The PQ triumphed at a time when only 27 per cent of Quebecers favour secession, not much of a mandate for anything, let alone tearing Canada asunder.
Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne is faced not only with the ongoing investment and trade effects from the U.S.-initiated breakdown in bilateral trade, but also by the threat of future inflation from rising oil prices and other factors triggered partly by the U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran.
Productivity is ultimately an aggregate record of millions of smaller decisions, so we must ask what behaviour our institutions encourage.
Should First Nations, Inuit, and Métis unreservedly support Canada in the face of the American tyranny? We should not allow this question to even be debated. Human rights should not get trumped by economic interests.
There are all sorts of orange reasons why Canada needs to move fast to bolster our economy. It’s difficult to argue against efficiencies in bureaucracy. But Bill C-39 has slipped in some poison pills for the environment in the rush to prove projects in the public interest.
Cameco’s operations in northern Saskatchewan are large on the map, but here is the statistic that’s truly amazing. Its northern operations include 50 per cent Indigenous employment.
We owe it to those who died and those who were injured to gain some understanding of how this tragedy unfolded.
Ten years after the Brexit vote and all of its subsequent economic and political turmoil, U.K. Prime Minister Andy Burnham is talking about potentially aligning with Europe, again.
Pierre Poilievre still has time to right his ship, but he needs to take a deeper dive into Kerry-Lynne Findlay’s car crash if he wants to fare better than she did.
In this political climate, Canada and the Air Force need to take the Black Hawk deal off the table for good by locking down a non-American supplier.
A fleet of high-speed, hard-hitting boats would be a better Navy reserve recruiting tool.
Building specialized hangars and recruiting special security personnel for the uncontracted future fleet raises questions.
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith promises not engage in another referendum. But promoters of separation within her party have not been so unequivocal. Some of those separatists, unhappy with Smith’s campaign to remain in Canada, are seeking to challenge her leadership.
It’s hard to see how Donald Trump can stem the hemorrhaging by initially wanting to livestream a public execution or hiring another former Fox commentator to a senior White House position. Instead, he’s playing to the 20 per cent of Americans who still unequivocally support him.
Three years gives the Parti Québécois time to promote grievances with Canada and encourage Quebecers to think they are not welcome. Anti-monarchy is an easy sell in Quebec. But will that issue feed the separatist flame, or annoy Quebecers focused on economic issues?
Danielle Smith’s long-running melodrama is an infuriating reminder that the squeaky wheel gets the grease—or, in this case, the oil. Her separatist-adjacent party may yet throw her overboard for being too friendly to ‘Ottawa,’ for not ‘cracking down’ on immigration, and on immigrants themselves. Her political demise can’t come soon enough. Now, how about the rest of the county?
Mark Carney remains too popular and the U.S. economic threat too real. But we are not a right-wing country; we care about our forests, rivers, social services, and basic fairness. Opposition to the current drift away from all that has to come from somewhere, and it isn’t coming from Parliament.
Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne is faced not only with the ongoing investment and trade effects from the U.S.-initiated breakdown in bilateral trade, but also by the threat of future inflation from rising oil prices and other factors triggered partly by the U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran.
While it is helpful that more Americans now understand that Trump is taking the U.S. in the wrong direction, the final two years of his presidency could become even more dangerous as he lashes out before the power of his office disappears.
Canadian Paul Samson argues in new paper published by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, that while economic integration with the U.S. has generated prosperity for Canada, this has come with a price which may be even more threatening than in the past.
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The PQ are crowing about holding power once again; the Liberals are boasting about doubling their seats, and the Conservatives are positioning themselves as a new force in Quebec politics. Yet, the success these parties achieved wasn’t a result of who they are, but of who they aren’t: the CAQ.
Justin Trudeau’s policies, especially on energy and the environment, are increasingly in question.
Mark Carney has managed to accumulate a mountain of political capital. To my mind, that raises an interesting question. Will he decide to spend all that political capital he’s amassed, or will he hoard it?
It’s time for the separatist factions to bring some intellectual honesty to their avowed separatism. There are lots of ways to do that, but the simplest and most effective way is that both parties to this never-ending debate resolve this situation one way or the other.
No one in this country can afford to become complacent that Canada will always be Canada, and its sovereignty will always be recognized.
Billionaire’s blindness and the price of gas may ultimately be the end of Donald Trump’s tumultuous tenure.
The next Israeli government will probably be just as expansionist, and just as willing to go to war again, as the present one is.
As the trajectory of his Hindu nationalist party stalled, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the biggest gerrymandering attempt in world history. Now young protesters are in the streets.
Many people fear the U.S. is heading for a constitutional rupture at some point in the next couple of years, and relatively few think it will come so soon over an election that doesn’t directly challenge the role of President Donald Trump. They may be wrong.
In its environmentally backward way, the Ontario government has clearly failed to adjust to the mounting threats of global warming.
The U.S. president is forcing change in this country, and the real question is whether Canadians can respond with what’s needed to limit the destructive impact.
In keeping with a code picked up somewhere, U.S. President Donald Trump has based his entire foreign policy on the notion that other countries owe Americans money just to conduct business with them.
This referendum could have the effect of splitting the United Conservative Party, which may contain a higher concentration of separatists than the public vote reveals.
Given U.S. far-right figures’ political interference proclivities, power, and influence, Albertans should be careful with whom they get into bed.
Political institutions and political leaders have effectively played their part in minimizing the horrors of residential schools.
Trump’s America was clearly a concern for a class of seniors I recently spoke to: they are familiar with the scourge of American isolationism in the last century, and its effect on world events.
In an election campaign marked by little boldness, simple promises were offered to solve complex issues, which requires real money that Quebec doesn’t have.
In the coming years as premier, Paul St-Pierre Plamondon will likely blame every Quebec problem on Ottawa.
In the book edited by Ottawa-based Salvadoran-Canadian policy leader Emilio Rodríguez, 11 migrants and advocates tell a story that is far more transparent and down to earth than what we are used to hearing.
In Universal: Renewing Human Rights in a Fractured World, Alex Neve looks into why we should be fighting to preserve our universal human rights. ‘In a world permeated with crises many of which come right to our front door, that surely must mean going further, even when it takes us beyond our comfort zone.’
American mainstream politics may be offering little hope, but prayers and non-violence in the streets in great numbers offer signs of promise. I do think that’s what I witnessed at Central Park and in Times Square.
I don’t know what Canada’s version of the ‘self-destructing fridges in France’ is going to be, but I do know it’s going to come. And we’ll need a PM, a government, and a public that are ready for it when it does.
There’s every chance that we will get back to peacekeeping missions in the future after we’ve restored the Canadian Armed Forces to what it always should have been: a military capable of defending this country by effectively fighting and winning battles, in the hopes that we will never need to do so.
Ukraine’s experience, earned at a terrible cost, will allow us to cut right to the front of the line in a vital new realm of military conflict. But this is only going to work if we get the basic stuff right.
Mark Carney should offer congratulate Navi Pillay on behalf of Canada, and then seize this moment to lead this country in a new middle-power campaign to save and extend international law through the full application of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
No previous prime minister of Canada has ever demonstrated such outreach to so many nations amid a breakup in world order while at the same time defending the integrity of Canada’s sovereignty against a predatory and erratic American president. But Carney should also make time for Parliament.
Mark Carney, reaching out to middle powers, has become a world leader. He cannot avert his eyes from new and expert demands for nuclear disarmament just because Canada does not possess nuclear weapons.
The PM has no qualms about downgrading the environment in omnibus bills so as to not interfere with his capital-intensive building projects.
This is no wonder given Ottawa’s excessive secrecy, limited available financial information, and lack of rigorous monitoring and regulation.
No minister or the prime minster himself is claiming ‘national interest’ projects give Canadians greater transparency when they know the exact opposite is true.
Whatever deal is announced between Canada and Europe comes at an important moment ahead of the vote that could tip the balance of power enough to disrupt the U.S. president’s agenda.
Federal Conservatives should take stock of the warning coming out of B.C.: internal sniping and griping drives voters away.
Reframing wildfire management from a localized provincial concern into a matter of vital national interest will be expensive, and will require serious political will.
Even a popular prime minister needs to answer questions. But MPs need to resist the urge to turn another House sitting into yet another partisan circus. Canadians need real answers. The stakes could not be higher.
While proponents of democracy and political equality are likely not thrilled with the prospect of a throwback to cronyism, the more concerning part of the prime minister’s plan is his intent to recruit Senators from ‘key Canadian strategic industries.’
This bill would modernize and protect Canada’s electoral processes by introducing new ways of combatting threats of foreign interference, disinformation, dark money, ballot manipulation, and the misuse of personal data. It’s not perfect. But it’s a worthwhile first step that parliamentarians should support.
The PQ triumphed at a time when only 27 per cent of Quebecers favour secession, not much of a mandate for anything, let alone tearing Canada asunder.
When people speak of a ‘two-state solution,’ a question arises: will the new Palestinian state be like Costa Rica or Yemen? Perhaps it is why over 90 per cent of Israeli Arabs prefer to stay in Israel rather than to live in a Palestinian state.
Canada and the European Union are now seriously dating but, so far, it has largely been performative and symbolic signalling, with little substance. Details of collaborative endeavours to date are few, but not unreasonably so. We’ll see how far Prime Minister Mark Carney gets.
The ballot’s immigration questions reveal the troubling tendency to scapegoat newcomers for problems politicians have failed to solve.
Ottawa should start treating regional actors as interconnected parts of a single strategic system, no longer realigning around Washington.
Navigating an increasingly multipolar world requires Canada to create institutional ties that extend beyond the usual Euro-Atlantic sphere.
