Terry Glavin: Mark Carney owes Jagmeet Singh a massive thank you for NDP implosion
It's a verdict that's rapidly embedding itself as the answer to the riddle of the Liberal party's revival from its vegetative state as recently as last December to this week's election-day comeback, only a handful of seats shy of a majority in the House of Commons: Party standard-bearer Mark Carney owes his triumph to Donald Trump.
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The notion is particularly popular in the United States. In Democratic party circles, especially, Canadians have lately become celebrated as plucky allies in the gallant resistance to their daft president's jingoistic threats to break all the rules of global neoliberalism, annexing Canada along with Greenland in the bargain.
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There's definitely a case to be made for the proposition. Canadians are furious about all this, and a suave and worldly big-money asset manager should be presumed to possess a competence and dexterity that would definitely count as an advantage in the daunting work of muddling through the mercurial president's tariff-war belligerence. Then again, Carney's unique skill set would also lend itself well to the fashioning of elaborate masquerades of ad valorem equivalents, GATT Article 20 exemptions and other such resorts to the highly-specialized vocabulary of international trade pacts in order to camouflage a capitulation to the White House, or a suicidal deepening of economic dependence on China. You could dress these things up as masterstrokes of highbrow statesmanship.
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But never mind that. The Liberals successfully marketed Carney as a kind of Svengali, and a significant body of voters bought it, so fair play to the Liberals.
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It's just that the presence of a dangerous president in the White House might not have been that much more significant in the scheme of things than the bizarre absence of someone else.
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You'd never know it, but until just last month, Canada's prime minister was Justin Trudeau. After Carney was formally anointed March 9 at the conclusion of the heavily ritualized Liberal leadership succession, Trudeau simply vanished from public view. He'd been prime minister for nearly a decade, and he was suddenly made invisible.
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Everyone appears to agree that the just concluded federal election was one of the weirdest and most momentous ever. Carney has called the election 'one of those hinge moments of history,' and it was. 'Existential' is a word that came up a lot.
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We know Justin Trudeau still exists. On March 17, he posted a selfie on Instagram. He was buying kitchen utensils at a Canadian Tire store, apparently in Ottawa. The Globe and Mail has cited unnamed sources who say Trudeau is renting a house in Ottawa's Rockcliffe neighbourhood. That's all we've heard from him.
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The peculiarity of this state of affairs can be explained by the Liberal party's understandable determination to induce a state of amnesia in the electorate, owing to the catastrophe of the Liberals' more than nine years in power and the galloping unpopularity of Trudeau himself. By the final days of 2024, the Liberals' approval ratings had been reduced to what pollster Angus Reid calculated at just 16 per cent.
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Toronto Star
25 minutes ago
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Carney set to make defence announcement in Toronto as NATO eyes spending boost
OTTAWA - Prime Minister Mark Carney's office says he will be in Toronto today to make an announcement related to 'defence and security priorities.' The announcement is slated for 10 a.m., after which he is set to tour a local military facility before holding a news conference at 1 p.m. Defence ministers from NATO countries met in Brussels last week to discuss raising the member spending target on defence to as much as five per cent of GDP. ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW Canada has never met NATO's existing spending target of two per cent since it was established in 2006, and the topic will loom large when NATO leaders meet later this month in the Netherlands. Carney promised during the recent election campaign to move up Canada's deadline for meeting the two per cent threshold from 2032 to 2030 or sooner, but hasn't yet revealed a plan for meeting that figure. The NATO secretary-general's annual report released this past April says Canada's defence spending likely hit 1.45 per cent in 2024. This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 9, 2025. Politics Headlines Newsletter Get the latest news and unmatched insights in your inbox every evening Error! Sorry, there was an error processing your request. There was a problem with the recaptcha. Please try again. Please enter a valid email address. Sign Up Yes, I'd also like to receive customized content suggestions and promotional messages from the Star. You may unsubscribe at any time. By signing up, you agree to our terms of use and privacy policy. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google privacy policy and terms of service apply. Politics Headlines Newsletter You're signed up! You'll start getting Politics Headlines in your inbox soon. Want more of the latest from us? Sign up for more at our newsletter page.
National Observer
an hour ago
- National Observer
There is no such thing as "decarbonized oil"
It takes a lot to make Simon Donner lose his cool. The co-chair of the feds' advisory group on climate policy has a daily practice of swimming in the Pacific and braves the frigid water all winter long. But he couldn't bear the blather about 'decarbonized oil' spilling from the first ministers' meeting this week. The prime minister and premiers emerged from their meeting in Saskatoon last Monday and jointly declared they would 'work urgently to get Canadian natural resources and commodities to domestic and international markets, such as critical minerals and decarbonized Canadian oil and gas by pipelines, supported by the private sector….' Donner took to social media to denounce the whole notion of 'decarbonized oil' as 'Orwellian.' It was strong language from the co-chair of the federal Net-Zero Advisory Body (NZAB). Donner is a climate scientist at UBC studying oceans and the intersection of climate science and policy. In that role, he gets to call the fouls as he sees them. But when people accept official government advisory roles, their criticisms usually devolve into gracious gibberish. So, it was refreshing to hear Donner push back on the statement by Carney et al. The whole idea is just plain 'silly,' he said. There is no such thing as 'decarbonized oil' — 'Oil contains carbon and emits CO2 when combusted.' Oil is, after all, a hydrocarbon. Along with methane gas and coal, the combustion of these fossil fuels is the primary driver of climate change. You already knew that, I'm sure. But the reason it's important to spell it out is that you're in the minority. Everyone knows there's a conflict between Big Oil and the greenies. But after decades of climate denial, online disinformation and general gaslighting, there is still widespread confusion about the most basic facts — just under half of Canadians pick out 'burning fossil fuels' even when given a list of possible sources most responsible for climate change. The marketing spin about 'decarbonized oil,' isn't new. The oil and gas industry and various agencies were talking about carbon capture on oil production last century. More recently, Natural Resources Canada published a Roadmap for the Decarbonization of Canada's Oil and Gas Sector in the Trudeau years. The nonsensical term is a close cousin to the attempts at marketing deep offshore drilling in the Atlantic as 'net-zero.' And adjacent to the most brazen branding effort to date — so-called 'ethical oil.' Decarbonized oil doublespeak may not be new but it was jarring coming from the mouth of Prime Minister Mark Carney, who has an undeniable grasp of the impacts of hydrocarbons. @ writes for @ The decarbonized doublespeak may not be new but it was jarring coming from the mouth of our new PM, who has an undeniable grasp of the impacts of hydrocarbons but nevertheless talked about 'decarbonized barrels' at the press conference following the first ministers' meeting. And it was particularly painful considering the venue — a province under a state of emergency where more than 15,000 people have fled wildfires. Extended families are crammed into single hotel rooms and sleeping in parking lots. While the first ministers discussed their nation-building plans in Saskatoon, a group of evacuees held a protest in the city demanding more resources for firefighting and evacuation support. It is still only Spring, but over 33,000 Canadians have already been forced to evacuate. John Vaillant, the author of Fire Weather relayed a startling conversation this week: the CEO of Red Cross Canada told him that when he started with the organization 17 years ago, 'eighty per cent of our work was outside Canada. Now, eighty per cent of our work is inside the country.' The early-season heatwave and fire conditions on the Prairies are 'at least five times more likely than they would be in a world without climate change,' according to attribution scientists. 'These conditions, which set the stage for dangerous wildfires, will only become more frequent and more severe if we continue burning fossil fuels,' said Dr. Kristina Dahl, VP of Science at Climate Central. The contrast was too much for another member of NZAB. ''Decarbonized oil and gas' does not exist,' wrote Catherine Abreu. '[It is] a complete contradiction in terms, and a dangerous lie that Canadian government after Canadian government has tried to spin under the spell of industry lobbying.' It may be too early to tell who's doing the spinning and what kind of spell they're casting. Alberta Premier Danielle Smith sounded positively enthusiastic about an emerging 'grand bargain' to satisfy the demands of the oil and gas industry. But some political watchers suspect Mark Carney is spinning a political web of his own. CNO's Max Fawcett argues that Carney is effectively calling Smith's bluff — a kind of judo move that avoids direct confrontation and puts the pressure back on her: 'He will, as Smith demanded, create the conditions for a more rapid assessment of infrastructure projects. But it's clear that one of those conditions will be the net-zero targets that Smith and Alberta's oil and gas industry have repeatedly committed themselves to.' Politics is the art of the possible, as they say. And perhaps there's a method behind the oxymorons and doublespeak. But it's hard to shake the sense that we're kidding ourselves and avoiding the basic reckoning. Still muttering about decarbonizing hydrocarbons even as the flames close in.
Winnipeg Free Press
2 hours ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
‘General acceptance': A year of banning cellphones in Canadian classrooms
EDMONTON – Sixteen-year-old Roha Akram was skeptical when teachers in Calgary announced a cellphone ban during the first assembly of the school year. 'I was like, 'No one's going to follow this,'' the Grade 11 student recalled of the change in September. 'It's just the nature of teenagers. We don't like rules.' Teachers didn't want to see phones on desks or in pockets, Akram added. 'They wanted it in the backpack, in the locker, in the car.' She said the ban has been good for some students, who just need a reminder to focus in class, particularly when teachers are speaking. But some have struggled. One teacher took a phone away from a boy who was really attached to his device, she said. 'He started acting crazy. He went around asking everyone, 'Can I use your phone? Can I use your phone? I need to go on Instagram.' 'I saw phones are kind of becoming an addiction.' As the school year wraps up this month, education ministries across Canada say there have been overall positive results from banning cellphones. They say it has taught students not to develop unhealthy attachments to their phones and to focus on lessons in the classroom. Last fall, most provinces introduced policies to limit cellphone use in schools, similar to jurisdictions in other countries. Before the ban in Manitoba, Education Minister Tracy Schmidt said a school librarian complained to her that students were too quiet sitting around the stacks of books. 'The students would come in groups, sit down at a table together, pull out their cellphones and they would all sit there. You could hear a pin drop,' said Schmidt. The cellphone ban has returned the chatter and socialization among students, she said. 'They still come with their groups of friends, but now they're sitting, they're talking, they're laughing. They might pick up a board game. (The librarian) was really, really grateful to the province for taking this step.' Ontario's education ministry said parents and teachers find the ban has created a better learning environment. 'As we close out the first full year of implementation, we will continue gathering input to understand how the policy has worked in practice, where it has been effective, and where further support may be needed,' said spokesperson Emma Testani. In Nova Scotia, school staff were surprised by how smoothly it was to implement the new directive, said education spokesperson Alex Burke. 'While not all students like leaving their devices out of the classroom, there is a general acceptance of the benefit of limiting cellphone use and appreciation of the opportunity to ignore their phones,' said Burke. The Edmonton Public School Board, Alberta's largest school division, said it didn't notice any significant issues. 'Schools had the flexibility to determine how best to implement the ban, whether it meant introducing new practices or adjusting current ones,' said spokesperson Kim Smith. A year of the ban doesn't mean students aren't still using phones in class, admitted Akram. Some have just become more sneaky. One fellow student used a textbook to hide his phone while teachers were talking, she said. 'He just watches YouTube Shorts the whole class.' Akram said she also occasionally uses her phone during work time in class — her AirPods in her ears, under her hijab — so she can listen to music. Wednesdays Columnist Jen Zoratti looks at what's next in arts, life and pop culture. When teachers do confiscate phones, they're typically returned at the end of class or the school day, she added. Akram said she can see why the ban might be necessary for generation Z and students with unhealthy attachments to their phones. 'We were born when people were inventing iPads and iPhones … so we grew up with screens.' She said she thinks teachers will be stricter with the ban next year. This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 9, 2025.
