Ontario needs a significant plan to reverse the trend in housing construction and today’s Ontario budget is unlikely to deliver it.
Only 67.6 new housing units per 100,000 population were built in the first quarter of 2025, the lowest level since the Q1 of 1996, according to Statistics Canada.
Thousands of Ontario residential construction workers are unemployed in a province where the need for housing has never been greater. Ontario unemployment now stands at 7.8 per cent with significant construction sector job losses in April. Construction unions and real builders can only remain complacent about this for so long.
PCs plan: push harder with approach that hasn’t worked
Yet, the province’s most recent legislation, Bill 17, introduced Monday, offers no reason to believe it will succeed where the many earlier iterations of the same approach have so evidently failed.
The legislation continues to play with development charges and approvals processes. Streamlining approvals is fine, but off-target in a province where very few are seeking project approvals.
Two-thirds of Canadians choose to buy their housing and many more would like to own.
Construction of single-family housing, typically owner occupied, has collapsed due to a lack of demand under current unaffordable prices. The average price of a benchmark home in the Greater Toronto Area rose from $757,000 in Jun 2018 to $1,313,000 in June 2022. Prices are since down, but financing costs are up from the low levels of 2020-2022.
The result has been a market stand-off with investors holding back supply, trying to maintain price levels, and buyers unable to pay the prices being demanded.
The condominium sector is in utter collapse not because there’s a lack of housing demand but because developers built for demand from owner-investors, not owner-residents.
An investor buying a “dog crate” condo of less than 500 or 600 square feet could churn enough tenants through at high rents to pay a low finance cost mortgage. But with higher finance costs and falling asking rents, demand from owner-investors has evaporated.
Now the Toronto condo model premised on investor-ownership no longer makes financial sense. The result is a massive supply of terrible quality housing on the market at distressed prices. They make no sense an as investment and few people want to buy one for occupancy.
Can the home ownership dream be rebuilt?
The result of market failures has been that perhaps the only housing sector holding up has been apartment buildings construction for corporate ownership. While Ontario needs all the housing it can get, more corporate rental units do not provide the same benefits as housing ownership, either of a house or condo.
Security of tenure, the possibility of one day living both rent- and mortgage-free, the end of dependance on unreliable maintenance — there are many good reasons two-thirds of Canadians choose to buy their housing and many more would like to own. They are not wrong.
Home ownership shouldn’t be a get-rich plan, but it should be a reasonable and attainable goal for far more people. While focusing on the rights of tenants and protecting affordable rents is critical, Ontarians want political leadership that helps them meet their dreams.
The Ford PCs and their federal Liberal allies have crushed those dreams. The NDP in Ontario and federally have mostly ignored them. Perhaps the social democrats should consider that protecting renters while rekindling the home ownership dream is not a sell-out or contradiction.
By now the members of Council who spent five days in Holland commemorating the liberation of that country 80 years ago are back home
Mayor Meed Ward at a wreath placing event in Apeldoorn with the Mayor of that city.
Little by little we learn just how many people were on what can now be fairly called a junket. The Mayor took her husband with her; Councillor Galbraith, who was not part of the official delegation, is believed to have taken one of his older children with him and Councillor Nisan is understood to have taken members of his family with him as well.
They will individually picked up the cost of the airfare and whatever increase there might have been in accommodation. As for meals – did family members attend any of the official events.
Given the tight economic conditions and the voiced public concern about fiscal responsibility, it might have been wiser for the Mayor to travel with one person, lay the wreath, attend the critical events and returned to Canada.
The Teen Tour Band has its own budget as does the Mundialization committee.
The word we are getting from people is that this city council doesn’t understand what fiscal responsibility is.
We’ve learned as well that the Mayor sent a note to all of the administrative assistants working for the members of Council suggesting language that might be used when people ask about the trip to Holland.
There’s a term that policy types throw around when they’re talking about defence spending: “dual-use infrastructure.” The idea is that you want to build something to defend your country, but at the same time you’re building something civilians can use as well, like roads or ports.
After the most polarized election vote in nearly a century in terms of party preference, the new minority Liberal government should look at all its policy moves as “dual use.” They can tackle key policy challenges while simultaneously addressing the needs of Canadians who live in rural communities and in Western Canada – voters who want change and attention to their issues.
Beyond the bilateral negotiations with the United States that will be Job One, the new cabinet will have a monumental challenge ahead to decide how to prioritize its policy agenda.
Here are four areas where it can help to address cleavages across the country.
Zero in on the most vulnerable communities and their workers
This is not the time for “chicken in every pot” policies. Communities most vulnerable to U.S. tariffs tend to be smaller cities, rural towns or remote communities (Indigenous included), our analysis has shown.
Focusing on these communities is a smart strategy, not a handout. Most are not economically diverse, but they make many of the goods Canada exports. Facing an external threat that could upend their community is strong motivation to embrace the types of pivots the country needs to reduce our overall vulnerability to the whims of foreign leaders.
Local economic-development leaders can see where the best opportunities are for new export-oriented investments and understand what’s needed to unlock them. Those leaders should be supported by higher levels of government. Colleges and other learning institutions are often best equipped to partner with nearby communities and local businesses to help workers transition to new types of work.
The federal government has organizations that can be directed to support the effort, including the network of Community Futures Organizations across the country that helped to quickly roll out supports to businesses during the pandemic. If these organizations were given the mandate and resources to provide grants and loans for strategic economic development initiatives linked to diversifying Canada’s exports, they could leverage the power of communities and businesses across the country.
Develop an industrial policy that is truly strategic
To respond to the Trump tariffs, Canada will have to produce more eggs for more baskets. In other words – find new markets for its goods but also expand the types of goods that it exports.
Lithion Saint-Bruno in June 2024, shortly after the commercial plant was completed in Saint-Bruno-de-Montarville, east of Montreal. The plant dismantles and shreds lithium-ion batteries to produce black mass, a composite material rich in minerals that can be used to make new batteries. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Christinne Muschi
Clean electricity is also of strategic interest, particularly in Western, Northern and Atlantic Canada. We need far more power to capture opportunities in LNG exports, critical minerals, data centres, manufacturing, and possibly even power exports to Europe. If that power isn’t low emission, it will deterinvestorsand derail climate-change goals. Governments will have to expand power supply and the transmission infrastructure to get it where it is needed while keeping electricity rates affordable. That is not an easy task.
Agriculture is also ahuge opportunity, especially for rural and Western Canada, thanks to growing global demand and a Buy Canadian sentiment. Tearing down interprovincial barriers to trade will help, but there are constraints on therailandportinfrastructure needed to access international markets. It will also be challenging to expand food processing in ways that are cost competitive with U.S. suppliers.
The good news is that the federal government has the tools to galvanize large-scale private investment and help businesses overcome obstacles.
The Canada Infrastructure Bank is hitting its stride in securing major private investments and partnering with Indigenous communities. The Canada Growth Fund – the $15-billion federal fund run by PSP investments – has the financial tools to de-risk projects and unlock investment to decarbonize the economy. Adding a broader export-diversification imperative to their mandates would not be a significant stretch. Export Development Canada already has export diversification as part of its mandate and could be a collaborative partner to these organizations.
Address affordability issues in rural Canada
More than four million Canadians live in low-density areas – rural, remote, Indigenous, and northern communities – where personal vehicles are often the only transportation option. For those unable to drive due to cost, age, or ability, limited alternatives can deepen inequities, limit job and learning opportunities, and threaten health and safety.
A key way to address affordability issues is to tackle transportation. The federal government must join forces with provincial, territorial, and Indigenous partners to build a bold new vision for passenger travel in Canada – one that closes service gaps by strategically expanding and leveraging federal infrastructure funding.
The 2013 Vision for Transportation in Canada is long overdue for an update. It must go beyond the status quo to address critical service gaps, particularly in inter-regional bus and rail networks. Improved data collection is essential. Statistics Canada should do a national survey that reflects the full scope of household travel – not just commutes to work, but trips for health care, education, and connection to community. Without this data, meaningful policy is difficult.
Expanding infrastructure funding and expanding Via Rail’s routes, frequency, and affordability would provide critical lifelines between underserved communities. And to truly support rural mobility, the Rural Transit Solutions Fund must be expanded – not just to support the cost of new vans or minibuses, but also to cover essential operating costs like leased vehicles and salaries.
The rail line and Via station in Churchill, Manitoba, July 2018. The closure of the port and the rail line resulted in economic hardship in the community. THE CANADIAN PRESS/John Woods
Nurture shared citizenship and belonging
The Trump tariffs have produced a rare wave of solidarity among Canadians, and it’s made all the more powerful by the fact that it has arisen from the grassroots up. There’s also a current of relief running through the country. People are reassured to see something that finally connects them to their neighbours and that amorphous feeling of Canadianness.
What can a federal government do to support a feeling of shared Canadian identity? It’s a complicated question that many organizations in Canada are anxious to explore.
One of the answers lies with the thoughtful integration of newcomers into the country – from recognizing their educational and professional credentials to making them feel included in our neighbourhoods, schools and workplaces. A healthy news-media environment is key, with robust outlets at the local, regional and national level.
And the role of other civil-society institutions is vitally important, including faith communities, the arts, sports, and volunteer organizations. More research, and ultimately action, is sorely needed in this area. The IRPP addressed some of these issues in its report on Canadian institutions and the COVID-19 pandemic.
Canada has always been a challenging country to govern, given our geography and relatively small population, the dynamics of a bilingual and bicultural system, and the original sin of not building the federation in partnership with Indigenous Peoples from the outset. But we can continue to beat the odds – and Donald Trump – by making sure policy decisions also strengthen the ties that bind us, whether they’re between urban-rural, east-west, north-south, or even just neighbour-to-neighbour.
Jennifer Ditchburn is the president and CEO of the Institute for Research on Public Policy. From 2016 to 2021, she was editor-in-chief of Policy Options. Prior to joining the IRPP, Jennifer spent two decades covering national and parliamentary affairs for The Canadian Press and for CBC Television. She is the co-editor with Graham Fox of The Harper Factor: Assessing a Prime Minister’s Policy Legacy (McGill-Queen’s).
Be careful what you ask for. Mr. Poilievre had wanted a ‘change’ election and the voters in his riding made his wish a reality. According to his Liberal opponent, Bruce Fanjoy, Poilievre had taken his constituents for granted while Fanjoy worked hard for their support. That this is the kind of rural riding which typically supports the Conservatives makes the Tory leader’s loss all that much more noteworthy.
Poilievre is an impressive speaker but having spent all his ammunition taking down Justin Trudeau became gob-smacked when it came to the main campaign issue, Donald Trump. But then nothing in his resume has equipped him to deal with the tariff challenge. Mr. Poilievre has spent his life out of the real world, either as a politician or a backroom political operative. Even Trudeau had held a real job as a teacher, by comparison.
On Tuesday Canadians chose someone with the kind of experience they felt was needed to lead the country through this existential crisis. Recognized as an accomplished and successful corporate leader, Mr. Carney had headed up one of the world’s, largest pension investment companies with over US$900 billion in assets.
Mark Carney: An Oxford trained economist.
An Oxford trained economist, Carney successfully played a leadership role in the fight against inflation and recession – Canada’s economic crisis of 2008 and the UK’s BREXIT transition. But perhaps just as important is his professional association with world leaders including those in the UK, France, and even the US president. In the end Canadians voted for competence – qualification and experience.
For the most important job in the land – CEO of Canada – Canadians voted for merit.
The word on the street is that the Tory leader will seek another riding, likely in Conservative safe Alberta but not until a by-election can be arranged. His caustic voice will not be missed in Parliament in the meantime. Also missing from the Commons will be the NDP leader Singh, who placed third in his own riding, and has decided to call it quits.
This election has demonstrated the challenges of third parties in our first-past-the-post electoral system. The NDP had been a merger of the socialist CCF with Canada’s organized labour movement. That is a potentially powerful political alliance given that nearly one in three workers in Canada is covered by a union contract.
But labour has become an unfaithful partner for the NDP. Mr. Poilievre is one of those Conservatives who relates better to the workers than their bosses. Following in the footsteps Donald Trump, he spent considerable effort attracting the blue collar vote. It is an interesting scenario that would see a right wing politician appealing to the blue collar crowd. Somehow tax cutting proposals, intended primarily for the well off, have became an issue the working person could get behind. And of course there were the vacuous promises about affordability.
And his efforts paid off. Fourteen Canadian labour unions and organizations, including several police associations, rewarded the Tories with their support. They even won ridings in labour rich Windsor and Hamilton. The Liberals have also benefitted from labour union support over time, and the largest labour union in Quebec opted to endorse the Bloc in this election.
Elizabeth May – the only Green in the House of Commons.
The Green Party had it’s platform stolen by Justin Trudeau back a decade ago and in the end only Elizabeth May managed to be elected, largely on her personal popularity. The libertarian People’s Party has never won a seat, even after running candidates in most ridings across the country.
With the other opposition parties now in relative disarray, the Bloc has suggested something like a truce – to give the Liberals at least a year in order to keep Trump from crashing through the border. The Greens lost their co-leader and the NDP have lost both their leader and their formal party status. They will need to assess their relevance as political parties at this time – and whether they might better serve their supporters as a wing or movement within either of the two main parties.
Pierre Poilievre: nothing in his resume has equipped him to deal with the tariff challenge.
It’ll take time to see if Mr. Poilievre comes back or ends up as just another disposable leader in a party frustrated in it’s ambition to become Canada’s natural governing party. Meanwhile, Mr. Carney will have his hands full fighting for Canadian unity against a mischievous US president while dodging grenades from the disgruntled partisan separatists in Alberta.
These western separatists, representing the wealthiest provinces in the union, are threatening to leave Canada only because they hate Liberals. If only there were a Conservative party leader who could knock some sense into its huge western base. But then, that might help the new PM in his efforts to unite the country?
Ray Rivers, a Gazette Contributing Editor, writes regularly applying his more than 25 years as a federal bureaucrat to his thinking. Rivers was once a candidate for provincial office in Burlington. He was the founder of the Burlington citizen committee on sustainability at a time when climate warming was a hotly debated subject. Ray has a post graduate degree in economics that he earned at the University of Ottawa. Tweet @rayzrivers
Ripper: The Making of Pierre Poilievre is the title of a book written by Mark Bourrie and reviewed by Charlotte Gray for the Globe and Mail who points out that Ripper has one message: The Pierre Poilievre we see today is the same person as the teenager he was in Calgary’s Reform Party backrooms. Mark Bourrie describes that 1990s teenager as “the political equivalent of a hockey goon,” and argues that he hasn’t adjusted his behaviour or outlook since then.
“However, to understand Canada’s “Trump-lite,” Bourrie argues, we need to acknowledge the global socioeconomic changes that have spawned a crop of right-wing dictators, and caused the deterioration of traditional journalism and public discourse. To borrow terms coined by New York Times columnist David Brooks, the public sphere is inhabited by “weavers,” who strive for social consensus, and “rippers,” who see politics as a war that gives their life meaning.
“Poilievre’s adolescent views and tactics, typical of a ripper, didn’t need to evolve as he clambered up the greasy pole. He had the good fortune to be in tune with the times – times that have produced anxious, angry voters likely to embrace a right-wing ripper. Doors kept opening for him, and he scrambled straight through them until the Conservative Leader could almost taste victory in the coming federal election.
“Bourrie’s portrait of Poilievre could hardly be more critical, describing him as the angriest person on Canada’s political stage and the nastiest leader of a major party in this country’s history.
“I’ve got nothing against him as a person,” Bourrie insists, but adds that “he’s an angry teenager in the body of a grown man. That makes him a stellar opposition politician. It’s a bad combination in a prime minister.”
“For 375 pages (plus a further 50 pages of eccentric end notes), Bourrie makes his case. He relied for evidence on a mountain of press clippings, a raft of political books and deep dives into the explosive growths of social media and fake news, which he explored in two previous books. He synthesized an enormous amount of information, wrote at an astonishing pace (150,000 words in nine months) and produced a narrative that mixes careful analysis, punchy prose, ironic quips and outrage at Poilievre’s success.
“The result, although uneven, is a gripping read. But does Bourrie prove his point?
“Much of the biographical material in Ripper is familiar, chronicled (with a positive spin) most recently in Andrew Lawton’s biography of Poilievre. Bourrie quickly provides the basic facts. Marlene Poilievre, a passionate Tory and devout Catholic, began taking her son to Conservative riding association meetings and anti-abortion rallies when he was only 14.
“Poilievre was soon absorbing economic views shaped by Milton Friedman and attending seminars conducted by the right-wing Fraser Institute.
“Enrolling at the University of Calgary in 1997, Poilievre polished his political skills as a debater who was soon giving short, pithy quotes to Calgary Herald reporters at Reform events. Lawton enthused about the sharp-elbowed rookie’s commitment, but Bourrie deplores Poilievre’s aggressive tone. The politician, he writes, was making “dire, overthe-top claims of a debilitating national problem” and using “harsh and cruel” language as he blamed opponents.
“Bourrie embeds these glimpses of the young politician in the larger story of Alberta’s postwar history, and the way that Western Canadian alienation was disrupting the Progressive Conservative Party.
“Similarly, when Bourrie tracks Poilievre’s shift to Ottawa in 1999, and his 2004 election (at 25, the youngest MP in the Commons) in the riding of Nepean-Carleton, the author enriches the Poilievre chronology with context, including the capital’s social culture and the Reform Party’s conquest of the Conservative Party.
Poilievre showed little interest in the intellectual challenge of policy development.
“Poilievre pulled ahead of his peers – “strange, nerdy, socially isolated young conservatives” in Bourrie’s words – because he knew what the media wanted: “good quote and great footage.” While Jean Chrétien and Paul Martin led the country, Poilievre was one of the opposition’s most effective critics of Liberal corruption.
“Increased media exposure fed on itself, as he went after daycare programs, gay marriage and bilingualism, and found catchy nicknames for his opponents (Martin was “the king of cronyism.”).
“When the Conservatives formed the government in 2006, Poilievre became prime minister Steven Harper’s attack dog in Question Period. His strategy, Bourrie writes, was to “smear the person trying to do the embarrassing.”
“Occasionally, he strayed from the Harper playbook. On the day that the prime minister issued an apology to Indigenous people for the residential-school system, Poilievre stole the headlines by publicly questioning whether Canadians were getting value for money from the $2-billion compensation paid to survivors. Harper made him apologize in the House.
“During these years, Conservatives raced ahead of other parties in new political techniques of data gathering and analysis, which exponentially improved their voter identification and fundraising capacities. Poilievre’s quick hits and nifty slogans were tailormade, in our rushed digital age, to appeal to voters pinpointed by technology as open to his message.
“He was finally rewarded with a cabinet role in 2013, as Canada’s first minister of democratic reform. His real job, according to Bourrie, was to “whack Elections Canada.” He introduced a Fair Elections Act that editorial writers at both the National Post and The Globe and Mail deplored as destructive.
“During the nine years of Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government, Poilievre (now Conservative finance critic) was relentlessly on the attack. Trudeau’s Liberals provided him with plenty of targets. Poilievre labelled the prime minister “a corrupt tin-pot dictator” and accused finance minister Bill Morneau of losing the “moral authority to hold your office.”
“When he finally ran for the leadership of his party, in 2022, his victory was decisive. Tellingly, Erin O’Toole, the man he replaced, warned, “This country needs a Conservative Party that is both an intellectual force and a governing force. … Seeking power without ideology is hubris.”
“But Poilievre showed little interest in the intellectual challenge of policy development. Instead, he stayed in the headlines with slogans and sneers, bashing the “radical, woke coalition” of Liberals and NDP and reserving special venom for Trudeau.
“His mastery of social media (he has one million followers on X), YouTube (more than half a million followers) and partisan Tory outlets has allowed him to create his own media environment. Instead of answering questions from the dwindling legacy media about his solutions to all the problems bedevilling this country.
Poilievre: a viciously brilliant critic who has shown no potential, as yet, to become a weaver who could bring the country together.
“Bourrie demonstrates how deftly Poilievre ensured that his manipulation of facts and his insistence that “Canada is broken” never received much scrutiny. His standing in opinion polls rose and rose.
“The author acknowledges that Poilievre has a more agreeable side, as an excellent constituency member and family man who has spoken up for children with autism. But Bourrie conclusively proves his point that the politician is an Olympic-class ripper, a viciously brilliant critic who has shown no potential, as yet, to become a weaver who could bring the country together.
“Ripper does more than paint a dark picture of the Conservative Leader. The author gives serious attention to the question: How did we get here? How did Canada – a country once celebrated for civility and compromise – elevate a politician who has surfed on division and disrespect?
“This past January, Poilievre’s expectations of an easy victory at the polls were shattered by the Liberal leadership race and Trump’s tariff threat. The skills that Poilievre has burnished over the past 30 years no longer seem to fit the moment. He is finally out of step with his times.
“Bourrie has produced a searing but convincing critique of the Conservative Leader’s shortcomings that will give pause to anyone outside the diehard Poilievre base. The politician’s insistence that “Canada is broken” has been cast aside in a wave of nationalism. Voters may decide that an angry ripper may not be what Canada needs right now.”
“The Conservative leader says that only one per cent of single-use plastics find their way into the environment every year, with the rest being recycled.” (CBC News Posted: Apr 18, 2025)
That has to be a misquote. Nobody running for prime minister on behalf of a major political party could be that ignorant. The real numbers from both US and Canadian environmental agencies is that something like 90% or more plastic packaging ends up in landfills or the environment rather than being recycled.
Half of single-use plastic waste produced by just 20 companies
And over 80% of Canadians, according to recent polling, support the single use plastics ban, including something like 70% of Conservatives. But Poilievre must be appealing to that other 30% who make up the extreme right wing of the Conservative Party of Canada (CPC). And it appears he is following the lead of the US president who, only days ago, eliminated the US ban on plastic straws claiming…“I don’t think plastic is going to affect a shark very much, as they’re munching their way through the ocean”.
Poilievre had been hoping to be the one to ‘axe-the-carbon-tax’. But then Mr. Carney beat him to it. So Mr. Poilievre has dreamt up some numbers and is calling the plastic bag ban just another tax – a ‘food-tax’ – that he needs to axe. And here again he may not get the chance. While the ban is still in force, it is currently under court review over a technicality.
Mr. Poilievre shuns the label MAGA, though he had been endorsed by Elon Musk. Perhaps it’s his Canadian version of ‘drill-baby-drill’ that Musk, the EV maker, ironically admires. Or it might be the Tory leader’s threat to defund Canada’s national broadcaster, in line with Donald Trump’s promises to defund NPR and the Public Broadcasting Service. But seriously, the primary purpose of the CBC is to inform and enlighten Canadians, and to engender a shared national consciousness and identity. What could be more important for Canadians in this time of national crisis?
Over 70% of Canadians want to see handguns banned.
And then there is the Tory leader’s stand on public safety. He has promised to keep repeat murders behind bars until it’s time to leave prison in a wooden box. And since that might be unconstitutional he would be the first PM to invoke the ‘notwithstanding clause’ to keep them there. But this tough love on crime is a peculiar position for someone who has opposed every single gun control measure in Parliament, and who is refusing to say if he’d relax handgun laws. Being soft on gun ownership may be politically astute south of border in MAGA country but over 70% of Canadians want to see handguns banned.
This is being touted as the most important election in recent memory, and voter turnout at the advance polls has broken all records. There has been a coalescence of the voting public towards the two traditional parties and that is prompting speculation that this might become permanent. Two centrist parties alternating turns at governing is what works best in our first-past-the-post electoral system. But will that be sustainable with one centrist party and the other a kind of MAGA Canadian?
Ray Rivers, a Gazette Contributing Editor, writes regularly applying his more than 25 years as a federal bureaucrat to his thinking. Rivers was once a candidate for provincial office in Burlington. He was the founder of the Burlington citizen committee on sustainability at a time when climate warming was a hotly debated subject. Ray has a post graduate degree in economics that he earned at the University of Ottawa. Tweet @rayzrivers
Is this a good time to look at what the political leadership in the country might look like once all the ballots have been cast and everyone sworn in and settled in the House of Commons seats?
Jagmeet Singh
Should Jagmeet Singh lose his seat in Burnaby South– who replaces him as leader of the New Democrats?
Pierre Poilievre
If Pierre Poilievre loses the election by a number larger than the pollsters are suggesting – what do the Conservatives do? Hold a Leadership review? And what if the Conservatives decide Poilievre has to go – who do they choose to replace him?
It looks like Carney is going to win the election, but what if he has a plurality of just one seat – who does he look to for support?
Mark Carney
And what does a week Liberal majority do to the strength that Carney said he needs to confront Donald Trump?
The political debates in Canada’s federal election this year are over. As is often the case, there were no winners in either of the two debates held in each of the country’s official languages. If anything, Mark Carney as the front runner deserves credit for largely surviving the assault in both debates by the other three political leaders.
Prime Minister Mark Carney
Carney is not your typical politician. He is an academic and an intellectual with an impressive resume of achievements. And, he’s clearly not very comfortable in the political bun fight. He was barraged by attacks from all sides and seemed overwhelmed at times. But he did maintain his cool, added some occasional humour and brought forward methodical rebuttal arguments.
Carney appeared to become defensive about his decision to eliminate the consumer carbon tax and as he discussed his time as Brookfield CEO. Even his gotcha question about Poilievre’s security clearance didn’t really work for him. And Carney, the economist, failed to admonish Poilievre for his erroneous assumptions on the cause of our post pandemic inflation.
Unlike the other leaders, particularly Poilievre, he was courteous and polite with his responses, rarely, if ever, interrupting someone speaking. Clearly he is more used to the etiquette of the board room than to cut-throat political theatre. Still, he survived the onslaught and methodically made some good points, though he delivered no serious blows and failed to decimate his opponents. In this high stakes poker game we call politics he left a lot of money on the table.
Pierre Poilievre used almost all of his time to effectively regurgitate his well rehearsed stump speech. There was really nothing new in anything he said but he repeated it well. Perhaps he is waiting for his actual platform to be released. However, he reached beyond logic to defend his decision to become the first federal leader to want to invoke the notwithstanding clause.
It all became very annoying, the robotic repetition of his familiar attack dog routine – the lost Liberal decade and how he’d bury the Impact Assessment Act, Bill 69, which actually hasn’t stopped any pipelines yet. There were times when I wanted to turn off the volume or fast forward the tape just to escape the monotony.
Also, at times it seems he’d forgotten that he wasn’t running against Justin Trudeau. Perhaps having demolished Trudeau’s character he was now hoping to tar Carney with the same brush. And there was this certain air of desperation – as if this was all he had in his quiver. It seems that in this crisis all he is offering are tax cuts, building more pipelines and exporting more oil.
Jagmeet Singh was passionate and seemed sincere for the most part.
Jagmeet Singh was passionate and seemed sincere for the most part. He jumped in several times to defend Carney on matters of fact, something admirable for a political leader hoping to actually win voters back from the Liberals. But he levelled his own attacks as well. His messages hadn’t really changed since the last election – save health care and do something about affordability. It was as if this were just another election in normal times for him.
Singh’s party can lay legitimate claim to publicly supported health care, and more recently dental, child and pharmaceutical care. Though he was always a junior partner to the Liberals in implementing these social programs. If he had an industrial policy he was hiding it. This may well be his last federal debate as he is fighting for his political life, and that of his party in this election.
Bloc leader Yves-François Blanchet
Bloc leader Blanchet was delightful at times in both debates and he made his points well. But he is a parochial regional leader whose ultimate goal is removing Quebec from Canada. He has admitted he’ll never be prime minister and doesn’t even like to speak English in Montreal. The debate commission has come under a lot of criticism for excluding the Greens and Peoples parties. That they continue to give air time to a regional separatist party is almost absurd, though some would say it is just the Canadian way.
The biggest criticism goes to the moderator of the English debate, Steve Paikin. This was supposed to be a debate, not a shouting match. Yet he let Singh and Poilievre cross talk, over Carney’s and over each others’ answers. Excuse me but I wanted to hear what each of the candidates had to say.
The moderator of the French language debate was much better at keeping the debate under control and much fairer to all the debaters. He actually cut off Singh’s mic at one point after Singh went off topic and started ranting about health care funding. Paikin noted that he’d watched the debate in French, but he clearly hadn’t learned anything from it.
Also, Paikin’s time clock for each leader didn’t add up. Some leaders seemed to have far more speaking time than others. Poilievre got the best camera shots, often avoiding the obtrusive podium in the picture. It’s almost like the CBC had forgotten that he’s promising to shut down the network and fire them all if he wins.
Pierre Poilievre responding to Mark Carney
In the end, this election is a contest between the two traditional political parties. Conservative leader Poilievre came across as a smooth talking career politician with little or no business or management experience and with a plan for Canada’s future built on tax cuts and exporting more oil and gas.
Mark Carney on the other hand came across as a rather lacklustre debater who nevertheless comes with a proven record in international negotiation, impressive top level business and public service experience, and a visionary perspective for rebuilding all of Canada. That’s how I saw it anyway.
Ray Rivers, a Gazette Contributing Editor, writes regularly applying his more than 25 years as a federal bureaucrat to his thinking. Rivers was once a candidate for provincial office in Burlington. He was the founder of the Burlington citizen committee on sustainability at a time when climate warming was a hotly debated subject. Ray has a post graduate degree in economics that he earned at the University of Ottawa. Tweet @rayzrivers
Would it be correct to say that politics and sports are a large part of what defines us a country?
How then do we explain to people who are not Canadians, do not live here, that there was an occasion when the country was in the middle of a leadership debate and getting ready to decide who was going to be the next Prime Minister and that the debate scheduled was moved back an hour so the voters could watch a hockey game.
The Montreal Canadiens were scheduled to play against the Carolina Hurricanes in Montreal.
Prime Minister Mark Carney
The Stanley Cup
The Canadiens have their own form of sainthood in the eyes of the French-Canadian population.
So the debate was moved back an hour, the Canadiens went on to win the game which meant they would be one of the teams vying for the Stanley Cup.
With five Canadian teams in the playoffs – there is a decent chance that the Stanley Cup will return to Canada – where it belongs, IMHO.
And again, IMHO, the country will get the Prime Minister it needs and we can watch how he manages an American President who has decided he will annex Canada and make it their 51 state.
Ross Perot, who ran for president in 1992 had it right when he called NAFTA a ‘giant sucking sound’. NAFTA has not been a great deal for America, or Canada, especially when it comes to the automobile. Between 1994 and 2004 Canada’s share of North American auto production tumbled from almost 15% to just over 8%. The US lost significant market share as well. And Mexico became the big winner – rocketing from barely 7% to over a quarter of all the cars built in this continent.
Donald Trump had ranted but done little in his first term to correct that trade imbalance, ultimately endorsing the USMCA which replaced NAFTA. But once re-elected he armed himself with ‘yes men’ and set out to change the way America operates. And in the on-and-off world of Trump’s import tariffs he has now whacked the auto sector with 25%.
Canada has a long history of auto production. Ford Motors started operations here in 1904, and by 1923 Canada became the second largest auto producer in the world and a major exporter of autos and auto parts. Today we’re not even in the top ten.
So, those autoworkers who are being laid off in Windsor and Ingersoll have more than Mr. Trump’s 25% tariffs to blame. But the tariff threat has put a chill in everyone working upstream and downstream in the auto industry. The mere suggestion of plant closures at Honda put all of Ontario on edge, for example.
Brian Mulroney
It was Mr. Mulroney who killed the Canada-US auto trade pact in favour of his multi-sectoral trade deal with the Americans (NTA). He wrote off the auto pact which had ensured that the big three auto companies would build at least one car for every one they sold here. And then Mr. Chretien brought Mexico into our trade deal and the three amigos created NAFTA…and that giant sucking sound.
Not everyone is crying doom and gloom about Trump’s automobile tariffs. A recent article in ‘Driving’ magazine (see links) in fact, is rather upbeat about the prospects for the Canadian auto industry. To a large extent that is because of the way the Carney government has responded with our own counter tariffs and the provision of support for the Canadian auto makers to minimize the impacts.
Mark Carney
Mark Carney has spoken about re-imaging Canada’s manufacturing sector, and re-engineering our economy. He has referenced the need for public involvement, public-private partnerships and greater foreign investment in rebuilding our manufacturing sector, and especially the auto and defence industries. And he (if he’s still PM) and Trump have agreed to start negotiations next month on sectoral trade arrangements, which will form the backbone of our future trading relationship with the US.
In the meantime Canadians need to focus on our own future. That means doing more of what we have started doing even in the brief moment since Trump’s tariffs were announced – building Canadian, growing Canadian and buying Canadian.
Ray Rivers, a Gazette Contributing Editor, writes regularly applying his more than 25 years as a federal bureaucrat to his thinking. Rivers was once a candidate for provincial office in Burlington. He was the founder of the Burlington citizen committee on sustainability at a time when climate warming was a hotly debated subject. Ray has a post graduate degree in economics that he earned at the University of Ottawa. Tweet @rayzrivers
“Voters, particularly in central and Atlantic Canada, need to recognize that a vote for the Carney Liberals is a vote for Western secession — a vote for the breakup of Canada as we know it,”(Former Reform Party Leader, Preston Manning)
Danielle Smith: Her ‘Alberta Sovereignty Within a United Canada Act’ is unconstitutional and borders on traitorous.
Danielle Smith has been taunting the federal government ever since she became Alberta premier. Her ‘Alberta Sovereignty Within a United Canada Act’ is unconstitutional and borders on traitorous. But now she is out to make more trouble, particularly since the polls no longer show her favourite federal candidate leading.
She recently reached-out to the Quebec government asking them to join her in plotting the break up of Canada as we know it. Unfortunately for her, separation is not upper most in the minds of Quebecers today. They appear to like the idea of a strong federal government to defend their hard won linguistic and cultural rights against a menacing American president.
Besides, that must seem like a strange request from someone who wants to end Quebec’s receipt of national equalization payments because wealthy Alberta doesn’t receive any. And it is even stranger that Smith would offer to go to bed with the province, which more than any other, has stood in the way of her dream of an east-west oil pipeline.
Both Justin Trudeau and Mark Carney have talked about federal-provincial unity and a Team Canada approach to managing the current US trade crisis. Yet Alberta and, to a lesser degree. Saskatchewan are not team players. Extracting even more oil out of the tar sands and their subservience to corporate big oil are their priorities.
It is greed pure and simple. Alberta and Saskatchewan are already the wealthiest provinces, ranking number one and two in GDP per capita. In fact, Albertan’s income per capita is a full third higher than that in Ontario – $78,154 for Alberta compared to $48,971 for Ontario. This huge difference in income is attributable to the windfall of carbon deposits and other minerals that had been given by Canada to these provinces.
The federal government purchased those mineral rights from the Hudson Bay Company shortly after confederation. However, one of Canada’s least popular prime ministers of all time, the Progressive Conservative R.B. Bennett, decided to transfer ownership of all that mineral wealth into the jurisdictions in the prairie provinces.
Richard Bedford Bennett became Prime Minister after the 1930 election.
Bennett came into office just as the great depression had hit Canada. He decided that the best cure for a sickened national economy was to further bleed the patient. Rather than pumping money into the hands of Canadians to keep the economy working, as we typically do in recessionary times, he dramatically cut federal spending and created an unemployment rate which, by 1933, exceeded 30%.
In fact the economy deteriorated to the point that farmers, unable to pay for gasoline, used their horses to pull their Tin Lizzies around, caustically calling them ‘Bennett Buggies’.
They were called Bennett Buggys
Danielle Smith took her war on the federal Liberal party and Canada to Washington and Florida. There she begged Mr. Trump and MAGA Republicans to delay the tariffs on Alberta until after the federal election, in hopes of halting the polling downturn for her pick of PM. She also pushed to have oil exempted from any tariffs.
So when Alberta’s oil, along with other USMCA compliant exports, were exempted on April 2nd, Smith claimed victory for her powers of persuasion. However, as even other conservatives have pointed out – this is hardly win. Neighbouring B.C. was being hit with a 34% tariff softwood lumber; Quebec and B.C slammed with 25% on aluminum, and Ontario whacked with 25% on and steel and the country’s vital auto manufacturing sector.
Smith is determined to continue to threaten Canadians with separation unless they elect her guy in the federal.
Victory lap notwithstanding, Smith is determined to continue to threaten Canadians with separation unless they elect her guy in the federal election. To that end she warned Mr. Carney that the winner of the federal election will have six months to roll out policies friendly to the energy industry or face an “unprecedented national unity crisis.” And she’s followed up that threat by openly talking about an independence panel and a referendum for Alberta.
As an aside, I poked my head into one the local town hall events Chuck Phillips, a Hamilton area Liberal candidate, was holding. At one point someone asked about Preston Manning’s big blackmail statement. Phillips just referenced what Carney, his leader, had said. Calling these dramatic and unhelpful comments he noted….”I am part of a government that governs for all of the country, and very much for the West.”
Ray Rivers, a Gazette Contributing Editor, writes regularly applying his more than 25 years as a federal bureaucrat to his thinking. Rivers was once a candidate for provincial office in Burlington. He was the founder of the Burlington citizen committee on sustainability at a time when climate warming was a hotly debated subject. Ray has a post graduate degree in economics that he earned at the University of Ottawa. Tweet @rayzrivers
The Sunshine List was first released in 1996; it shows Ontario public sector employees earning $100,000 or more. The $100,000 threshold has not changed since 1996. Using the Bank of Canada’s inflation calculator, $100,000 in 1996 is the equivalent of $185,017 in today’s dollars.
People who made over $200,000 in 2024.
Here’s a list of the top income earners for the city of Burlington, people who earned over $200,000 a year in 2024. The 2023 list contained 15 names. The 2024 list also contains 15 names, it’s great that the number of people stayed the same. Some of these people do a fantastic job for the city.
What’s most interesting about the above list is that three of the 200K club members no longer work for the city.
Tim Commisso’s LinkedIn profile indicates he left the city in April of 2024. Sheila Jones – March 2024. Brynn Nheiley – March 2024.
You can read more about Brynn and Sheila’s departureshere:
What did these three people cost taxpayers?
The calculations are approximate, but about $600,000 in severance or, in the case of Tim Commisso, payment to the end of his contract went out the door in 2024 for these three people. Mayor Meed-Ward often talks about the city needing funding from other levels of government; $600,000 buys at least one MRI machine for Joseph Brant Hospital.
Here are some other interesting items from the Sunshine List.
The Sunshine List doesn’t tell us when someone started or left the city’s employ. With that in mind,I looked at all the people who were on both the 2023 and 2024 Sunshine Lists. The average salary increase for this group was 4.31%.
The number of people working for the city and making over $100,000 a year increased by 10.5% to 505. The 2022 list contained 393 names, and the 2023 list contained 457 names.
Of the roughly 1,112 full-time employees, 505 now earn over $100,000 per year.
The 2024 list includes 15 people with the job title “Transit Operator”, up from 9 last year. Keep in mind that this includes overtime. There are 4 people with the job title “Mechanic” and 3 people with the title “Officer, Animal Control”, up from 1 last year.
The six elected councillors had an average income of $118,876.64, down slightly from an average of $119,802.70 in 2023. Councillors over the age of 71 earned less, only making $117,321.96 a year. Councillor Sharman has fought hard to have this corrected, and we’ll see a bump for the senior councillors, Sharman and Bentivegna, in 2025. The municipal employee pension plan, OMERS, has a rule that people over 71 have to start collecting their pension.
A total of 51 people saw their total earnings, salary plus overtime, increase by at least 10%. Only 23 of these people had changes in their job titles.
We’ll have to wait another year to see if Sheila, Tim or Brynn make it onto the 2025 Sunshine List.
Jim Portside is a retired business man who has lived in Burlington for several decades
Late in 2024, the incoming president of the United States, Donald Trump, began calling for the annexation of Canada.
What was first taken as a tasteless joke quickly emerged as a chief plank of the new administration’s foreign policy. On Jan. 7, a reporter asked Trump whether he intended to use military force against Canada – something he had threatened only moments earlier to use against Panama and Greenland. “No, economic force,” Trump replied.
Both military and economic force to annex another country are forbidden under Canadian and international law. Any U.S. takeover attempt already faces serious political and public resistance. But we also have legal and constitutional defences of our sovereignty, to be taken up if needed. Let us hope it does not come to that. But lawyers and judges must be ready in case it does.
Trump’s goal is clear
Trump repeated his commitment to territorial aggrandizement in his inaugural address, saying: “The United States will once again consider itself a growing nation, one that increases our wealth, expands our territory, builds our cities, raises our expectations and carries our flag into new and beautiful horizons.”
Since becoming president on Jan. 20, Trump has followed through with his threats in the form of on-again, off-again tariffs on various Canadian exports designed to cause severe damage to our economy.
He uses nonsensical justifications for tariffs, but his real goal is clear – the use of economic force to undermine Canadian sovereignty and pave the way for U.S. annexation.
Trump repeated his commitment to territorial aggrandizement in his inaugural address, saying: “The United States will once again consider itself a growing nation, one that increases our wealth, expands our territory, builds our cities, raises our expectations and carries our flag into new and beautiful horizons.”
He also invoked Manifest Destiny, the discredited 19th-century American belief in the irresistible spread of its empire across North America.
International law is on Canada’s side
The acquisition of territory by force has been illegal under international law since the end of the Second World War – ironically because of U.S. leadership at the San Francisco conference that drafted the 1945 United Nations Charter.
Article 2(4) requires all UN members to “refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state.”
The UN Declaration on Principles of International Law Concerning Friendly Relations and Co-Operation Among States affirms that no acquisition of territory by “the threat or use of force shall be recognized as legal” and no state may use “economic, political or any other type of measures to coerce another state in order to obtain from it the subordination of its exercise of its sovereign rights.”
The Supreme Court of Canada: a majority are female.
This prohibition is also a matter of international human-rights law, specifically the right to self-determination. Of particular importance to Canada, Article 3 of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples specifically confirms the right of Indigenous Peoples to “freely determine their political status.”
These international norms are also part of Canadian law. They represent customary international law, which the Supreme Court of Canada has repeatedly affirmed forms part of Canadian common law.
This means that the international legal principles of Canadian sovereignty over its territory, the right of Canadians to self-determination and the illegality of foreign acquisition of territory by threat or use of force, including economic force, are rules of Canadian common law that must, in proper cases, be given effect by Canadian judges.
The Constitution assumes Canadian sovereignty
Canadian sovereignty and territorial integrity also underpin our written Constitution. The Constitution Act, 1867 (formerly the British North America Act) vests executive power in the Sovereign, establishes a Privy Council for Canada and continues the command-in-chief of Canada’s land and naval forces in the Sovereign as head of state.
These provisions are irreconcilable with any transfer of executive power from the head of state, as advised by Canadian political leaders, to a foreign power.
Major amendments to the Constitution in 1982 added the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the protection of Aboriginal rights and a new mechanism for amending the Constitution without British involvement. Throughout its provisions, the Constitution Act, 1982 assumes, and requires, Canadian independence.
Section 3 confirms the rights of all Canadian citizens to vote in elections for members of the House of Commons and to serve as MPs. The continued existence of the Commons as the elective element of our federal legislature is the essential prerequisite of these rights.
Section 6 declares the right of every Canadian citizen to enter, remain in and leave Canada – a meaningless right without a Canada to enter, remain in and leave.
Part V sets out several ways in which the Constitution can be amended. Capitulation to a foreign power is not one of them.
Finally, Section 52(1) provides that the Constitution is the supreme law of Canada and that any law inconsistent with it is of no force or effect. The force of all the Constitution’s other provisions turns on this one, which empowers Canadian courts to strike down other laws as unconstitutional.
Indigenous rights are also critical
The position of Canada’s Indigenous peoples must also be remembered.
Modern Canada is the product of a series of territorial encroachments and acquisitions by France and Britain in pre-modern times. Canadian courts continue to struggle with the consequences of that history, empowered by the 1982 Constitution’s recognition and affirmation in Section 35 of the existing Aboriginal and treaty rights of the Aboriginal peoples of Canada.
This process of reconciliation gained new impetus with Canada’s adherence to the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in 2016 and Parliament’s recognition of that declaration as a universal international human-rights instrument with application in Canadian law.
All of this gives legal foundation to an instinct that should come naturally to anyone living on this continent: we are long past the point in our history where Indigenous lands and traditional territories can be swapped back and forth between states without Indigenous consent.
Judicial resistance may be needed
The United States seems now to have turned against the principles it once championed. But those principles remain the foundation of both the international legal order and Canada’s laws.
American attempts to force annexation by economic means are being met with strong resistance from our political leaders and the public. That resistance may succeed and Trump’s dream of making Canada the 51st state may be shattered by politics alone.
But if Canada-U.S. relations so deteriorate that our independence is actively threatened, political and popular resistance may require the support of legal and judicial resistance. The annexation of Canada by a foreign power is manifestly illegal. Canada’s courts must not hesitate to say so.
Gib van Ert is a partner at Olthius van Ert and a former president of the Canadian Council on International Law.
Robert J. Currie, K.C., is the Viscount Bennett Professor of Law in the Schulich School of Law at Dalhousie University.
Allan Rock is president emeritus of the University of Ottawa. He has served as federal minister of justice and attorney general, as well as Canadian ambassador to the United Nations.
The Hamilton Spectator chose not to publish this opinion piece.
Something as important as the mining of aggregate in rural Burlington deserves all the view points it can get.
No Need for New Quarries? Tell That to the Free Market
Across southern Ontario, the battle over new quarries rages on. Local opponents—armed with “No Quarry” signs and cries of “No Need”—paint aggregate operators as reckless profiteers tearing up the land for no reason. They argue the province has more than enough gravel, sand, and stone to go around, so why approve more pits?
Here’s the flaw in their logic: they don’t understand the basic laws of supply and demand. No operator in their right mind spends millions chasing a new license and risking rejection, unless demand is there—and it is.
The Jefferson slamander was the major obstacle when the first application for an aggregate license was turned down.
If there were an oversupply, you’d see it—prices crashing, pits shuttering, companies bailing. That’s not happening. The Ontario Stone, Sand & Gravel Association pegs annual consumption at 164 million tonnes, and the number of licenses has dropped by 28 since 2013. Operators aren’t flooding the market; they’re scrambling to keep up. The free market doesn’t lie—businesses don’t risk millions on a hunch when gravel’s piling up unsold.
Opponents might mean well, worried about dust, noise, or nature. Fair enough—nobody wants a quarry next door. But crying “no need” defies economic sense and assumes operators are either dumb or masochistic. They’re neither. They’re businesses, not charities, and they’ve got data—construction forecasts, infrastructure plans, population trends—telling them the juice is worth the squeeze. If they see demand drying up, they’re not going to risk millions of dollars trying to bring on new supply.
The irony? By stalling new quarries, critics could choke the very growth they take for granted—roads they drive, homes they live in. The Greater Golden Horseshoe is not swimming in aggregate; it’s rationing a shrinking stash.
The Aggregate Resources Act doesn’t ask for a “market need” test because it trusts the market to sort itself out. Maybe it’s time opponents did too. Operators aren’t the enemy here—they’re just reading the room. If there’s no need, they won’t dig. But the numbers say otherwise, and the free market’s already placing its bets.
Kevin Page: head of the Institute of Fiscal Studies and Democracy at the University of Ottawa.
Kevin Page, former parliamentary budget officer and head of the Institute of Fiscal Studies and Democracy at the University of Ottawa, said in an interview this week that the economy will not collapse but Canada is likely to face a recession due to Trump’s tariff wars.
“The geopolitical uncertainties could have a worse impact,” he said.
“It’s not just that the stock markets get rattled. It’s also that people start to feel that it’s going to get worse. And then everybody slows down. Everybody stops spending.”
However, he said, the bigger picture of the government’s finances shows Ottawa can weather the storm ahead and is in a position to support the hardest hit sectors and workers.
“Our debt to GDP numbers are better than other countries, much, much better than the United States. So we could provide that kind of shock absorber if — depending on what happens — it can help Canadians. So in that sense, like, you know, we have some built-in resilience.”
What’s with the Liberal surge? Recent Grit switchers say it’s driven by Carney, Trump’s threats
Vote commitment among new Liberals far less solid than those who stuck with party through lows of 2024
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune suffered by the NDP and Conservative Party of Canada in recent months have reversed the fortunes of the Liberal Party – at least for now – leaving many to wonder how we got here.
After leading comfortably in the polls for the better part of two years, the Conservative Party of Canada now faces an upward battle to regain even ground against new Prime Minister Mark Carney and his Liberals.
What happened?
New data from the non-profit Angus Reid Institute provide some answers to these questions. Asked what their main reasons have been, voters who have switched to the Liberals since the beginning of the year, more than half (56%) say they are motivated by the new leader, Carney, about the same number who also say U.S. President Donald Trump’s threats have pushed them to support the incumbents. Three-in-10 (30%) say they believe the Liberals are the best way to prevent a Conservative government and this is one of the driving factors.
Where did they come from?
Among these “switchers” the largest group say they were formerly supporting the NDP (35%) while slightly fewer have jumped from the CPC (29%). A significant portion (16%) were undecided, while importantly, 12 per cent were Bloc Québécois voters, and have improved the Liberals chances in Quebec by their decision to swap.
And why?
One of the motivating factors is the elevated concern over U.S. relations and the threat of tariffs. Among those who have switched to the Liberals and those who supported the party before this year, more than half say that this issue is a top one for them, personally.
This is approximately double the level of concern for that issue among non-Liberal supporters.
The premier of Alberta, washing her dirty political laundry before US right wing podcaster Breitbart, was bad enough. But what she really meant by her comments may have been worse. Was she telling the US president that his tariff threats might prevent her guy in Canada’s federal election from becoming the governor of Trump’s planned 51st state?
Premier of Alberta Danielle Smith
“Offensive and wrong” was how Danielle Smith, in full Trumpian fashion, responded to allegations of foreign interference. And indeed, this would only be something like foreign interference if her plea to Mr. Trump is answered. So we’ll see how the American president responds come April 2nd, when the 25% blanket tariff is supposed to kick in.
And we’ll see whether the unofficial leader of the Alberta separatist movement has the political capital to sway that big fellow in the White House. After all, she has spent enough time in DC talking to the movers and shakers in his administration – and taking all those selfies with Donald and Kevin O’Leary. By the way, O’Leary, the nasty Dragons Den investor, comes off sounding like the 51st state was really his idea before Trump made it his own.
Of course even if Trump decides to delay the tariffs, as Smith has asked, this would not mark the first time foreigners have tried to meddle in our politics. Big powers with a significant emigre base seem to find Canada a suitable target. China has its hands dirty from the mild – paying cash for access – to more serious – sponsoring their preferred candidates for office. They typically picked on the Liberals, likely thinking Trudeau would be an easy mark.
Conservative MP Michael Chong
But Conservative MP Michael Chong also felt the ire of the Chinese government when he voted to condemn Beijing’s genocide of the Uyghur minority. He was barred entry to China and became the object of threats and an intimidation campaign against his family back home. Pursuant to a 2023 CSIS report, a parliamentary committee concluded that the Chinese government interfered in the 2019 and 2021 elections.
There is also a civil war being played out in Canada between the Sikh and mainstream Indian communities here. And one of the battles is taking place within the ranks of the Conservative Party of Canada. Patrick Brown, former Ontario PC leader and mayor of Brampton used to be adored by Indian PM Modi. But his support among local the Sikh population has made him anathema to the Indian leader.
So when he ran for leader of the federal Conservatives, Indian agents operating in this country apparently did their best to sabotage his campaign and throw money and support into the waiting hands of Pierre Poilievre’s supporters. CSIS couldn’t find a smoking gun though, and Poilievre has taken the ‘see no evil, hear no evil’ defence. So he and his entourage may not have been aware, as incredible as that sounds.
Leader of the Opposition Pierre Poilievre
And who knows whether this Indian affair had something to do with Mr. Poilievre’s refusal to get a top secret clearance. Its unfathomable how someone who is planning to run the country won’t be able to receive national security briefings. For example, how would he know if someone in Alberta had contacted a foreign enemy to get them to influence the outcome of a Canadian election?
Ray Rivers, a Gazette Contributing Editor, writes regularly applying his more than 25 years as a federal bureaucrat to his thinking. Rivers was once a candidate for provincial office in Burlington. He was the founder of the Burlington citizen committee on sustainability at a time when climate warming was a hotly debated subject. Ray has a post graduate degree in economics that he earned at the University of Ottawa. Tweet @rayzrivers
No one’s ever accused Mark Carney of being middle class. But the former Toronto investment banker’s proposed “middle-class tax cut” includes ultra-high income earners like him.
The Liberal leader launched his campaign promising a “middle-class tax cut” that gives top benefits to millionaires and billionaires.
Carney’s plan would reduce the tax rate of the first tax bracket by one point, from 15 to 14 percent.
That generates a $574 benefit to anyone with a taxable income over $57,375 and right up to the top income earner. Those earning less than $57,375 would get a smaller benefit.
Unlike Trudeau in 2015, no high income offset with Carney
In 2015, Justin Trudeau also promised a “middle class” tax cut, but one that came with an off-setting tax increase on income over $250,000. That off-set cancelled any benefit once income exceeded about $263,000.
But with no offset in Carney’s plan, even the highest income earners in Canada are included in Carney’s “middle class” tax cut. The maximum $574 would be paid to Galen Weston, Chip Wilson, the Irvings, or the Thompson family. And Mark Carney.
Tax payable on a taxable income of $30,000 would be reduced by $300 and tax payable on $50,000 would fall $500.
While anything is helpful for low-income Canadians, bolder steps like the national dental care program deliver much more impact, saving a low-income family of four $1,809 a year, according to 2024 budget documents.
class=”header-anchor-post”>Carney kills planned tax hike on capital gains over $250,000 a year
Prime Minister Mark Carney
Today’s pledged tax cut for even the richest Canadians comes after Carney cancelled Trudeau’s plan for two-thirds of capital gains over $250,000 a year to become subject to income tax, up from half. Half of the amounts up to $250,000 a year would continue to go tax-free.
Capital gains are the amount earned from buying then selling capital assets, such as company stock, and are treated differently than employment income in tax law.
In recent research paper in Policy Options, tax experts using 2019 tax filer information found the entire benefit of Carney’s cancellation would flow to just 46,705, or 0.16 percent, of tax filers. That group had an average income of $1,183,157 in 2019.
For 99.86 percent of Canada’s 29 million tax filers, there would be no benefit from Caney’s tax cancellation.
Carney will get “middle class tax cut,” but benefit from cancelling capital gains unclear
On starting at the Bank of England in 2013, Carney was being paid $1.4 million a year. Seven years later, Carney left to join Brookfield Asset Management, an investment bank with $1 trillion in assets that owns everything from privatized hospitals to local utilities and real estate.
Carney served as Brookfield board chair, resigning January 16, 2025.
Last week, a US corporate filing by Brookfield Asset Managementshows Carney and two other executives together earned $4 million in salary, $3.5 million in cash bonuses and $67,439 paid to retirement savings contributions and Brookfields’ executive medical program.
The $7,567,439 total, if averaged between the three executives, would be $2,522,479 each.
Despite his ultra-high income, Mark Carney has included himself in his “middle-class tax cut.”
Brookfields’ 10-K filing also shows Carney held 409,300 Brookfield share options on December 31, 2024. On Friday’s close, Brookfield stock traded at $53.65. But Carney’s options let him buy those shares for the deeply discounted price of $37.54.
If Carney exercised any share options on Friday, he would’ve earned $16.11 per share, the difference between the $53.65 market price and the $37.54 option price. If he exercised all his 409,300 share options on Friday, he would have earned $6,598,823.
While stock option income is usually treated as a capital gain, and therefore only half taxed, earnings from stock options received as employment compensation are employment income and must all be included as income. However, the employee stock option benefit deduction parallels the capital gains inclusion rate, delivering the same effect, a detailed topic for a future date.
“There is no baby without a mother, no Sideshow Bob without a Bart, and no Pierre without a Justin. It was all Destrudeau, and Mr. Trudeau has left the building. I guess that’s why Pierre Poilievre seems – well – broken”. (JILLIAN HORTON SPECIAL TO THE GLOBE AND MAIL MARCH 14, 2025)
Canadians are experiencing something akin to buyers’ remorse, and are deserting the Tory leader instead.
Pierre Poilievre has lost his mojo. Over the last two years he has broadcast how badly Canada is broken and how it’s all Justin Trudeau’s fault. But times have changed, and now is not the time to tell Canadians that their country is broken, even if that were true – which it’s not.
Second this rant that Trudeau must resign and kill carbon pricing – a tax that benefited lower income Canadians – is somehow the scourge driving up prices of everything, has worked. So now, that old adage “be careful what you wish for” has come around to bite the pretender to the throne. Trudeau and the consumer carbon tax are no more.
But rather than piling on gratitude, Canadians are experiencing something akin to buyers’ remorse, and are deserting the Tory leader instead. So our Pierre Poilievre is left wondering what to do given that the emperor’s new clothes have left him naked. Well here are some suggestions:
Stop being so nasty, so angry – such an attack dog. End the negativity and the ad hominem ads and personal attacks. Those tactics, though disgusting, may have been effective when you were the opposition leader. They worked to alter how Trudeau was seen, his credibility, and the public trust in the sitting PM. But also remember how those kinds of nasty ads worked for Kim Campbell.
Promise not to deprive Canada of our national and time-honoured broadcaster, the CBC. At few times in our history was a national news media as critical for this country. Canadians deserve to be better informed than what they’ll get with alternatives like social media, or worse yet, fringe media like Rebel. Don’t follow the example of the US president, who has excluded major news media from his news briefings simply because he doesn’t like what they report.
Show Canadians that you actually have an organized plan to govern. What are your plans for the economy and the environment? It’s not enough to be opposed to carbon pricing and emission caps without offering a fully costed alternative. Explain how your the notion of even more business subsidies to reduce greenhouse gases will work, and how it would impact your other goal of slashing the deficit. How would your plan to respond to US tariffs differ from what is currently being prosecuted?
Be clear about your intentions regarding our newly acquired additions to the social safety net. Would programs you once mostly opposed in opposition – like child care, pharmacare and dental care – be on the chopping block?
Clarify whether you are really going to fire the Bank of Canada governor as you once promised to do? And clarify if you are serious about making bitcoin cryptocurrencies an alternate official currency, thus making Canada the ‘blockchain capital of the world’ as you had once promised? Can you explain how crypto would make Canadians’ lives better?
Poilievre is articulate and a compelling opposition spokesperson for his party.
These are troubled days and Canadians are looking for unity and purpose in a leader, not more divisiveness and negativity. Poilievre is articulate and a compelling opposition spokesperson for his party. But as leader of his party in a moment of national crisis, he isn’t telling us what we need to hear. Rather he just repeats the same tired old meme – that he will fight for Canada – or stand up for Canada – or some other flag waving meaningless platitude. And this is not the time for platitudes.
Mr. Poilievre has been caught off guard by his own success, that is true. But nothing is more important to voters than a road map telling us how he’ll keep the country and its economy secure. In this time of insecurity Canadians are not likely to elect a man without a plan? Or was the man who has spent his entire life planning to be PM just a one trick pony – the axe-the-tax man.
Seriously, the carbon tax has been axed, give it a rest. Mr. Trudeau your chief political opponent has left the building. And you have nothing new to say? One has to ask, is there really no Pierre without a Justin?
Ray Rivers, a Gazette Contributing Editor, writes regularly applying his more than 25 years as a federal bureaucrat to his thinking. Rivers was once a candidate for provincial office in Burlington. He was the founder of the Burlington citizen committee on sustainability at a time when climate warming was a hotly debated subject. Ray has a post graduate degree in economics that he earned at the University of Ottawa. Tweet @rayzrivers
By Tom Parkin
