As a young boy, I reserved a special place in hell for whichever ad executive decided it was time to launch the “back to school” marketing blitz in the midst of my carefree late summer.
The reminder was, in a word, unwelcome.
So, at the risk of being “that guy” for Canada’s Members of Parliament and their hardworking staff, let me join the “back to Parliament” commentary train for Ottawa’s upcoming fall session, which kicks off Sept. 15.
With a review of the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA) looming amid President Donald Trump’s trade war, National Post spoke this week with Canadian political and trade policy expert Laura Dawson. Dawson is the former director of the Canada Institute at the Wilson Center in Washington, D.C., where she focused on bilateral economic issues, including NAFTA/CUSMA. She is now the executive director of the Canada-U.S. Future Borders Coalition and a regular media commentator. Much of Dawson’s work involves advising governments, businesses, and organizations on cross-border trade.
August 24, 2025
From August 15 to 19, 2025, Abacus Data surveyed 1,915 Canadian adults on the state of federal politics. The poll captures public opinion just as Air Canada flight attendants initiated strike action but it’s important to note that many of the interviews were completed prior to that event, and thus this wave does not fully reflect its impact. The same is true for Pierre Poilievre’s byelection victory on Monday.
Mulcair admits what few in the Canadian MSM will
"As the dust settled on the histrionics and bluster of team Trump, it became clear that the Americans had been careful not to breach the Canada-U.S.-Mexico trade agreement (CUSMA).
On that, the Americans were right. How could… pic.twitter.com/y5k6mGIbBh
— cbcwatcher (@cbcwatcher) August 24, 2025
Inevitably, but torturously, this unique moment in the history of this country has come to be understood primarily in hockey terms.
“His elbows have mysteriously gone missing,” Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre said of Prime Minister Mark Carney on Friday. “He’s not thrown one elbow since he took office.”
A few hours earlier, a reporter had warned the prime minister that his critics might say something like that in the wake of his decision to repeal some of Canada’s retaliatory tariffs against American products — that while Carney had once spoken of Canada putting its elbows “up,” now those elbows might be said to be down.
An Ontario family is calling on the provincial government to introduce legislation that would set maximum emergency room wait times for children after their teenage son died following an eight-hour wait for a doctor in a hospital last year.
GJ and Hazel van der Werken, of Burlington, Ont., said their 16-year-old son, Finlay, had a few days of mild illness and was suffering from migraines before his condition began to worsen. Hazel rushed him to Oakville Trafalgar Memorial Hospital on Feb. 7, 2024, she said.
And who received treatment in advance of this young man?
Many Canadians are complaining they can’t reach anyone at the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) by phone to address important tax matters, and the union representing agency workers has joined affected taxpayers in pleading with the federal government to fix the problem.
“It’s just so frustrating and disappointing,” said Krista Tucker Petrick of North Bay, Ont., one of several affected taxpayers interviewed by CBC News.
She said she has been calling the CRA at least twice daily for weeks to deal with her late stepmother’s estate.
h/t DS
After kayaking across the Detroit River earlier this month, an American asylum-seeker stepped into Canada unsure of what to expect, but considers the reaction so far positive – including a stranger giving him $100.
“I hate the fact that I did what I did, but what was my choice? I was scared,” said Dan Livers, 51, of Michigan. “I hope to become a citizen.
Global Affairs Canada has a spending problem.
Taxpayers deserve a full inquiry into the department and Prime Minister Mark Carney needs to take a chainsaw to its $8.6-billion budget.
Bureaucrats at GAC spent taxpayer money treating Canadian women who went to Syria to join ISIS to a luxurious trip back home, according to Global News.
Here’s what Canada’s latest immigration data reveals
Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government has revealed the closely watched statistics on permanent and temporary resident trends after being accused for weeks by the Conservatives of withholding the data.
On Friday, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada updated its webpages with data on arrivals of asylum claimants, international students and foreign workers, as well as applications caught up in the department’s backlog.
Although there are still more than 2.2 million immigration applications awaiting a decision, the number of temporary residents — made up of international students, foreign workers and refugee claimants — declined in the first six months of 2025, compared to the same period last year.
Declined? Not by any material amount. Carney and his pal Wiseman are screwing us over as expected. It is an act of evil.
The article is BULLSHIT PROPAGANDA excreted by the Star on demand.
This is not immigration, it is population replacement.
Pierre Poilievre won the seat that sends him back to Parliament this week to face Mark Carney. We asked two writers what changes for each of the two leaders now.
It’s been a while since I’ve heard anyone say the phrase “elbows up.” That patriotic statement raised the spirits of Canadians when still absorbing the shock of a hostile U.S President. Mark Carney embraced “elbows up” along with a plucky “build, baby,’ build” mantra.
Judging by the results of the election, the slogans played well. And Carney continued on a roll as Prime Minister through diplomacy abroad and engaging provincial premiers at home. But now, Carney faces a more prolonged test in a less comfortable setting — the daily grind and closer scrutiny of a sitting Parliament.
Fugitive arrested at Toronto airport for crash that killed Manitoba mother, daughter: RCMP
A man who avoided Canadian authorities for more than nine months after being accused of driving a semi-trailer truck through a stop sign, causing a crash that killed a Manitoba mother and daughter, was arrested at Toronto’s Pearson International Airport on Thursday.
Navjeet Singh, 25, had been wanted since November for two counts of dangerous operation of a motor vehicle causing death and one count of obstructing a police officer.
OTTAWA — Prime Minister Mark Carney said it’s no longer time for “elbows up” as he announced Friday that Canada will remove retaliatory tariffs on U.S. goods covered by the existing trade agreement between the countries minus those on steel, aluminum and autos.
Carney said the move was designed to match the U.S. decision not to levy tariffs on goods that are compliant with the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA), saying the countries had restored free trade on a “vast majority of our goods.”
Canadians got played.
8 months of fear, lies & elbows-up theatre manufactured to re-elect the Liberals.
Carney’s presser today exposed it all
43% voted Conservative & tried to warn the rest
Fear worked. And that’s why they use it. Forgot about 10 yrs of Liberal destruction pic.twitter.com/FGR5EIWzFg
— Marc Nixon (@MarcNixon24) August 22, 2025
In April, just days before he was elected prime minister, I asked Mark Carney whether Canadians ought to start worrying about the state of things down south.
“The U.S. system is one of checks and balances, famously,” Carney began. At the core of the American system of democracy, he went on, “is the rule of law.” He gave a small shrug: “I expect that to continue.” Without taking a beat, “yes,” the prime minister acknowledged, “I’m concerned.”
The Star is desperate to keep the Elbows Up fear mongering con alive.
WASHINGTON — Canada’s federal police refused to investigate or cooperate with the United States Drug Enforcement Administration on a British Columbia fentanyl superlab probe tied to chemical-precursor shipments from China into Vancouver in late 2022, according to senior U.S. officials. More than a year later — only after the U.S. Treasury sanctioned Iranian-Canadian businessman Bahman Djebelibak and his Health Canada–licensed company Valerian Labs, naming them as part of a Chinese fentanyl trafficking syndicate that Washington sought to disrupt — did the RCMP finally open a siloed investigation. The force continued to refuse coordination or information sharing with the American agents who had initiated the case. In an exclusive interview, Derek Maltz, DEA Acting Administrator in 2025 with oversight of the matter, called the B.C. superlab case a “major disaster.”
Mark Carney changed Canada’s politics, quickly. He won a sudden Liberal leadership race, took power in five days and called a snap election – campaigning on a promise that he would change a lot more, fast.
His was a campaign built on a sense of a country in crisis, under threat from a U.S. president intent on levying punishing tariffs on Canada and undermining its sovereignty.
Mr. Carney argued that this crisis would require swift action. Comprehensive security-and-trade negotiations with Donald Trump. Sweeping away internal trade barriers. Launching major national projects. Redefining relations with the world. Building a stronger, more independent Canada.
