2025 Federal Election
I don’t believe these polls!
Dan McTeague
Cards on the table, I’m skeptical of the current state of the polling in this election. My sense is that Mark Carney and the Liberals’ numbers are, at least in part, a byproduct of sympathetic pollsters over-sampling their key demographics, and those being trumpeted to high heaven by the publicly-funded media. That, coupled with voters’ justifiable annoyance at Donald Trump’s “51st State” cracks and tariff threats, has contributed to an illusion of enthusiasm, a sense that they are running away with this thing.
That said, one polling data point has struck me as being both real and important. A recent Abacus Data poll showed that, when you cut out all the distractions, Canadians’ biggest concern remains our inflated cost of living. And that is an issue which clearly favors Poilievre and the Conservatives.
That’s because the dire state of our economy can largely be laid at the feet of the Liberals, who’ve been running the show for the past decade. Yes, they’ve made a change at the top, but not much of one. On top of being a globe-trotting member of the “Green” Elite, and champion of environmentalist banking, Mark Carney was a Liberal advisor for years, a key part of the Trudeau “brain trust” — trust me, I use that term loosely — that cooked up a whole raft of economy smothering “Green” policies which have done nothing to reduce global carbon emissions, but have succeeded in lightening our wallets.
Under Trudeau, our annual GDP growth noticeably shifted from the 3% range towards the end of the Harper years to the 1% range more recently. Household debt-to-income ratios rose steadily in the same period, while real household spending per capita dropped 2-3% below 2019 levels by 2024, as costs and interest rates went up. Disposable income growth has been outpaced by inflation and taxes, and bankruptcy filings have risen 40% since just 2019.
Canadian food prices have exploded by 35-40%, with family spending up over 50% over the past decade. Consequently, food insecurity rose to 23% by 2023, from around 8% in 2015, and Food Banks Canada has reported a 78% surge in usage from 2019 to 2023.
Meanwhile, Canada’s national debt, which was just over $600 billion when Justin Trudeau was handed the federal credit card, has roughly doubled, reaching over $1.2 trillion by the time he left. And provincial debt has risen by about $1 trillion in the same period.
It’s a frightening financial snapshot. And many of these negatives can be attributed to the Liberals’ war on oil and gas, which remains — however much Carney might wish otherwise — the backbone of our national economy.
So much of the Liberals’ time and effort in government has been spent kneecapping the resource sector, and for purely ideological reasons. From Bill C-48, the Oil Tanker Moratorium Act of 2019, which significantly reduces our ability to sell oil and gas abroad, to Bill C-69, which added mountains of red tape for infrastructure projects, so much so that it was nicknamed the “No More Pipelines” Act.
You’ll remember that the Supreme Court ruled the “No More Pipelines” act largely unconstitutional two years ago. Even so, Carney recently said he has no intention of repealing it, prompting Poilievre to tweet out, “This Liberal law blocked BILLIONS of dollars of investment in oil & gas projects, pipelines, LNG plants, mines, and so much more,” with an excellent infographic attached, listing the various cancelled energy projects throughout Canada since the Liberals came to power.
And then of course, there’s the Consumer Carbon Tax, which started out at $20 per tonne of CO2 emitted in 2019, small enough that many Canadians barely noticed they were paying it, but increased every year until it hit $80 per tonne.
By that point it became so noticeable and unpopular that the Liberals felt they had no choice but to “cancel” it (“zero it out” is more accurate), before it could reach the $170 by 2030 which they’d planned. Still, it remains on the books, ready to be raised again, without a vote, if Carney so chooses.
Even if he doesn’t, Carney has doubled down on the Industrial Carbon Tax. While the Liberals claim this is an improvement because it isn’t paid by working Canadians, only by big evil “polluters.” Of course, they said something similar about the Consumer Tax, that by some financial wizardry, we regular folks would get back more than we paid in, which turned out to be total bunk.
Meanwhile, the Industrial Tax makes our lives more expensive in essentially the same way as the Consumer Tax. It raises the cost of doing business, of heating our homes, of filling up our car, of our grocery bills. It just does so by a less direct route, by taxing businesses instead of individuals, so that we pay when the price of goods and services goes up in response.
The Industrial Carbon Tax, much like Trudeau’s Clean Fuel Regulations, is ultimately a hidden tax, and that suits Carney just fine. He’d prefer that we not know who to blame as our cost of living skyrockets.
The Liberal Party’s economic record over since 2015 has been atrocious, and it will be no different under Mark Carney. He is complicit, and he continues to support policies which would make us poorer, like Bill S-243, the “Climate-Aligned Finance Act,” which Carney testified before the Senate in support of last year. That bill sought to make it nearly impossible for banks to invest in, or loan money to, oil and gas projects in Canada, and tried to force financial institutions to appoint board members ideologically opposed to fossil fuels.
Canada needs to change course, and soon. As things stand, it will be tough for even a good captain to navigate us through the rough seas the Liberals have steered us into over the past ten years. A few more, and with Mark Carney at the helm, might make that impossible.
Dan McTeague is President of Canadians for Affordable Energy.
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Canadians for Affordable Energy is run by Dan McTeague, former MP and founder of Gas Wizard. We stand up and fight for more affordable energy.
This article supplied by Troy Media.
By Michael Taube
Official party status requires 12 seats. The NDP got seven. End of story
Rules are rules.
That, in a nutshell, is why the NDP wasn’t granted official party status in the House of Commons on Monday. Prime Minister Mark Carney and the
Liberals, to their credit, made the right decision.
Let’s examine why.
The 1963 Senate and House of Commons Act passed an amendment that gave an annual allowance to party leaders other than the prime minister and
leader of the Opposition. In doing so, the Canadian government had to establish what constitutes a “political party.” The definition they came up with was a sensible one: it had to have a “recognized membership of 12 or more persons in the House of Commons.”
This important amendment is still used today.
The NDP fell from 24 to a paltry seven seats in last month’s federal election. (There are a total of 343 seats in the House of Commons.) They finished with 1,234,673 votes, or 6.29 per cent, which was behind the Liberals, Conservatives and Bloc Québécois. Party leader Jagmeet Singh, who had represented the former Burnaby South riding since 2019, finished a distant third in the newly created Burnaby Central riding and resigned.
The NDP’s seven seats is well below the 12-seat requirement needed for official party status. This means Canada’s socialist alternative won’t be able to ask questions in the House of Commons and will lose out on money for research purposes.
Or, to put it another way, they’re plumb out of luck.
Hold on, some people said. They pointed out that the NDP’s seat count and popular vote only plummeted because many progressive voters backed Carney and the Liberals as the best option to counter U.S. President Donald Trump and his tariffs. They felt that the NDP’s long history as a champion for unions and the working class should count for something. They suggested there should be an exception to the rule.
Guess what? They’re wrong.
This is the worst election result in the party’s history. Even its predecessor, the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF), did marginally better in its first campaign. The CCF won seven out of 245 seats—and earned 410,125 votes, or 9.31 per cent—in the 1935 election. Party leader J.S. Woodsworth, who had represented the riding of Winnipeg North Centre as an Independent Labour MP since 1925, comfortably held his seat.
Meanwhile, this won’t be the first time they’ve ever lost official party status.
The NDP dropped from 43 to nine seats in the 1993 election. It was a dismal showing, to say the least. There was a suggestion at the time that then-party leader Audrey McLaughlin, the first woman to lead a party with political representation in Canada’s House of Commons, deserved a better fate. While the NDP certainly came closer to achieving the 12-seat requirement in this particular election, Prime Minister Jean Chrétien and the Liberals decided against granting them official party status.
Why? As I mentioned earlier, rules are rules.
Then again, British pilot Harry Day notably told his fellow flying ace Douglas Bader in 1931, “You know my views about some regulations—they’re written for the obedience of fools and the guidance of wise men.”
Does this mean that individuals and organizations who follow rules are, in fact, fools? Not at all. While certain rules in a liberal democratic society can range from slightly questionable to utterly ridiculous, they’re usually put in place for a specific purpose.
In the case of the House of Commons, it’s to ensure that a bar has been set with respect to political representation. Is 12 seats the right number? That’s difficult to say. It certainly prevents small protest parties and one-issue parties that unexpectedly win a tiny number of seats in an election from acquiring power and status right off the bat. They need to win more seats and grow in size and stature to reach a point of respectability. Most of them never reach this point and disappear while others float in a constant state of mediocrity like the Green Party of Canada. ’Tis the nature of the political beast.
One final point. If Singh and the NDP had reached double digits in total number of seats in 2025, a solid case could have been made in favour of official party status. If they had finished with 11 seats, it would have almost been a lock. Neither scenario ultimately materialized, which is why Carney and the Liberals did exactly what they did.
Michael Taube is a political commentator, Troy Media syndicated columnist and former speechwriter for Prime Minister Stephen Harper. He holds a master’s degree in comparative politics from the London School of Economics, lending academic rigour to his political insights.
Troy Media empowers Canadian community news outlets by providing independent, insightful analysis and commentary. Our mission is to support local media in helping Canadians stay informed and engaged by delivering reliable content that strengthens community connections and deepens understanding across the country.
2025 Federal Election
Judicial recounts give Conservatives 2 more seats, keeping Liberals short of majority
From LifeSiteNews
After a judicial recount, Conservative candidate Kathy Borrelli has officially won over Liberal incumbent Irek Kusmierczyk, in the Ontario riding of Windsor-Tecumseh-Lakeshore.
Judicial recounts from the 2025 federal election have given the Conservative Party two new seats, with one candidate winning by just four votes.
After a judicial recount, Conservative candidate Kathy Borrelli has officially won over Liberal incumbent Irek Kusmierczyk, in the Ontario riding of Windsor-Tecumseh-Lakeshore.
Borrelli got 32,090 votes, with Kusmierczyk getting 32,086 votes, and NDP candidate Alex Ilijoski getting 4,240 votes.
In the Newfoundland riding of Terra Nova-The Peninsulas, Conservative candidate Jonathan Rowe beat out Liberal Anthony Germain by just 12 votes after a recount with the initial result showing a Liberal victory.
The new election results mean the Conservatives now have 144 seats with the Liberals at 169, three short of a majority.
Judicial recounts are automatically triggered when the margin of victory for a candidate is less than 0.1 percent of valid votes.
While these recounts have favored the Conservatives, others have gone in the Liberal Party’s favor.
A May 16 judicial recount switched the southern Ontario riding of Milton East-Halton Hills South to the Liberals with a 21-vote victory over the Conservatives.
Overall, the election results have been a big blow to the Conservative Party, which on top of losing the election also saw its leader, Pierre Poilievre, fail to win his long-held seat. However, Poilievre is expected to run in a yet-to-be-announced by-election in Alberta to reclaim a seat in Parliament.
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