Good morning,
Last year may have felt like a steady stream of politics, with the U.S. election machine in full swing and several more happening across Canada. But this year will be a fire hose.
We’ll have our own federal election to watch — our first without Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in a decade — which will be preceded by the Liberal Party leadership contest. Ontario Progressive Conservative Leader Doug Ford just called an election in that province for the end of February. Newfoundland and Labrador have an election in October, just before the last possible date for the feds. Alberta will elect its new mayors in October. And later in the year, Quebec, Nunavut, and Yukon all go to the polls. There’s more, but you get it: it’s a lot.
Which is why we’re very happy to see how much political analysis, opinion and news you’re reading and sharing. Politics is our bread and butter here at Canada’s National Observer. It’s a foundational beat for our publication that’s celebrating its 10-year anniversary (10 years!) this spring.
We’re already deep into our coverage of the Ontario, federal and Liberal races. We’ve been ready for Ford’s move ever since he started acting like someone who’s ready to call an election — even if the call isn’t for the reasons he now claims. And now that the race is official, we’ll be following along to see how climate fits in, from bike lane chaos to promises of new urban sprawl, energy and the ripple effects of the tariff threat.
The federal Liberal leadership race is about two people: Pierre Poilievre and Donald Trump. Specifically, it’s a test of who Liberal Party members believe will perform best against them. So far, it seems party insiders and Conservatives alike are betting on party newcomer Mark Carney over erstwhile Trudeau ally Chrystia Freeland. But that race has only just begun. Carney has promised to end the consumer carbon price and Freeland appears to be leaning that way, as well. Both have mixed records on climate action.
Finally, the federal election. Anyone who knew anything a year ago would have told you the next election would be about one thing only — the carbon tax. Over the course of a few weeks, it’s become clear they couldn’t have been more wrong. The race has now shifted. With the worst of the last round of inflation behind us, the carbon price is likely to be ditched by both Liberal front-runners, and Trump’s much greater threat to Canadians’ economic health is now looming.
The Conservatives continuing carbon tax-based attacks on both leading Liberal candidates, seems almost quaint now in light of the economic carnage that could be wrought over the coming years, and they run the risk of seeming completely unprepared to meet that challenge by focusing on a phantom instead. We’ll be following how, and if, they shift gears as the other parties’ plans become clearer.
It’s my job to watch our daily readership numbers like a stock trader watches the TSX. And it’s clear from behind the scenes that when we have insightful, smart, breaking or investigative stories that bring something new to the politics discussion, your collective ears prick up. But we don’t do it for the endorphins of a hot story — we do it because all of this matters. Even when politics seems like a game, we try to keep it in perspective: today’s elections are tomorrow’s policies. And bad policy can mean failing businesses and job losses, burning forests and drying crops.
As the unfolding American shows us, what may seem “unprecedented” now is only true until there’s a precedent. But what’s happening in the U.S. also shows us that an informed citizenry can push back against and defeat even the worst excesses of the most malicious government, so no matter what happens in the coming year’s elections, we will be there to keep you in the know.
Jimmy Thomson, managing editor
Top Story
👀In one of her last moves as Canada’s finance minister Chrystia Freeland approved yet another loan to the Trans Mountain pipeline project. The loan contradicts statements she made earlier promising Canadians that no further public money would be invested in the project. This decision by the federal Liberals to prop up its project, which has experienced massive cost overruns, comes at a dicey economic time for Canada. The spectre of 25 per cent U.S. tariffs has increased calls from many politicians to increase Canada’s ability to ship oil and gas to Asian markets, even though the worldwide demand for oil is expected to peak this year.
John Woodside reports
Quote of the week
"Quebec can't backtrack, like other governments are doing, into an old-fashioned climate-versus-economy narrative": Patricia Clermont, a doctor and Quebec spokesperson for the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment, when asked how the province should respond to the Trump tariff threats.
MORE CNO READS
🚘Congestion pricing, which dings drivers for venturing into traffic clogged city centres, is never an easy sell. But in places that have the nerve to do it, it gains popularity when people see it really does help clear the streets. Commute times dropped less than a month after New York City brought in congestion pricing early this year. Toronto and Vancouver, cities that struggle with gridlock, have flirted with the idea. Even though congestion pricing eases gridlock and lowers planet-warming carbon pollution, public opposition has always stood in the way.
Cloe Logan reports
✊🏽Big Oil has found two powerful allies in U.S. President Donald Trump and Conservative Leader Pierrie Poilievre. U.S. President Donald Trump moved fast after the election to reward his donors; oil companies and executives who donated more than $170 million to Republican candidates and their conservative allies during the 2024 U.S. election cycle. He declared a National Energy Emergency to fast track fossil fuel development, limited some wind energy projects and pulled the U.S. out of the Paris Climate Agreement. Poilievre doesn’t yet have that kind of clout, but he is leading in the polls and his party could form the next government. He too, is courting oil and gas support by promising, along with everyone else, to kill the consumer carbon tax. But Poilievre would go even farther — he’d kill plans for an oil and gas pollution cap, blast clean electricity regulations and end the federal Impact Assessment Act. These two politicians spell big trouble for the Earth’s climate, which is already experiencing record-breaking temperatures caused by humans burning fossil fuels.
Keith Stewart writes.
😂Ontario Progressive Conservative Leader Doug Ford had already set the stage for an early election, most probably to beat the release of an RCMP report into the Greenbelt scandal. There were small signs, like picking a fight with Toronto over bike lanes, a non-sensical appeal to his base. And there were massive spending announcements too, much directed at energy production, which Ontario will need for the future. All he was missing was an excuse to force Ontarians to the polls 16 months early. Ford got what he was looking for the minute U.S. President Donald Trump threatened Canada with 25 per cent tariffs.
Adrienne Tanner writes.
👏🏼Canada’s economic news wasn’t all bad this week, despite the looming threat of a 25 per cent tariff on all our exports to the U.S. Linamar, an Ontario company that produces power trains and other electric vehicle components, announced a $1.1-billion investment in new technologies. The bulk of the money — $800 million — is coming from private investors and the rest from provincial and federal coffers. Business analysts say Linamar’s announcement shows Canada’s EV market is still viewed as healthy by investors who are looking for solid long-term investments.
Darius Sneickus reports