Latest news with #Pierre Poilievre
CBC
6 days ago
- Politics
- CBC
Upcoming Alberta byelection set to break record for most candidates on single ballot
Next month's byelection in Alberta's Battle River-Crowfoot will break the record for the most candidates on a federal ballot in Canadian history. As of Friday, 102 candidates — mostly associated with a group of electoral reform advocates known as the Long Ballot Committee — have registered to run for the seat. The byelection was called after its recently re-elected MP, Damien Kurek, resigned to allow Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre to run for a new seat in the House of Commons. Poilievre lost in his longtime riding of Carleton in April. The Longest Ballot Committee has been organizing dozens of candidates to run in byelections in recent years, resulting in metre-long ballots that have caused delays in vote counting and confounded some voters. The group wants to put a citizens' assembly in charge of electoral reform and says political parties are too reluctant to make the government more representative of the electorate. The previous record of 91 candidates occurred twice in the past year: during a byelection in LaSalle-Emard-Verdun last September and Carleton during the general election this past spring. The Longest Ballot Committee says it is aiming to sign up 200 candidates in Battle River-Crowfoot. The deadline to register as a candidate is July 28.
National Post
6 days ago
- Business
- National Post
Michael Taube: Poilievre's right — Canada needs a hard cap on immigration
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has long recognized what the Liberals have only started to acknowledge: immigration levels in Canada are too high and unsustainable. He has a plan to get things back under control, and it's a sensible political strategy to take. Article content Poilievre suggested a new immigration policy for the Conservatives in June. 'We want severe limits on population growth to reverse the damage the Liberals did to our system,' he said at a press conference last month. 'The population has been growing out of control, our border has been left wide open. This has caused the free flow of drugs, illegal migration, human trafficking and much worse.' Article content Article content Global News asked him to elaborate on his remarks at a press conference in Ottawa this week. 'In order to fix the problem,' he replied, 'we've got to put very hard caps on immigration levels. We need more people leaving than coming for the next couple of years … so our country can actually catch up.' Article content Article content In addition, Poilievre pointed out that, 'We've had population growth of roughly a million a year under the Liberals, while we barely build 200,000 homes. Our job market is stalled and yet we are adding more people to the workforce. Our young people are facing generational highs in unemployment because … multinational corporations are giving jobs to low-wage temporary foreign workers.' Article content He's right. Conservatives recognize the importance of immigration on everything from promoting diversity to achieving economic success, but they also recognize that Canada simply can't handle the financial burden that the annual influx of immigration has caused over the past decade of Liberal rule. Article content Article content It wasn't always this way. Statistics Canada's 2016 paper, ' 150 years of immigration in Canada,' noted that the number of landed immigrants since the 1990s had 'remained relatively high, with an average of approximately 235,000 new immigrants per year.' The highest tally ever recorded to that point was in 1913, when 'more than 400,000 immigrants arrived in the country.' Article content Article content Canada experienced a steady level of population growth through immigration for more than a century. Until Justin Trudeau was elected prime minister, that is. Article content Trudeau's early years actually didn't witness a significant spike in immigration. A total of 296,350 immigrants arrived on our shores in 2016, while the number decreased slightly to 286,480 in 2017. Nothing out of the ordinary, all things considered. Article content But in 2016, the federal government's advisory council on economic growth suggested that immigration targets could be increased by 150,000 annually over the next five years. It specifically recommended Ottawa take a 'gradual approach to scaling annual immigration to the recommended 450,000 level over the next 5 years.'
CBC
7 days ago
- Business
- CBC
Does Mark Carney really have 574 conflicts of interest?
Prime Minister Mark Carney says he followed all the rules about disclosing his financial assets — now held in a blind trust — but Pierre Poilievre and Opposition MPs say his holdings are rife with conflicts of interest. Andrew Chang explains why Carney's connections to companies like Brookfield Asset Management and Westinghouse may or may not pose a problem, and how much of what Carney and the opposition claim is actually true. Images provided by Getty Images, The Canadian Press and Reuters.
Yahoo
12-07-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Poilievre says he lost Ottawa riding for being 'honest' about plan to cut public sector jobs
Conservative Party Leader Pierre Poilievre says he lost his riding of Carleton in the federal election due to an "aggressive" campaign by public sector unions after he was honest about wanting to cut federal worker jobs. Poilievre had held the Ottawa riding of Carleton for two decades until the April 28 election, when he was defeated by Liberal candidate Bruce Fanjoy by 4,500 votes. The loss was a major setback for the leader, who before the new year had been favoured to become prime minister. Poilievre no longer has a seat in the House of Commons, but he's hoping to regain one in the rural Alberta riding of Battle River–Crowfoot on Aug. 18 — after former Conservative MP Damien Kurek offered up his spot in what is one of the safest Conservative seats in the country. In an interview with CBC's The House that airs on Saturday, Poilievre said his campaign was transparent about his intention to cut public service jobs if his party won the election. "And it's an Ottawa riding with a lot of federal public servants who disagreed with that approach," Poilievre said. "They ran a very aggressive campaign, particularly the public sector unions did, to defeat me on that basis." The leader said his voice as a representative for Canadians across the country took precedence over pleasing the 124,000 or so people in the riding — which happens to border Prime Minister Mark Carney's riding of Nepean. But Poilievre continues to want to highlight his party's successes in the election under his leadership, including the two and a half million more votes it garnered than in the 2021 federal election, as well as adding 25 seats in Parliament. He will be undergoing a mandatory leadership review in January, which the Conservative Party's constitution calls for if a leader does not resign following an election loss. "Some people might say, 'Well, it wasn't the best idea to run on a smaller federal public service when you're an Ottawa MP,' but I had an entire country to represent," Poilievre said. "I had to be honest with people." He said the Liberals didn't do the same. "I guess I could've done what the Liberals did, which is hide their plans," Poilievre said. WATCH | Why Pierre Poilievre thinks he lost his riding of 2 decades: Last week, Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne asked fellow cabinet ministers to come up with "ambitious savings proposals" to get a handle on public sector spending. During the election campaign, Carney did share his intention to rein in federal operational spending, saying he would "spend less, so Canada can invest more." At the time, he said he would cap the size of the public service and try to make government operations more efficient by "leveraging AI and machine learning." "The voice that I bring represents those eight million-plus people who believed in my message of fighting inflation, of getting affordable homes built, of locking up criminals, defeating drugs, unleashing our resources," Poilievre told Catherine Cullen, host of The House. When it comes to cutting the federal public service, he said, "that's the only way you bring down taxes and deficits, and I was honest about that, and the people in that particular constituency voted accordingly."Poilievre is running against Liberal candidate Darcy Spady in Battle River–Crowfoot. Kurek first won the riding's seat in 2019 and was re-elected in April with almost 82 per cent of the vote. The young Conservative has said he plans to run in the riding again in the next federal election. The Conservative leader said he wants to continue challenging the government in the House of Commons, as he's well known for doing during question period. "If you look at how the debate has changed in Canada as a result of the arguments and the causes that I've taken on, that voice has been very important to countless people, and it's a voice I want to amplify," he said.
Yahoo
12-07-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Poilievre says he lost Ottawa riding for being 'honest' about plan to cut public sector jobs
Conservative Party Leader Pierre Poilievre says he lost his riding of Carleton in the federal election due to an "aggressive" campaign by public sector unions after he was honest about wanting to cut federal worker jobs. Poilievre had held the Ottawa riding of Carleton for two decades until the April 28 election, when he was defeated by Liberal candidate Bruce Fanjoy by 4,500 votes. The loss was a major setback for the leader, who before the new year had been favoured to become prime minister. Poilievre no longer has a seat in the House of Commons, but he's hoping to regain one in the rural Alberta riding of Battle River–Crowfoot on Aug. 18 — after former Conservative MP Damien Kurek offered up his spot in what is one of the safest Conservative seats in the country. In an interview with CBC's The House that airs on Saturday, Poilievre said his campaign was transparent about his intention to cut public service jobs if his party won the election. "And it's an Ottawa riding with a lot of federal public servants who disagreed with that approach," Poilievre said. "They ran a very aggressive campaign, particularly the public sector unions did, to defeat me on that basis." The leader said his voice as a representative for Canadians across the country took precedence over pleasing the 124,000 or so people in the riding — which happens to border Prime Minister Mark Carney's riding of Nepean. But Poilievre continues to want to highlight his party's successes in the election under his leadership, including the two and a half million more votes it garnered than in the 2021 federal election, as well as adding 25 seats in Parliament. He will be undergoing a mandatory leadership review in January, which the Conservative Party's constitution calls for if a leader does not resign following an election loss. "Some people might say, 'Well, it wasn't the best idea to run on a smaller federal public service when you're an Ottawa MP,' but I had an entire country to represent," Poilievre said. "I had to be honest with people." He said the Liberals didn't do the same. "I guess I could've done what the Liberals did, which is hide their plans," Poilievre said. WATCH | Why Pierre Poilievre thinks he lost his riding of 2 decades: Last week, Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne asked fellow cabinet ministers to come up with "ambitious savings proposals" to get a handle on public sector spending. During the election campaign, Carney did share his intention to rein in federal operational spending, saying he would "spend less, so Canada can invest more." At the time, he said he would cap the size of the public service and try to make government operations more efficient by "leveraging AI and machine learning." "The voice that I bring represents those eight million-plus people who believed in my message of fighting inflation, of getting affordable homes built, of locking up criminals, defeating drugs, unleashing our resources," Poilievre told Catherine Cullen, host of The House. When it comes to cutting the federal public service, he said, "that's the only way you bring down taxes and deficits, and I was honest about that, and the people in that particular constituency voted accordingly."Poilievre is running against Liberal candidate Darcy Spady in Battle River–Crowfoot. Kurek first won the riding's seat in 2019 and was re-elected in April with almost 82 per cent of the vote. The young Conservative has said he plans to run in the riding again in the next federal election. The Conservative leader said he wants to continue challenging the government in the House of Commons, as he's well known for doing during question period. "If you look at how the debate has changed in Canada as a result of the arguments and the causes that I've taken on, that voice has been very important to countless people, and it's a voice I want to amplify," he said.
