NANAIMO, B.C. — These should be consequential meetings. Justin Trudeau’s Liberals face the greatest challenge they have ever faced — the possibility of a fourth-place finish after the next election. Aside from the leadership question hanging over all Grit MPs’ heads — should the prime minister stay or should he go — there are other challenges to address.
The Liberal caucus is set to meet in Nanaimo, B.C., next week for a retreat ahead of the fall parliamentary sitting. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau insists he will lead his party into the next election despite polls citing his unpopularity among Canadians. Here’s a look at what would happen if he decided to call it quits.
Could Prime Minister Justin Trudeau step down? Absolutely. But a decision to step down becomes a lot harder now that the New Democrats have pulled out of a supply and confidence agreement with the Liberals, which has helped keep the minority government in power.
The Trudeau government is trying to assure NATO allies it’s moving in the direction of spending two per cent of Canada’s GDP on defence. Meanwhile, billions of dollars committed to new military equipment is being handed back, lapsed, re-profiled or simply not requested by the Department of National Defence.
Canadians need a break from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s soaring gas taxes.
The federal government makes you pay a federal fuel tax, a carbon tax, a second carbon tax, and a sales tax every time you fuel up. In total, federal gas taxes add about 35 cents per litre to the pump price. That’s more than $20 to fuel up a sedan.
In light of the prevailing mythology that Canada is “empty,” it’s counter-intuitive to realize Canada’s cities are unusually crowded. And still unaffordable.
Wyndham Lewis once described Canada as a “monstrous, empty habitat”.
And the British writer is by no means the only one to say this country is vast, imposing and under-populated.
Given that Canada is geographically the second-largest country in the world, it’s understandable that many feel it is largely empty.
Canada’s economy has fallen behind its population growth for the fifth straight quarter, with real GDP per capita declining by 0.1 percent in Q2 2024, according to the latest data from Statistics Canada released last week.
Compared to the same period last year, per capita GDP is now down 2.2 percent. Compared to 2022, it’s down 3.6 percent. As RBC analysts correctly noted, this is a “recession-like” performance.
This downturn becomes even more striking when viewed in comparison to the United States, which continues to see gains.
OTTAWA — With Liberals set to gather next week for a caucus retreat, one of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s MPs is once again calling for a change in party leadership.
New Brunswick Liberal MP Wayne Long first called for a change of leadership after the Liberals’ loss in the Toronto—St. Paul’s byelection in June. The downtown Toronto seat had been considered a safe seat for the party and the loss to the Conservatives led to many whispered calls for change.
Former Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney is scheduled to attend the Liberals’ summer caucus meetings in Nanaimo, B.C. where, starting Monday, Grit MPs will plot the return of Parliament and the next election.
Carney won’t be joining the Liberal team as a cabinet minister — despite earlier talks with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Instead, the likely future Liberal leadership candidate has been tapped to advise the party on an economic productivity plan, one that could inspire the Grits’ platform or government policy.
Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland has alleged Chinese Communist Party (CCP) agents have infiltrated Wealth One Bank of Canada and coerced shareholders.
The news comes just two months after a special committee confirmed there are 11 spies on Parliament Hill who have worked for or cooperated with CCP operatives.
The Liberal Party is a wholly owned subsidiary of the CCP.
Canada’s embattled Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has lost his key left-wing coalition partner as he continues to maintain his minority government in the nation’s parliament.
Trudeau’s political future now suffers an unexpected blow that may prove fatal. As a layer of political security is stripped away, his government becomes increasingly fragile.
New Democratic Party (NDP) leader Jagmeet Singh surprised Canadians on Sept. 4 by announcing on X that his party would withdraw from the governing coalition with Trudeau’s Liberals.
Brampton, Ontario, situated in the sprawling outer suburbs of the Greater Toronto Area, is in many ways your typical Canadian city: rows and rows of middle-class houses with verdant lawns line quiet streets, with strip-mall parking lots and big-box stores in between. That it has been for years a majority non-white city, with South Asians accounting for over half the population, speaks to the success of Canada’s classical immigration regime. For even as Brampton grew more ethnically diverse, its orderly if monotonous suburban social template remained the same, attesting to the motto of late Ontario Tory premier and Brampton legend Bill Davis: bland works.
It’s a tale of two realities in the city, with people standing in two separate lines.
In one, people hope to catch a glimpse of a star. In another, people wait for food.
As Prime Minister Justin Trudeau hung out with members of The Tragically Hip and Hollywood stars on Friday, not far away were lineups at food banks.
RELATED: Pro-Palestinian protesters disrupt opening night of TIFF
Protestors interrupt the opening night premiere at the Toronto Film Festival, criticizing fest sponsor RBC: “RBC funds genocide!” The crowd is extremely hostile, shouting back “go away” and booing them pic.twitter.com/5cRShKyJx7
— Kyle Buchanan (@kylebuchanan) September 5, 2024
The rooster crowed three times …
Which doesn’t hold a candle to the cock who crowed 13 times (in English, didn’t count the French) on Thursday morning about ripping up the NDP-Liberal pre-nup that has kept Prime Minister
Justin Trudeau’s minority government in trembly power for the last 30 months.
That bromance between Trudeau and NDP Leader Jameet Singh — always an awkward marriage of convenience — has been crushed underfoot.
The federal Liberal brand will be put to the test again in a byelection in the Montreal riding of LaSalle—Émard—Verdun on Sept. 16 — a contest Liberal Party brass hope won’t deliver a repeat of the party’s failure in a Toronto riding earlier this summer.
The Liberals’ byelection loss in Toronto-St. Paul’s — a riding the party had held for more than 30 years — prompted a lot of soul-searching and griping among Liberal MPs who interpreted the result as a rebuke of their leader, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
If the LPC loses will Justin finally take the hint? Too vain I suspect.
The real mystery isn’t whether or not the prime minister will stay, it’s whether or not his base will leave.
When it comes to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, many journalists and pundits are asking the wrong question.
They’re asking, “will Trudeau quit the Liberals?” when the more pertinent question is: “will the Liberals quit Trudeau?”
Why is that the more pertinent question? Well, first off, all the signs suggest Trudeau isn’t about to pack it in anytime soon.
