summit, however, Prime Minister Carney explained to reporters that...
Analysts are always searching for “turning points”, “tipping points”, and “inflection points”. For me, February 2025 was such a moment. It was the month when the world we thought we understood was turned on its head. As the third anniversary of the illegal Russian invasion of Ukraine approached, Ukraine was determined to have another General Assembly debate and a resolution...
There is a negotiation maxim widely heard in trade talks that nothing is agreed until everything is agreed. By that measure nothing has been agreed between Ottawa and Alberta. Prime Minister Mark Carney and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith wanted to make a show of signing a memorandum of understanding on energy and the environment, even though all the actual commitments...
Boom. Until this week, among the more reliable constants in Canadian politics were that the federal Liberals would oppose building any new pipelines to the B.C. coast (the Trans Mountain exception proving the rule); that Alberta’s United Conservatives would oppose any extension of carbon pricing (beyond what the province already had in place); and that the two governing parties, so...
Shortly after Prime Minister Mark Carney and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith formally signed their memorandum of understanding on Thursday, Smith joked to reporters in Calgary that she would love for "pipelines to be boring again." It's not clear that pipelines have ever been boring — they have been associated with political tumult in Canada for at least 70 years. And...
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...
U.S. President Donald Trump’s monetary-policy monkeyshines are plumbing new depths. Mr. Trump has spent months calling Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell every name in the book, including “clown,” “nincompoop” and “major loser.” Now, his Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent, is undermining Mr. Powell by stirring speculation about his possible successor.
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.”
Yes, the Canadian health care system is a mess. Though we spend more than all but a handful of developed countries on health care, we achieve middling outcomes, leaving Canada near the bottom of the international rankings in terms of value for money. Example: Though health care now consumes nearly half of provincial own-source revenues, surgery wait times, now 3...
Seldom have we seen such a flurry of activity overseas from a prime minister like we have from Mark Carney over the past few months. His decrease-the-dependence-on-America campaign sees him trying to open trade channels everywhere in a bid to make up for the exports shortfall brought on by Donald Trump’s beggar-thy-neighbour tariff assault.