‘Holding them accountable': MP McPherson says NDP still has major role to play in Parliament
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Toronto Sun
27 minutes ago
- Toronto Sun
LILLEY: Carney has failed to deliver on what he promised Canadians
He promised that he knew Trump and how to deal with him, so far, Mark Carney hasn't lived up to the hype. Get the latest from Brian Lilley straight to your inbox Prime Minister Mark Carney fans himself while he marches in the Vancouver Pride Parade in Vancouver, on Sunday, Aug. 3, 2025. Photo by ETHAN CAIRNS / THE CANADIAN PRESS How did Canada get to this point? We went from being a trade priority, close to a deal with Washington to not having a deal and not being a priority. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. THIS CONTENT IS RESERVED FOR SUBSCRIBERS ONLY Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. SUBSCRIBE TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. REGISTER / SIGN IN TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account. Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments. Enjoy additional articles per month. Get email updates from your favourite authors. THIS ARTICLE IS FREE TO READ REGISTER TO UNLOCK. Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments Enjoy additional articles per month Get email updates from your favourite authors Don't have an account? Create Account Friday came and went and there was no trade deal with Donald Trump. Mark Carney's point man on Canada-U.S. relations, Dominic LeBlanc left Washington for Moncton, New Brunswick, a clear sign that talks were not continuing in a serious way. The Americans don't take weekends off if things are going well. Last weekend, Trump was announcing a trade deal with the European Union from his golf course in Scotland, while his top trade negotiator Jamieson Greer was in Sweden for talks with China. This past week in Washington, Canadian officials may have been in the American capital, but they weren't meeting with top American officials. People like Greer were busy elsewhere and we were relegated. Meanwhile, Carney couldn't get Trump to return his phone call. Your noon-hour look at what's happening in Toronto and beyond. By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. Please try again This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. 'We haven't spoken to Canada today. He's called and we'll see,' Trump said last Thursday when asked about talks with Canada. On Sunday, LeBlanc told CBS's Face the Nation that Carney still hadn't spoken with Trump, but he expected they would in the coming days. This is really bad for Carney, both in terms of what it means economically for Canada but also compared to what he promised voters. 'I know the president, I've dealt with the president in the past in my previous roles when he was in his first term, and I know how to negotiate,' Carney said during the Liberal leadership race that made him PM. Other countries are getting deals, and we are getting higher tariffs, but it didn't have to be this way. When Premier Doug Ford went to Washington for meetings in March, he heard directly from Greer and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick that Canada was a priority. They told Ford the April 2 tariffs would come into place and then the Americans would seek to negotiate deals, and Canada was at the top of the list. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. LeBlanc was in that meeting, so was Carney's now Finance Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne. Though maybe Champagne didn't hear the message because according to several who are privy to what happened in the room, Champagne was busy trying to explain to the Americans how wrong they were and had to be reined in. RECOMMENDED VIDEO In early June, talk of a deal coming shortly, before the G7 in Kananaskis was rampant. Officials in Ottawa didn't deny talks of a deal happening quickly, in fact, they fed into that idea. The deal didn't happen before the G7 but while Carney and Trump were holding a media availability at the start of the summit, Trump said a deal could still be reached quickly, perhaps even that day. A deal didn't happen in Kananaskis either and one hasn't happened since. So much for Mark Carney being the 'Trump whisperer' as CNN described him, or Carney knowing how to get a deal with Trump. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Right now, his knowledge of President Trump seems weak, his negotiating skills appear absent. I know many Canadians, across all political stripes simply hate Trump and appear willing to cheer on anyone who stands against him. My email inbox and social media feeds are regularly filled with people saying you can't negotiate with a lunatic, meaning Trump, and no one can get a deal with him. Well, Keir Starmer the British PM got a deal. European Union President Ursula von der Leyen got a deal with Trump, one that includes buying billions of dollars' worth of liquefied natural gas that the Europeans asked us to sell them and that the Liberal government said there was no business case for. Mark Carney told Canadians he was the man with the plan, the man with the experience to deliver, but so far, he's failing. Read More Celebrity Sunshine Girls Sex Files Relationships Columnists
CTV News
an hour ago
- CTV News
Ontario to twin final 68km of Hwy. 69
Progress being reported on four-laning the final 68-km stretch of Highway 69 between Sudbury and Toronto. There appears to be progress on four-laning the remaining stretch of Highway 69 between Sudbury and Toronto in Ontario. Currently, approximately 68 kilometres of the highway from Henvey Inlet First Nation to Nobel remains incomplete. At a news conference in Thunder Bay on Thursday, Premier Doug Ford was asked about expanding all of Highways 11 and 17, rather than focusing solely on areas near the Manitoba border. Ford expressed strong support for the idea. Doug Ford Ontario Premier Doug Ford speaks in Thunder Bay, Ont., on July 31, 2025. (File photo/CTV News) Ford backs northern highway upgrades 'We're spending $200 billion on infrastructure, spending a fortune on roads and highways –I think it's up to $35 billion – but I'm all in, and I want to make sure our highways are safe,' Ford told reporters. 'It's treacherous, especially not just here, but have you ever gone from Sudbury down to the city? Like that two-lane – that was like white-knuckled driving down there. If a transport is off by two inches, you're done.' The premier highlighted an agreement with three First Nations communities to secure land for the project. 'We've bought their piece of property, and so we're going to be twinning that. We've made that announcement, and my goal is to make sure our highways are safe,' he said. Northern winters highlight need for safety improvements Ford emphasized the dangers of northern Ontario winters, stating that those in urban centres may not fully grasp the challenges. 'My message to people in the city – you have no clue until you come up to the north and you drive in the winter,' he said. 'We drove all through the north during the election. Snow was coming down – we had a pretty heavy winter. It's terrifying.' He added that northern Ontario's harsh conditions are something one must experience firsthand to truly understand. Timeline still unclear While Ford confirmed that Northern Development Minister Greg Rickford has been pushing to complete the project, no start date for construction has been announced. Provincial officials say Ontario remains committed to improving highway safety, with further details expected in the coming months.
CBC
an hour ago
- CBC
Alberta cities face higher election costs this fall after province bans electronic vote counters
As municipalities around Alberta prepare for local elections this fall, some cities are projecting higher costs and longer wait times in light of new rules set out by the province last year. When the Alberta government passed Bill 20, it banned the use of electronic vote tabulators, a method some cities have used to count ballots in every municipal election for decades. The vote counting machines speed up the process, allowing municipalities to save money and offer results to the public more quickly, compared to counting votes manually. But counting votes by hand is what every municipality will need to do this fall, and some cities are looking at costs double or triple what they spent in the 2021 municipal elections. The rise is partly due to increased staffing municipalities will need to count ballots in a process that could last much longer than the public is used to waiting to hear results. Since introducing Bill 20, the province has maintained that manually counting votes will better maintain voters' trust in election integrity. But Alberta Municipalities president Tyler Gandam said he hasn't seen evidence to back up that assertion, and he's frustrated municipalities weren't consulted more about how to run their own elections. "We're using automated tellers for grocery stores and retail, we're using these kinds of machines for testing in schools. I'm just not seeing the data that supports that there's going to be a higher level of confidence in an election result through hand-counting versus a voting machine," said Gandam. He added that large population centres will especially feel the strain of manual counts. Voter turnout in Calgary and Edmonton in 2021 saw hundreds of thousands of votes cast, and with the population growth Alberta has seen in the years since then, Gandam said the strain of even more ballots to count could be placed on elections staff this fall. Rising costs to operate elections Within the last year, several municipalities around Alberta have released projections of how much more they expect to spend to operate local elections. Last October, City of Edmonton officials projected nearly $5 million in extra costs will be needed to run this fall's election. Further south, a recent report commissioned by the City of Lethbridge expects its election to cost the city roughly twice as much as in 2021, largely due to hiring 300 to 400 additional workers. Red Deer as well, with an additional $940,000 planned. And in Medicine Hat, the city's budget of $400,000 for the election is up from an initial $270,000 projection, while it also plans to cut the number of polling stations it opens in half, from 20 to 10, as a way to contain costs. In St. Albert, the city's elections budget has tripled to $930,700, compared to $261,200 in 2021. The City of Calgary said will not publicize how much it expects to spend in this fall's election until it can confirm a final number, which it expects to do in September. The municipal election is scheduled for Oct. 20. Added cost a burden we pay for transparent democracies: provincial minister Municipal Affairs Minister Dan Williams said he's "very happy" even despite increased costs, to improve election integrity "That's the burden we pay here in the west for having transparent and open democracies," Williams said in an interview on Thursday. "I think it's business as usual." Williams argued only five or six municipalities have raised the vote counter ban as an issue to him since he became municipal affairs minister in May, adding that it's how federal election ballots are already counted. Most Alberta municipalities aren't worried about having to count votes by hand, Williams said, and are instead "dealing with work they should be dealing with," such as water delivery, filling potholes, attracting investment and keeping taxes down. "I wish luck to every single [municipal] candidate so that they can do the work that they need to, which is, to be honest, not worrying about if we should have vote tabulators," said Williams. "The province has decided for certainty in our elections and confidence in the way that we run our municipal elections, this is the best way to do it. It's how we decide to do it at the federal level, it's how we decide to do it at the provincial level, it's also good enough for our municipalities. That's the priority of this government, and the priority of municipalities should be making sure that those basic services are being rendered to all the ratepayers." But Bonnie Hilford, Lethbridge's city clerk, points out her city has used electronic tabulators in every election for more than 30 years without hearing concerns about election integrity. "We've been using tabulators in the city of Lethbridge since 1989, and we've never had a challenge or a contested election," said Hilford. "We're kind of wondering why we have to move to hand-counting, which will take a lot longer [and] cost a lot more." Because voters in Lethbridge select more than one candidate for city council and school trustee roles, Hilford said the city expects the public won't receive full election results for two days after polling stations close. The added wait time for results, coupled with increased staffing costs, has pushed Lethbridge city council to advocate for the province to reverse course. Hilford said she expects council to take that same position after this year's election, as a way to try and save taxpayers' money. Advocacy expected to continue after election Along with his role at Alberta Municipalities, Gandam is also the mayor of Wetaskiwin, a city of roughly 13,400 people. Wetaskiwin previously counted votes manually as a cost-effective alternative to vote tabulators, but Gandam said they paid for it in the length of time it required. When the city struggled to recruit enough reliable elections staff in 2021, Gandam said they decided to begin using vote counters in its next election as a more efficient and reliable method. But now the province has blocked that move. Last fall, Alberta Municipalities members voted to adopt a resolution calling for a reversal on the province's ban of vote-counting machines. Gandam said the organization plans to connect with its members after this year's elections, and bring any relevant concerns to the province to potentially make changes before the next election in 2029. Williams said he's interested in seeing the vote tabulator ban continue, but that he's open to having that conversation with municipalities. "If municipalities do bring it up as their biggest concern, not funding for wastewater, not making sure they can lower taxes … then I'll hear that conversation, if this is their priority coming out of the election," said Williams.
