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2025 Federal Election

Poilievre will make it harder for politicians to boost their portfolios, close Carney loopholes

Published

2 months ago

5 minute read

From Conservative Party Communications

Canada can’t afford a fourth term of Liberal waste and scandals, says Poilievre, pledging an end to conflicts of interest, shadow lobbying and politicians using tax loopholes. Our plan will clean house with strong laws that end corruption and waste and put Canadians First—For a Change.

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre announced his plan to strengthen the Accountability Act to end the Lost Liberal Decade of corruption and insider dealings in Ottawa. The new rules will close loopholes like the one that Mark Carney used to be appointed as an ‘unpaid advisor’ and set government policy while he lined his own pockets.

“Mark Carney is already the most conflicted Prime Minister in Canadian history,” Pierre Poilievre said. “His conflicts touch everything – from his business interests in nuclear energy to real estate to income tax laws. He has a long record of putting his interests first when he was supposed to be working for you. The last ten years have been about the Liberals, the next decade should be about you–For a Change.”

Poilievre outlined the highlights of his plan:

  1. Ban shadow lobbyists and close the Carney loophole by requiring anyone advising the government directly or indirectly, who stands to gain financially from their advice, to register as a lobbyist.
  2. Ban politicians from making decisions that benefit themselves or their families disproportionately, and require Ethics Commissioner approval and full public disclosure of all personal interests.
  3. Increase fines for ethics violations to $10,000.
  4. Tax transparency. Require anyone running for public office to disclose where they paid taxes for the last seven years.
  5. Require cabinet ministers to divest fully from tax havens and disclose assets to the Office of the Conflict of Interest Commissioner, with penalties for non-compliance. No more so-called blind trusts that only blind the public.
  6. Require party leaders to disclose their assets within 30 days of becoming leader and require Prime Ministers to divest their assets within 30 days of assuming office.

After being appointed as Trudeau’s senior economic advisor, Mark Carney never had to register as a lobbyist, disclose his conflicts of interest or answer to Canadians. He was able to advise the government behind closed doors despite media reports that he had a history of using such advisory positions to benefit Brookfield, the company he chaired, financially.

As an advisor to the UK government, he lobbied for expanded heat pump subsidies that would have benefited a heat pump company that Brookfield owned. The chairman of the company even admitted “Mark is working on our behalf in Government.”

As Prime Minister, Carney benefits from hiding his Brookfield funds in offshore tax havens because the current rules don’t require him to sell them, which is the only way to prevent a conflict of interest. The current rules let him get away with moving his assets into a so-called blind trust, but the only people who are left “blind” are Canadian voters, while Carney knows what is in the trust because he put it there.

“Under the Lost Liberal Decade, political insiders have cashed in while Canadians have lost out,” Pierre Poilievre said. “From insiders lobbying to escape criminal charges to hundreds of millions of your money given to well-connected firms who don’t even do the work they were hired for. It’s unethical, and it needs to be stopped.”

Canadians can’t afford a fourth Liberal term where well-connected insiders and Carney’s personal interests get a pass, while hard-working Canadians get the bill. We need to restore accountability with a new Conservative government that will end corruption and put Canada First – For a Change.

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2025 Federal Election

NDP’s collapse rightly cost them official party status

Published on May 27, 2025

By

This article supplied by Troy Media.

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.

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2025 Federal Election

Judicial recounts give Conservatives 2 more seats, keeping Liberals short of majority

Published on May 26, 2025

By

From LifeSiteNews

By Anthony Murdoch

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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