Conservative MP says Carney should appoint a labour minister and pay more than 'lip service' to workers
Article content
OTTAWA — A Conservative MP is calling on the federal government to dedicate a full cabinet position to the issue of labour, saying Prime Minister Mark Carney must pay more than 'lip service' to workers in his region affected by General Motors' planned shift cuts.
Jamil Jivani, the recently reelected MP for Bowmanville—Oshawa North, released a letter through his office on Wednesday, the day after Carney unveiled his new cabinet.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
National Observer
40 minutes ago
- National Observer
If Carney wants to build, he should go big on a Youth Climate Corps
When our delegation of Youth Climate Corps (YCC) organizers met Mark Carney outside the Liberal caucus retreat in Nanaimo in 2024, Canada was a different place. To remind the Liberal Party of their promise made in the 2024 federal budget to hold consultations on a YCC, we staged a lemonade stand to 'raise' the $1 billion needed for a Canada-wide program to put thousands of young people to work confronting the climate emergency — the defining crisis of our lives. This fun stunt gained the attention of Carney — then just an economic advisor to the Liberals — and Members of Parliament, who reassured us a YCC would be established. We couldn't have predicted the political whirlwind that would follow just months later, resulting in former prime minister Justin Trudeau's resignation and Mark Carney's election to the position. Though the Liberals won, the results of the federal election show a persistent disconnect between the governing party and young Canadians. In a rightward shift among youth, the Conservatives won the student vote. If the Liberals want to earn back the trust of young people, they must make a compelling and inspiring offer, and the Youth Climate Corps represents just that, but only if it is a genuinely bold invitation. The crises we face call for more than a precarious pilot program After years of youth advocacy, the YCC was finally featured on most major party platforms: the New Democrats, Greens, and re-elected Liberals. This win is a testament to the dedicated and inspiring advocacy of Canadian youth across the country. But the 'pilot' program proposed by the Liberals is far too modest, and sends mixed signals about whether they truly understand the severity of the crises we face. As the Liberal platform states, 'Building Canada strong starts with our workers.' We agree. That's why they must scale up their inadequate promise and create the ambitious and visionary climate corps that Canada desperately needs. The YCC pilot envisioned in the Liberal platform is too small and susceptible to dismantling by future governments. Some conservative pundits have been calling for the 'Muskification' of Canada, advocating for our very own Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). To combat MAGA-style politics from entering Canada, an innovative and courageous program, like the YCC, must be protected and built right from the beginning, with human rights and Indigenous leadership at its core. If the Liberals want to earn back the trust of young people, they must make a compelling and inspiring offer, and the Youth Climate Corps represents just that, write Bushra Asghar, Erin Blondeau, Lea Mary Movelle and Juan Vargas Alba Late in his term, President Joe Biden launched an American Climate Corps, only to have President Trump terminate it as soon as he took office. We can't repeat the same mistakes as the United States. How a Youth Climate Corps would work The YCC should offer well-paid jobs and training for people 35 and under, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, building renewable energy, restoring ecosystems, and responding to climate disasters. The program would offer positions which include but are not limited to work, such as building retrofits, green construction, conservation, strengthening local food systems and supporting municipalities in developing and implementing their climate action plans. It would create accessible, barrier-free opportunities for young people, prioritizing underserved, undervalued and under-resourced communities. Young people would be empowered to enter the workforce with living wages and union representation, combatting the distressing rise in the youth unemployment rate. Indigenous sovereignty, rights and leadership would guide the way. But for a program like this to work, it needs to be big. If built right and in adherence to our campaign principles, the YCC would create at least 20,000 jobs across Canada in the first year, and grow with demand each year thereafter. If Carney wants to 'build, baby build,' then we need a well-trained and prepared workforce to get the job done. Polling shows the majority of Canadians across every demographic support the idea of a YCC, and 15 per cent of people under 35 are excited and ready to enlist immediately. The Liberal Party must reckon with the reality that young men are turning to the political right after feeling abandoned by the Liberals, yet a huge majority of young men are excited about the idea of a YCC. To Prime Minister Mark Carney: You have expressed your ambition to 'build things we've never imagined, at a speed we've never seen.' Now is your opportunity to establish a transformative, large-scale Youth Climate Corps, and watch as we strengthen this nation without leaving anyone behind. Erin Blondeau is the communications director at the Climate Emergency Unit, an independent journalist and a human rights and climate justice organizer. Bushra Asghar is the co-director of the national Youth Climate Corps campaign and a human rights and climate justice organizer.
Ottawa Citizen
an hour ago
- Ottawa Citizen
MacDonald: Canada must stop neglecting its spy agencies if it wants better defence
Article content Prime Minister Mark Carney has pledged to meet Canada's NATO obligation to invest two per cent of GDP in defence by the end of the year. But at a time of growing political instability, it's important to remember that soldiers are not the only ones protecting Canada. Article content Working in the shadows, Canada has a civilian army of more than 6,400 intelligence practitioners in the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) and the Canadian Security Establishment (CSE) — both with headquarters in Ottawa, where most of their staff are — working around the clock to keep us safe. Unfortunately, according to a Public Safety Canada survey in 2021, 54 per cent of Canadians don't know what they do. Also, despite the vital role they play in Canada's defence, their budgets are not included in NATO's calculation of Canada's defence spending. Article content Article content Article content There are some important reasons for that, but it comes at a cost. Article content For one, it can create a political disincentive to invest in domestic intelligence — although, for Canada, that's nothing new. Of the countries that form the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing network, only New Zealand spends less than Canada on its intelligence agencies. Australia, meanwhile, with two-thirds the population, spends 22 per cent more ($2.2 billion Cdn) than Canada ($1.8 billion). Article content All this is dwarfed by the United States, of course, which had a budget of $104 billion Cdn for civilian intelligence in 2024. Article content Canada can't hope to come anywhere close to that anytime soon, but neither should it be complacent. Article content The fact is, with President Donald Trump's threats to annex Canada, tariffs, foreign interference, rampant disinformation and misinformation, and growing political unrest, the military isn't enough. Canada needs intelligence specialists who can effectively monitor and disrupt threats of all kinds, at home and abroad, wherever they come from, before they become headlines. Article content Article content There's a practical reason NATO doesn't include civilian intelligence spending in its calculation of a country's defence spending, of course: the classified nature of the spending makes it hard to standardize across countries. Article content Article content But this technical barrier can have real strategic consequences, unintentionally discouraging critical investments in non-military intelligence capabilities and even contributing to a lack of public awareness, respect and understanding for the work intelligence agencies do. Article content In countries such as Canada that are under political pressure to meet NATO's two-per-cent GDP defence spending target (Canada hasn't spent two-per-cent of GDP on defence since 1988), the problem is compounded. If Canada is already struggling to meet the target, why spend money on intelligence that doesn't count, when the military is underfunded too?
Winnipeg Free Press
an hour ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
Poll suggests half of Canadians believe Israel is committing genocide in Gaza
OTTAWA – A new poll suggests that nearly half of Canadians believe Israel is committing genocide in Gaza almost two years after the current conflict began. In a survey conducted last weekend, the polling firm Leger asked Canadians and Americans a series of questions about the conflict in the Gaza Strip. Leger surveyed 1,511 Canadians and 1,011 Americans between June 6 and June 8. The poll cannot be assigned a margin of error because online surveys are not considered truly random samples. The polling comes as the federal government is under pressure to take concrete steps to condemn Israel's actions in Gaza and the West Bank. Leger asked respondents whether they 'agree or disagree that Israel is committing genocide in the Gaza Strip' based on how they 'define what constitutes a genocide.' The UN declared genocide a crime under international law in 1946. The UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide defines it as acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group. That can include killing members of the group, causing them serious injury, deliberately inflicting conditions that can be dangerous to their lives, imposing measures to prevent births within the group, or forcibly transferring children from the group to another group. Just less than half of the Canadian respondents, 49 per cent, said they agree that Israel is committing genocide in the Gaza Strip, including 23 per cent who said they strongly agree and 26 per cent who said they somewhat agree. Another 21 per cent said they disagree with the claim that Israel is committing genocide — 10 per cent said they somewhat disagree and 11 per cent said they strongly disagree. The remaining 30 per cent said they didn't know or refused to answer. Conservative supporters were the least likely to say they believe Israel is committing genocide, with 37 per cent agreeing with the statement and 33 per cent disagreeing. More than 60 per cent of Liberal, NDP, Green Party and Bloc Québécois supporters said they agree Israel's actions amount to genocide. The poll was conducted just days before the Canadian government took action against Israeli cabinet ministers it accuses of inciting violence against Palestinians in the West Bank. On Tuesday, a group of five countries including Canada announced sanctions against Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich. The five countries accused the ministers of calling for the displacement of Palestinians and the expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Last month, an open letter from Prime Minister Mark Carney, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron condemned Israeli military operations in Gaza and called the level of suffering in the territory 'intolerable.' The letter threatened concrete actions if the Israeli government did not allow more food aid into Gaza and end its military operations there. It also called on Hamas to release its remaining hostages. In response to the genocide question, 38 per cent of Americans polled said they agree Israel is committing genocide, while 26 per cent said they disagree and 36 per cent said they don't know. Supporters of the Democrats – 52 per cent – and Americans under the age of 35 – 53 per cent – were the most likely to call the situation in Gaza a genocide. More than half of Canadians, 54 per cent, said they don't follow news about the Middle East or the current conflict in the Gaza Strip. Just nine per cent said they're following news about the Gaza conflict very closely, and another 35 per cent said they're following somewhat closely. American respondents reported almost the same levels of engagement. Despite that, 49 per cent of Canadians and 54 per cent of American respondents said they feel they have a very good or fairly good understanding of the conflict in Gaza. Opinions on mainstream media reporting about the conflict were evenly split, with 20 per cent of Canadian respondents saying they feel the media has been 'generally balanced.' Another 20 per cent said they feel the coverage has been more favourable toward Palestinians and 21 per cent said it was more favourable to Israel. American respondents reported almost identical responses. Many Canadians surveyed were pessimistic about the possibility of a peaceful resolution. When asked whether they believe that lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians can be reached, 41 per cent of Canadian respondents said no, 28 per cent said yes and 31 per cent said they don't know. Canadian respondents over age 55 were the least optimistic — 51 per cent of them said a lasting peace cannot be achieved. Americans were more evenly split, with 34 per cent saying they think peace is out of reach and 33 per cent saying it can be achieved. The polling industry's professional body, the Canadian Research Insights Council, says online surveys cannot be assigned a margin of error because they do not randomly sample the population. — With files from David Baxter This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 11, 2025.
