When a prime minister takes to YouTube for a 10-minute address to the nation, a perfectly reasonable question is: what’s the emergency? So when Mark Carney released a video on the weekend, titled “Forward Guidance,” there was a natural temptation to look for what alarms he was trying to raise.
Was the timing of Mark Carney’s feel-good “fireside chat” video released Sunday mere coincidence, landing as it did the day before concerning inflation numbers? Or was it a deliberate calculation to point out that Canadian fur traders were all over the northern plains before the Americans had left St. Louis, a day ahead of confirmation that consumers are now paying...
FOR ALL OF MY adult life, I’ve been a Liberal believing in the defence of rights, the constraining of power, an equitable society, and an independent foreign policy. It’s been a narrative that many Canadians have strongly believed and supported.
The instant Ontario NDP Leader Marit Stiles blasted out the words “gravy plane,” it became obvious that the private jet purchased by Ontario Premier Doug Ford was not long for this province. It wasn’t simply that the act of spending $28.9-million of taxpayers’ money on a private aircraft for the Premier’s office was hideously off-brand, though that was a major...
The old Pierre Poilievre is back. After watching Mark Carney’s Liberals secure a majority government with a clean sweep in last Monday’s three byelections and with rumours of more floor crossers in the offing, the Conservative Party of Canada leader has decided to abandon his kinder and gentler personality reboot in favour of his more familiar brand of populist petulance...
Hungary has only 9.5 million people, but its election result is resonating across the democratic world. The resounding defeat of Viktor Orbán and his party Fidesz on April 12 brought an end to 16 years of governance by a prime minister who had established himself as a global icon of the populist far-right, the model to follow, the archetype of...
Let’s be clear: there is nothing improper about a government gaining a majority in Parliament between elections. Some have suggested otherwise, as if something outside the rules has taken place. It hasn’t. Canada operates under a Westminster parliamentary system. Voters don’t cast ballots for a Prime Minister. We don’t vote for or against a majority government. We vote for a...
Congratulations to Prime Minister Mark Carney and the Liberals on securing their majority. Now, please, please, pick a fighter jet already. No one can stop you! This isn’t the first time I’ve made this exact plea in these very pages. It was just last September that I begged the prime minister to get around to picking a jet to replace...
The Conservative Party of Canada launched two new ads recently, backed by what the party says is a million-dollar-plus media buy across television, radio, connected TV and digital platforms. They will be running through the end of June. The ads are well produced. One features Pierre Poilievre speaking of a country that stands on its own feet and bows before...
Nearly one year after the election that validated Mark Carney’s instincts about pursuing a career in elected politics, the principal casualty of that choice, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, finds himself in a peculiar position. Poilievre, whose party lost that election from a starting lead of 20 points, who lost his own seat, and who has witnessed a mini stampede of...
For someone relatively new to elected politics, Mark Carney has developed a habit of leaning into his pre-political past. When Carney unfurled his middle-power response to the geopolitical upheaval fronted by Donald Trump’s weaponized presidency, he didn’t do it at the Canadian Club, the United Nations, or Chatham House. He delivered his code-cracking economic GPS from the annual gathering of...
Not once have I ever thought that Doug Ford has much in common at all with U.S. President Donald Trump. Sure, the Ontario premier is a blustery, (in-theory) right-leaning politician who even has a passing physical resemblance to the U.S. president. But anyone actually making the comparison has always been, in my mind, confessing how superficial their understanding of either...
For two decades, Canada pursued a values-based foreign policy, although the values pursued by Liberal and Conservative governments were very different. Today, Canada is pursuing a more hardnosed foreign policy that puts Canada’s national interests front and centre. Putting Canada first, so to speak, has proved to be a far better approach. Of course, values and interests have always comingled...
Where did this idea come from, of Canada joining the European Union? I know the Prime Minister likes to say that Canada is “the most European of the non-European countries,” whatever that means. (More European than, say, Argentina? Uruguay? New Zealand?) And sure, we’ve all joked about it, at least once, in the heat of Donald Trump’s latest outrage (“that’s...
As political weeks go, Prime Minister Mark Carney couldn’t have asked for a better one. Fresh from the Liberals’ convention where he was fêted as the party’s new Messiah, his candidates won all three byelections Monday by larger percentage margins than in last spring’s general election.
The Political Pulse panel breaks down Week 1 of the Liberals' majority government, and how opposition parties are responding.
When federal Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre appeared on the popular right-wing American podcaster Joe Rogan’s show last month, many in his party were ecstatic with the result. Mr. Poilievre resisted his worst instincts, passing on invitations to dump on Prime Minister Mark Carney, fuel separatist sentiment in Alberta or indulge in the conspiracy theories being propagated by Mr. Rogan. Over...
The newly cobbled together majority government in the House of Commons has given the Liberal Party and Prime Minister Mark Carney more time and more leeway to peruse its far-reaching, extremely expensive “Build Canada” agenda. But the new alignment in the Commons has also changed the calculations of at least two of the three opposition parties. The majority created by...
There is a particular kind of political delusion that sets in after a loss. It is quiet. It hides behind familiar talking points. It feels like conviction, but it is really just refusal to accept reality. Too many Conservatives in this country are still running against Justin Trudeau. And it’s not really a strategy, it’s a combination of a putrid...
Coming off three byelection wins and a handful of floor-crossers, Prime Minister Carney is now armed with a newly minted majority government. The benefits of going from a minority to a majority for the government are quite clear. As the PM noted in a press conference earlier this week, a majority government will make for a much more substantive and...
The Liberals have their Majority Government. For the past few years, politics in Ottawa has been about counting votes, negotiating support between parties, and legislative gridlock. For Liberals it’s been about surviving, not thriving. That problem is now gone. It has been replaced by a new challenge: managing a diverse caucus. The Liberals no longer need opposition parties to stay...
I don’t know what the Conservatives’ path back to electoral relevance looks like. If I did, I might try to sell them the roadmap for a heap of money. I do have a strong hunch it won’t involve attacking the academic credentials of Prime Minister Mark Carney, he of the Liberals’ newly established majority government. That’s why it’s been so...
After this week’s byelection results, Carney’s governing Liberals will have more unchecked power. But the party has moved away from its old progressive politics
George W. Bush took up painting when he left the Oval Office in 2009. In 2014, he unveiled his first public exhibit, entitled “The Art of Leadership: A President’s Personal Diplomacy,” which featured portraits of world leaders he met during his time in office. The whole thing was sort of … odd. It wasn’t just that Mr. Bush’s portraits were...
With the flock of floor-crossers from the Conservative Party and the by-election results Monday, Mark Carney and company can remain in power until 2029. That will mark a 14-year stretch since Justin Trudeau’s dismantling of the Stephen Harper Conservatives in 2015. And who knows how much longer this run might extend. Ho hum, here we go again, another Liberal dynasty...
Last week, the Conservatives saw yet another Member of Parliament cross the floor to join Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Liberals. Marilyn Gladu, the Sarnia, Ont.-area MP and—briefly—a former Conservative leadership candidate, was the one who made the move. Gladu, who had previously chastised fellow floor crossers and is someone seen as being a far-right leaning Conservative, was an unexpected departure...
“Unity,” said Mark Carney last weekend, “does not require uniformity.” Accommodation beats assimilation, the prime minister told the Liberal faithful at the party’s convention in Montreal — and partnership is better than domination.
The byelection results on Monday night in Terrebonne, Scarborough Southwest and University--Rosedale have given everyone much to consider about the shift from minority to majority Parliament and the anticipated and rumoured fallout to come. In our 343-seat national legislature -- unless there are additional floor-crossing MPs on the horizon -- having a two-seat majority is still very unstable. Health challenges...
A slave labour apologist, chloroquine promoter and blue Albertan all walk into a bar … Only it’s not a joke, and they didn’t walk into a bar. Michael Ma, Marilyn Gladu and Matt Jereroux are three former Conservative MPs who have walked into the Liberal caucus, where they found a Red Tory, Chris d’Entremont, already tickling the party ivories...
Seeking to explain just where the Liberals draw the line on accepting members of other parties into their midst, House Leader Steven MacKinnon said the party would “keep a light on and a door open for all of those who want to support Liberal Party principles,” which he described as “immutable.” And of course, he’s right. Liberal policies may come...
How much more Liberal raiding and spending and winning can Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre survive? Maybe very little. Three byelection losses Monday night are a further humiliation. Prime Minister Mark Carney took quick advantage.
Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet stepped out to meet reporters and take his by-election defeat on the chin. “We have to take it with humility. And we have to take it with patience,” Mr. Blanchet said. There’s a wave, he said – arguing that past Conservative and New Democrat voters moved to the Liberals – that seems even stronger now...
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney won three byelections Monday night, giving him a majority government and a free hand to further remake the government he inherited from Justin Trudeau.
Officially, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is outraged. “The Carney Liberals did not win a majority government through a general election or today’s by-elections,” Mr. Poilievre posted on X Monday night, as the results erasing his leverage in the House of Commons rolled in. The Liberals swept all three by-elections, less than a week after they seduced the unlikeliest of floor-crossers...
Tories worry that Carney has reshaped politics in Quebec
LIBERAL PARTY MEMBERS milled, decked in red lanyards, taking photos. “Welcome to Libcon2026” read a banner high on the wall at the top of the escalators in Montreal’s Palais des congrès. On a merch table nearby lay piles of red shirts and crewnecks, emblazoned with the Liberal logo. Two rows of black hats were amongst the items. The words “Canada...
Mark Carney didn’t just get a majority on Monday night — he also won the precious political commodity of time.
Byelections give the Liberals one of the most remarkable majorities in Parliament's history. There have been a total of 24 prime ministers in Canada's history, but before Monday night only 13 could claim to have led their party to a majority of seats in the House of Commons. Mark Carney is now the 14th to do it.
The second phase of Mark Carney’s government now begins. It has a majority in the House of Commons, and that allows it to look further ahead. In the year since winning a general election on the hustings, Mr. Carney’s Liberals have campaigned by other means. They have juggled expectations higher and higher – adding onto Mr. Carney’s narrative about an...
