Mark Carney pressed on lack of spring budget in first question period as prime minister
OTTAWA — Prime Minister Mark Carney was pressed on his government's decision to punt the budget until the fall and his promise to make Canada an 'energy superpower' during his first question period on Wednesday.
Interim Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer started by welcoming Carney to his first official question period and reminded him 'this is where we provide rigorous scrutiny on every word he says and every dollar he spends on behalf of Canadians.'
'Now, let's talk about those words and dollars,' he said.
Scheer went on to enumerate how he believes Canadians are still suffering from the consequences of Liberal policies — pointing to increased household debt and food bank usage — and asked how a man who promised to act at 'great speed' won't table a budget right away.
Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne said two weeks ago there would be no federal budget in the spring, but a fall economic statement instead. Days later, Carney announced his government would present a budget during the fall session instead.
'If he's the man with the plan and the guy you hire in a crisis, why won't he table a budget before he goes on summer vacation?' Scheer asked.
Carney shot back by saying that Scheer was probably 'very busy' and 'did not have a chance to study closely the 100-day plan' of Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre which made no mention of tabling a budget in that timeframe.
'They must be really afraid to come clean with Canadians if they're going to punt it off into the fall,' retorted Scheer.
Scheer went on to question Carney on his 'claim that somehow the Liberals have changed' and said he had 'a chance to prove it to Canadians.' 'If he's serious, will he tell Canadians that pipelines are part of his values by repealing Bill C-69?'
Ottawa's impact assessment act, also dubbed the 'no pipelines bill' by its critics, came into force in 2019 and has been a hot-button issue ever since.
Carney insisted that his 'new government' would act immediately to grow the economy, support 'nation-building projects' and work with provinces to build them.
The Conservative opposition went on to question many of his ministers on pipelines and housing — with a particular focus on rookie ministers Tim Hodgson and Gregor Robertson.
The prime minister's office confirmed earlier this week that Carney would not be pursuing his predecessor Justin Trudeau's tradition of answering all questions put to the government by the opposition in the House of Commons every Wednesday.
His office said he would only be answering questions in the opening round of questions, as he did on Wednesday.
Trudeau started the tradition of the 'prime minister's question period' — a common practice in the United Kingdom — in 2017 to improve accountability within the chamber. It was a way for all parties to take turns questioning directly the prime minister.
Despite being a fan of British traditions, Carney promised a 'true cabinet government' with ministers 'expected and empowered to show leadership' on their files.
Conservative MP Gérard Deltell said he did not mind Carney breaking tradition with Trudeau on the prime minister's question period and favours substance over form.
'It's not the number of answers that you give, it's the kind of answers that you give that is most important,' Deltell told reporters as he headed to his weekly caucus on Wednesday morning. 'If there are some clear responses, that will be interesting. We will see.'
Deltell added that Carney has had some 'difficulties with the truth' — pointing to comments hinting that U.S. President Donald Trump had not raised the '51st state' in their first call. It turns out that Trump did, admitted Carney during the campaign.
Liberal MPs said prior to the first question period of the spring session that they were hoping for more decorum and less heckling from the opposition benches.
'Let's hope for some collegiality, let's hope for some demonstration that we are all in this together and we are all working for Canadians,' said Karina Gould, who served as government House leader in the last Parliament.
'I would like to see the Conservatives start with an attempt at cooperation. We certainly had a very rocky end to the last Parliament,' she said.
James Maloney, who was recently chosen as the Liberals' caucus chair, said he was 'curious' to see if the tone in the chamber will be different or more of the same.
'I would like to see more respect for Parliament, I'd like to see more respect for the members in the House, and I'd like to see that people have a sense of renewal because we just had an election. We've got a new government,' he said.
'We've got a lot to do and I'd like to see people get out to work.'
Poilievre, who was speaking outside of the chamber because he is not an MP, announced before question period his party would support the government's initiative to implement a middle-class tax cut, cut the GST on new homes and scrap the consumer carbon tax.
'As I said a few weeks ago, I'm encouraging the Liberals to steal my ideas, because we have the best ideas,' he said.
'We're here for the right reasons — not for our egos. It's to get things done, to make people's lives better,' he added.
Poilievre hinted it is with a little twinge of sorrow that he will be watching his party hold the government accountable, from the sidelines, for the first time in more than two decades.
'I'd love to be in there. It's a great place,' he said.
Poilievre said he would 'work hard' to earn the opportunity to sit in the House again. A byelection in a rural Alberta riding is expected to be called as soon as the Conservative MP steps down, which means that the Conservative leader will likely be back in his seat in the fall.
National Post calevesque@postmedia.com
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The Spanish socialist nightmare that serves as a warning to Starmer's Britain
On the day of the blackouts that plunged Spain into darkness, Borja Hermoso was at work at the Almaraz nuclear plant in the west of the country. The moment Spain lost power, workers at the plant knew what to do. '[It was] something we had trained for and done simulations to prepare,' he says. It was critical to ensure the reactor shut down safely, and it went off without a hitch. 'We achieved a perfect safe stop. This was the best test we could have had and we passed with flying colours.' It was, to put it mildly, 'vindication', says Hermoso, 38, president of the works council at Almaraz, which employs thousands in a small town in Extremadura. Extraordinarily, it is also first in line for closure under the socialist government's dogged pursuit of net zero. For Hermoso, the blackouts were proof that plants like Almaraz provide much-needed stability in the electricity system. 'This government is obsessed with renewables and it seems to have an ideological component that is destabilising the electrical system.' When the plant closes in 2027, he will have to go elsewhere for work. 'I will have to move out of the area, my home region, which is sad for me. But it's much worse for people a little lower down the rung with less training, who simply won't find work in this area.' Closing nuclear plants is 'like ripping a seat out of a car,' says Izaskun García, who has been an engineer at Almaraz for 14 years. 'The investment will all be lost; the know-how that has been developed; the training.' María Guardiola Martin, president of the region and a politician in the conservative Spanish People's Party (PP), says the government's plan to shut nuclear plants and rely on renewables is 'a strategic and social error not only for Extremadura, but for all of Spain'. 'Ideology is prevailing over science in the Spanish government,' she says. At the same time, closing the plant will mean 'wiping out more than 3,000 direct and indirect jobs in one fell swoop. 'This is our largest industry, vital to our GDP, and dismantling it seriously harms the industrialisation process in our region.' Almaraz also generates 7 per cent of the nation's electricity, she says. Closing it would 'significantly reduce our country's emission-free generation capacity, diminish the security of our electricity supply, and negatively impact families and businesses across the country'. Martin has written to the Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, but has 'not received a response.' She has also asked for a report from Red Eléctrica, which runs the grid, seeking clarity over 'what happened on April 28, during the blackout'. She hasn't heard from them either. To centre-right figures like Martin and, indeed, Reform and Conservative politicians in Britain, Spain is an exemplar of what can go wrong when a stridently left-wing government uses the clunking fist of the state to impose its will on a country. In the case of the energy sector, Sánchez's government has de facto control of Red Eléctrica through a golden share and put Beatriz Corredor, a socialist politician with no experience in the field, in charge. Its previous chief, it's worth noting, resigned over political meddling, accusing Sánchez's government of 'messianic' zeal in its commitment to pursuing a green agenda. You don't have to spend long in Almaraz to understand there is a human cost to all this. Eva Trujillo Jara's brother and sister both work at the plant and stand to lose their jobs. 'The closure will be a body blow to my family and a disaster for the area,' she says. 'This village lives off the plant; the day it closes, I don't know how we are going to survive. There is a lot of fear and many people will end up migrating away. The village will be emptied out, like so many in Spain.' But there is a political cost too, an ideological battle which has echoes far beyond Spain, in the UK too. The blackout 'shows the system is not ready to run only with renewables,' says García. 'The transition has been too rapid and the planning insufficient. We need another 10-15 years to work out how to use only renewables and in the meantime, we cannot do without nuclear energy.' The Spanish Prime Minister doesn't appear to agree. What may or may not have caused the blackouts that hit on April 28 and lasted 23 hours is the subject of intense speculation in Spain. Many have pointed the finger at the government's insistence on accelerating the grid's reliance on renewables. A report has claimed Sánchez's government ordered the national grid operator to intensify the use of renewables a week before the power failed 'in order to present itself to Europe as a pioneer country', as reported by the conservative newspaper ABC. The paper claimed that 'unstable programmes' had been deployed, feeding the grid with as much renewable energy as possible. Spain's target is an electricity mix in which 81 per cent is derived from renewables by 2030. Last year renewables accounted for 56.8 per cent of the mix. On the day of the blackout, according to the report, Spain was approaching 73 per cent. A government spokesman has denied the claims, saying 'no order was given for any experiment or so-called unstable programmes'. If the plan was indeed to present Spain as a 'pioneer', it had the opposite effect. As 49 million of his countrymen were left in the dark for hours in scenes which many described as being reminiscent of the Second World War, Sánchez's Spain presented itself as a poster child not for sustainable prowess, but for what really happens when a net zero ideology is pursued at all costs. In Almaraz, a large solar park is being built, even as the nuclear plant prepares for shutdown. Blackouts and joblessness: the town has come to represent what life looks like after eight years under a socialist government fixated on renewables, and with the power to impose its ideology on companies and households. If there was ever a warning to Ed Miliband and Labour as they approach the end of their first year in power, it can surely be found in this remote town in Extremadura, where 3,000 people are on a countdown clock to unemployment. Spain has not historically been a natural test case for Britain. Our cultural sensibility and climate are a world away from that of the Iberian peninsula; our economies and international heft are not comparable (Spain's GDP is $1.8 trillion to our $3.8 trillion). And yet, as we hurtle further down a road laid by the Miliband, Reeves and Rayner vision for Britain, Sánchez's leftist state has never looked so familiar. On energy, the parallels are particularly striking. Britain could only dream of the kind of nuclear power Spain has long boasted and is now primed to scrap. And yet, in Ed Miliband's time in office, plans for a new nuclear power station on Anglesey have been thrown into doubt, and the £300m investment pledged by the Conservatives which was meant to make the UK the first commercial producer of advanced nuclear fuel outside Russia has fallen by the wayside. Meanwhile, the planned shutdown of four of our own nuclear power stations was delayed in December by French operator EDF amid fears that the government's pursuit of net zero could increase the risk of electricity price hikes and shortages. But Miliband's efforts to run full pelt in the direction of decarbonisation don't appear to be going especially well. Last month analysis by BloombergNEF revealed that he is likely poised to miss his 2030 offshore wind targets amid a lack of appetite from investors. The week before, a report suggested that it was becoming increasingly unlikely that Miliband's claim that net zero would reduce energy bills by £300 by 2030, could be achieved. Not only is a net zero crusade expensive, it could also be unsafe. Last month Sir Richard Dearlove, the former head of MI6, warned that the Energy Secretary's push to achieve clean power by 2030 and net zero carbon emissions by 2050 played into the hands of China, which provides much of the technology needed to convert Britain's grid to renewable energy. 'You've got the ideological Ed Miliband pursuing zero carbon without a thought for the impact on national security,' he said. 'He probably thinks: 'I'm dealing with a more serious problem, which is climate change, and that comes first.' It's so irrational. It is seriously problematic.' Irrational and problematic. Two words that could equally be applied to various government policies in both Britain and Spain. If Spain is the canary in the coal mine (or the sparrow in the solar farm) when it comes to energy, then you only have to look at their approach to taxes, growing migrant problems, unemployment rates and failing rail network to see there are plenty of other areas gasping for life after eight years in the grips of socialist rule – and there are lessons to be learnt here in Britain. Woe betide anyone who enjoys enough success to have a holiday home, whether in Sotogrande or Somerset. The Spanish government is determined to saddle non-EU citizens with a 100 per cent tax when buying holiday homes in a bid to tackle its housing crisis. Foreigners make up 15 per cent of the Spanish housing market, with Britons owning the largest proportion. That's 15 per cent of the housing market also, you could safely assume, contributing to builders' wages, to local economies, to the country's tourism revenue. Even for those who live in the country on a more permanent basis, Spain has become a 'tax trap', as one international law firm puts it. Expats are being 'fleeced' by Spain's authorities, says Amsterdam & Associates LLP, which launched the 'Spanish Tax Pickpockets' campaign, highlighting the 'punitive tax claims' that foreigners who move there fall victim to. It's a trend which should 'cause panic in any country with like-minded governments,' says John O'Connell, chief executive of the Taxpayers Alliance, who says the Spanish approach to taxing foreign homeowners is tantamount to 'economic self harm', while Labour seem to be singing from the same hymn sheet with their own efforts to target second home owners. Where in Scandinavian countries, O'Connell says, owning multiple properties is 'celebrated and encouraged', 'here we seem to think it's a sign that you're particularly evil somehow.' 'It's this really basic misunderstanding of economics,' he says. 'If you tax something you just get the revenue from it. Well, actually, what might happen is people might sell up.' The 'second and third round effects' of taxes like this are skimmed over, he says. 'They think they're small low-level tax tweaks but actually they have a huge impact on economic decision making, not just of businesses but of individuals too.' It leads to 'capital flight … and you don't end up with the tax receipts you intended in the first place.' Meanwhile, in Britain, he says, the chancellor is likely to come back for 'more tax rises later in the year.' And where will she look? In all likelihood, 'people who are more mobile with their capital.' What is happening in Spain should serve as a warning to us, says O'Connell. Taxes like this 'send a very strong signal that the country is not open for business, that we don't celebrate growth and we don't encourage prosperity and wealth creation'. 'While other countries are going in that direction, we should be considering going in the exact opposite and saying hey, hang on, Britain is open for business and we do value private enterprise and we're not just an enormous public sector with some taxpayers who pay for it.' Eventually, things just stop working. Miquel Vila is a political consultant from Catalonia. He is based in New York but travels home regularly. Every year, he notes the various ways things in his home country have grown 'progressively worse'. 'It's getting worse in a way that it's gradual, but after eight years all these things begin to add up,' he says. After the blackouts, he was confused by what seemed to be a strangely muted reaction amongst friends and family. 'No one was really angry,' he says. 'It's kind of accepting: this is the new normal. Things are going to be breaking here and there.' He felt as though the blackouts were another sign of 'the general decay of everything'. Adding to that feeling, on May 20, landline and mobile services were brought down across the country after a botched system upgrade by Telefónica, the Spanish telecoms giant. Meanwhile inflation continues to rise, a problem that right wing opponents of Sánchez's government blame on excessive public spending. Similar warnings have been issued in Britain since the pandemic. For Vila, 'using massive public spending to cope with the hangover of the pandemic' in Spain hasn't helped. And it isn't only in the supermarkets where people are failing to get enough bang for their buck. Spain's nationalised rail system is, Vila says, deteriorating. 'Trains have been bad for many years,' he says, citing a lack of air conditioning in the baking summer months and constant delays. Days after the recent blackouts, the country's rail system was in chaos after copper wire was taken from five different parts of the high speed line between Madrid and Seville, leaving more than 10,000 travellers suffering delays. Alberto Núñez Feijóo, leader of the PP, said they were scenes that 'do not befit the fourth-largest eurozone economy'. 'People don't deserve to be paying more taxes for worse services. Spain needs to function again and that's my aim.' The party's economic spokesman, Juan Bravo, called for a full audit of the railway, describing the chaos as 'the new normal under an overwhelmed government.' These are familiar scenes, but they're particularly prescient in the week when Labour's first renationalised train set off from Woking to Waterloo to great fanfare, and began with a stint on a rail replacement bus. Heidi Alexander, the Transport Secretary, declared it to be a 'new dawn'. As the Telegraph's Philip Johnston pointed out, it's perhaps more accurately described as 'a step into the past'. In October, Sánchez unveiled his plans to make it easier for migrants to settle in Spain. 'Spain needs to choose between being an open and prosperous country or a closed-off, poor country,' he told parliament, setting out a stance at odds with much of the rest of Europe. In the first days of 2025, an influx of migrants arrived in Spain, with nearly 800 people landing on the Canary Islands between January 6 and 8 alone. Last year, an opinion survey showed immigration was increasingly a cause for concern amongst the Spanish public, with 30 per cent considering it to be one of the country's major problems. In Britain, Sir Keir Starmer's 'island of strangers' speech might have done a certain amount to reposition Labour as being tough on immigration, but it's still the case that more voters (35 per cent according to a YouGov poll) see the PM as being pro-immigration than against it. Meanwhile, critics say it was all rhetoric. While, 'I welcome what he said,' says Alp Mehmet, chairman of Migration Watch UK, 'there is very little of substance there, which makes me wonder whether the government actually means it or whether in fact they're trying to persuade people.' Those on the left say Sánchez's approach to migration has had a positive economic impact. Spain's economy grew by 3.2 per cent last year. 'The more people you've got actually functioning, working within the system, of course it means the economy will grow,' says Mehmet. 'But what surveys, research, studies have consistently shown in Britain is that overall migration has been a net fiscal cost going right back to the days before Tony Blair. 'Time and again there have been studies that show that ultimately the low-wage, low-skill migration that most countries in Europe have seen is a cost to the taxpayer. I don't see that it's any different in Spain to our experience here.' Vila says it feels as though immigration has 'become worse and worse'. 'In terms of GDP it's true [Spain] has one of the top growing economies in the EU. But also Spain has added around 800,000 people in the last couple of years. [...] Spain is a good example of an economy that is growing – yes, [it's] adding to the population. [But] without any productivity powers.' Five miles from Almaraz, in the village of Belvís de Monroy, Fernando Sánchez contemplates what life in the area will be like after the plant closes down. He is the mayor of the village and was a radiation protection technician at the plant for 16 years. 'This village, Almaraz and others are going to die if the plant is closed,' he says. The Spanish government is 'like a driver on the wrong side of the motorway who thinks everyone else is mad and going in the wrong direction,' says Sánchez, 42. The problem being, of course, that the driver he speaks of happens to be in power. When they decide to hurtle in the wrong direction, they force everyone to go along with them, with potentially catastrophic consequences. 'Closing nuclear plants in the current environment would be one of the biggest mistakes in the history of Spain,' he says. His advice to the UK government? 'Look at what happened with the blackout.' Sánchez is in favour of renewable energy, but not in isolation. 'Extremadura has sun, wind, hydro and nuclear energy. Any European country would love to have what we have in a single region, and we can export it as we have way more than we need.' It is now clear there is 'not enough storage capacity to run the grid on renewables,' he says. 'When a plan fails, you need to make a new one.' It's advice that those in Madrid and Westminster would do well to heed. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
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The AI copyright standoff continues - with no solution in sight
The fierce battle over artificial intelligence (AI) and copyright - which pits the government against some of the biggest names in the creative industry - returns to the House of Lords on Monday with little sign of a solution in sight. A huge row has kicked off between ministers and peers who back the artists, and shows no sign of abating. It might be about AI but at its heart are very human issues: jobs and creativity. It's highly unusual that neither side has backed down by now or shown any sign of compromise; in fact if anything support for those opposing the government is growing rather than tailing off. This is "unchartered territory", one source in the peers' camp told me. The argument is over how best to balance the demands of two huge industries: the tech and creative sectors. More specifically, it's about the fairest way to allow AI developers access to creative content in order to make better AI tools - without undermining the livelihoods of the people who make that content in the first place. What's sparked it is the uninspiringly-titled Data (Use and Access) Bill. This proposed legislation was broadly expected to finish its long journey through parliament this week and sail off into the law books. Instead, it is currently stuck in limbo, ping-ponging between the House of Lords and the House of Commons. The bill states that AI developers should have access to all content unless its individual owners choose to opt out. Nearly 300 members of the House of Lords disagree. They think AI firms should be forced to disclose which copyrighted material they use to train their tools, with a view to licensing it. Sir Nick Clegg, former president of global affairs at Meta, is among those broadly supportive of the bill, arguing that asking permission from all copyright holders would "kill the AI industry in this country". Those against include Baroness Beeban Kidron, a crossbench peer and former film director, best known for making films such as Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason. She says ministers would be "knowingly throwing UK designers, artists, authors, musicians, media and nascent AI companies under the bus" if they don't move to protect their output from what she describes as "state sanctioned theft" from a UK industry worth £124bn. She's asking for an amendment to the bill which includes Technology Secretary Peter Kyle giving a report to the House of Commons about the impact of the new law on the creative industries, three months after it comes into force, if it doesn't change. Mr Kyle also appears to have changed his views about UK copyright law. He said copyright law was once "very certain", but is now "not fit for purpose". Perhaps to an extent both those things are true. The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology say that they're carrying out a wider consultation on these issues and will not consider changes to the Bill unless they're completely satisfied that they work for creators. If the "ping pong" between the two Houses continues, there's a small chance the entire bill could be shelved; I'm told it's unlikely but not impossible. If it does, some other important elements would go along with it, simply because they are part of the same bill. It also includes proposed rules on the rights of bereaved parents to access their children's data if they die, changes to allow NHS trusts to share patient data more easily, and even a 3D underground map of the UK's pipes and cables, aimed at improving the efficiency of roadworks (I told you it was a big bill). There is no easy answer. Here's how it all started. Initially, before AI exploded into our lives, AI developers scraped enormous quantities of content from the internet, arguing that it was in the public domain already and therefore freely available. We are talking about big, mainly US, tech firms here doing the scraping, and not paying for anything they hoovered up. Then, they used that data to train the same AI tools now used by millions to write copy, create pictures and videos in seconds. These tools can also mimic popular musicians, writers, artists. For example, a recent viral trend saw people merrily sharing AI images generated in the style of the Japanese animation firm Studio Ghibli. The founder of that studio meanwhile, had once described the use of AI in animation as "an insult to life itself". Needless to say, he was not a fan. There has been a massive backlash from many content creators and owners including household names like Sir Elton John, Sir Paul McCartney and Dua Lipa. They have argued that taking their work in this way, without consent, credit or payment, amounted to theft. And that artists are now losing work because AI tools can churn out similar content freely and quickly instead. Sir Elton John didn't hold back in a recent interview with the BBC's Laura Kuenssberg. He argued that the government was on course to "rob young people of their legacy and their income", and described the current administration as "absolute losers". Others though point out that material made by the likes of Sir Elton is available worldwide. And if you make it too hard for AI companies to access it in the UK they'll simply do it elsewhere instead, taking much needed investment and job opportunities with them. Two opposing positions, no obvious compromise. Sign up for our Tech Decoded newsletter to follow the world's top tech stories and trends. Outside the UK? Sign up here. Elton John and Dua Lipa seek protection from AI Artists release silent album in protest against AI using their work
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Hume Supports Ley Despite Feeling ‘Hurt Personally and Professionally'
Liberal Senator Jane Hume, who was left out of the new frontbench despite previously serving as Shadow Finance Minister, has pledged her support for party leader Sussan Ley—even as she admitted the decision left her 'hurt personally and professionally.' 'If you're asking me whether I feel hurt or slighted by this move from Sussan, of course it hurts,' Hume told Sunrise.
