It was quite a week in Canadian politics.
On Monday, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, who polls suggests could win a majority government with more than 200 seats in the next election, suggested he will invoke the notwithstanding clause if he becomes prime minister.
A handful of candidates in Canada’s 2019 federal election “appeared willing” to go along with foreign interference schemes, a federal public inquiry has found.
Commissioner Marie-Josée Hogue’s preliminary report, released Friday, concluded that while hostile states attempted to covertly influence the 2019 and 2021 general elections, those efforts did not change which party took power.
There must be worse ideas than admitting refugees from Gaza into the U.S., but none immediately come to mind.
According to CBS News, one proposal the Biden administration is considering is “using the decades-old United States Refugee Admissions Program to welcome Palestinians with U.S. ties who have managed to escape Gaza and enter neighboring Egypt.” Another possibility is “getting additional Palestinians out of Gaza and processing them as refugees if they have American relatives.”
It used to be that when politicians announced they were stepping down, you got a glimpse of the kinder, gentler side of politics — the joy of public service, the friendships made across party lines.
Now, though, I’ve come to dread learning why many politicians are packing it in — the threats to their safety and mental health, and how the job may not be worth the sacrifice. No longer are we seeing the best side of politics; we’re seeing the worst.
Don’t fall for Pierre Poilievre’s rants that Canada is broken — it’s an insult to Canadians
These are bitter days for those who believe in the essential role of a healthy American democracy on the global stage. Bitter, too, for a large majority of Americans.
For the rest of the world, terrifying.
For those who cannot digest America’s often irritating arrogance, excesses and even humiliating mistakes, there is one unavoidable reality they must face. A world where the United States is ruled by a corrupt autocrat determined to seek revenge on his enemies at home and around the world, would make today’s nightmares pale by comparison.
OTTAWA — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said universities should be places where ideas are debated but they also need to be safe for students, as a growing number of encampments protesting Israel’s war in Gaza have been set up at Canadian schools.
“Universities are places where the freedom of speech, the freedom of ideas, the challenge of debate, of dialogue, of discussion about how to shape the world, how to see the world, how to go on out after university or college and lead the world are a core part of what campuses are all about,” Trudeau told reporters while visiting Hamilton, Ont. on Friday.
Foreign interference in 2019 and 2021 undermined the right of Canadian voters to have an electoral system “free from coercion or covert influence” and may have affected results in a small number of ridings, a public inquiry has concluded in the first of two reports.
While foreign meddling did not alter the overall outcome of those elections, Commissioner Marie-Josée Hogue, a justice of the Quebec Court of Appeal, issued a call to action Friday for the government to vigorously enact measures to tackle this “malign” threat to Canadian democracy.
Just over a month into the new fiscal year and two weeks after the federal budget, the Department of National Defence is struggling to reconcile the Liberal government’s approach to military funding — giving with one hand while taking with the other.
Gen. Wayne Eyre, the country’s top military commander, told the rank-and-file in a remote town hall event last week that he doesn’t have answers to crucial questions about how internal budget cuts and funding reallocation square with promises of additional money in the recently released defence policy.
“We’re being asked to suck and blow at the same time,” Eyre, the chief of the defence staff, told about 1,300 members of the Armed Forces who tuned in for the presentation. A video copy of his presentation was obtained by CBC News.
Canadian police have arrested members of an alleged hit squad investigators believe was tasked by the government of India with killing prominent Sikh separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Surrey, B.C. last June, CBC News has learned.
Sources close to the investigation also told CBC News that police are actively investigating possible links to three additional murders in Canada, including the shooting death of an 11-year-old boy in Edmonton.
At the very beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, when toilet paper was trading like white gold and no one quite knew what the next few weeks or months would hold, Galen Weston Jr., then CEO of Loblaw, appeared in the inboxes of Canadians and tried to assure them that everything would be okay. “Do not worry,” wrote Uncle Galen. “We are not running out of food or essential supplies.”
What will it take for the federal government to deal seriously with Chinese technology theft?
I imagine everyone has heard the phrase “shooting the messenger.” This refers to a tactic where a person who receives bad news, or information that is unwelcome, decides to take his frustration and anger out on the individual who brought it to his attention in the first place. In other words, rather that deal with the consequences of the data and figure out mitigating strategies, just harangue the bearer of bad news. Not a great strategy in all honesty, but one that is used all too frequently.
The majority of Canadian retirees are supporting their adult children financially, which they say is having a negative impact on their own finances, a new report has found.
According to Fidelity Investments Canada’s annual retirement report for 2024, 59 per cent of retirees report helping their non-student adult children with both day-to-day expenses and big-ticket items like home purchases, weddings and even education savings for their grandchildren.
If an election were held today, 44% of committed voters would vote Conservatives with the Liberals at 23%, the NDP at 17% and the Greens at 4%. The BQ is at 33% in Quebec.
There has been no significant change in any of the party vote shares since our latest survey, but at 21-points, this Conservative lead represents the largest we have ever measured for the party.
Internal budget cuts at the Department of National Defence are being blamed for the Canadian Armed Forces decision to make radical changes to training for fighter pilots and for soldiers destined for Latvia — an overhaul that experts warn could undermine military readiness.
The army is no longer requiring that troops headed for deployment in Eastern Europe take part in a major qualifying exercise at the base in Wainwright, Alta., the department said in a media statement issued after CBC News asked questions.
