It was a busy year in Canadian politics. Take our quiz to see how closely you were reading Politics Insider.Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press
From a new prime minister and snap federal election to Trump’s trade war and threats to this country’s sovereignty, 2025 was a busy one in Canadian politics, to say the least.
And as The Globe’s Politics Insider newsletter helped subscribers stay informed through the chaos five days a week, each edition also posed a political question meant to enlighten and delight.
Want another challenge? Take our 2025 news quiz
We heard how much you enjoyed finding the skill-testing questions in your inbox every weekday. So to thank you for reading our political coverage, we’ve turned some of the best into a quiz to cap off 2025.
How closely were you reading Politics Insider this year? Take our quiz and find out.
d. France. The G7 presidency rotates annually among member countries in the following order: Canada, France, United States, Britain, Germany, Japan and Italy.
c. Evian. The name of the town gives it away. In June, 2026, global leaders will gather in Evian-les-Bains on the shores of Lake Geneva. The noted mineral-water company was founded in the community in 1823. A G8 meeting was previously held in Evian-les-Bains in 2003. France, which is assuming the presidency of the G7 after Canada held it this year, last hosted the G7 in the seaside community of Biarritz in 2019.
c. Quebec Premier François Legault. Ahead of entering provincial politics, Legault co-founded Air Transat in 1986 and until 1997, he was the company’s chief executive officer. Legault was first elected to the Quebec National Assembly in 1998, and has been premier since 2018, leading his Coalition Avenir Québec party.
b. Turkey first invoked it in February, 2003, according to NATO’s website. The country sought consultations on defensive assistance from NATO in the event of a threat to its population or territory resulting from armed conflict in neighbouring Iraq.
Vancouver to Seattle. Flights began on Sept. 1, 1937. A roundtrip cost $14.20 (just under $301 in today’s dollars, according to the Bank of Canada’s inflation calculator).
a. John Buchan, the Governor-General between 1935 and 1940, wrote the spy thriller The Thirty-Nine Steps in 1915 while recovering from an ulcer. Hitchcock adapted the novel for a 1935 film, The 39 Steps, starring Robert Danat as a Canadian civilian in London who tries to stop a plot to steal British military secrets.
b. Britain’s high commissioner to Canada, currently Robert Tinline. Britain purchased Earnscliffe in 1930, and it has since been the residence for whoever serves as high commissioner.
c. Four U.S. presidents have won the prize: Theodore Roosevelt in 1906 for efforts to end the Russo-Japanese war; Woodrow Wilson in 1919 for helping to found the League of Nations, aspects of which were adapted into the United Nations; Jimmy Carter in 2002 for “decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development”; and Barack Obama in 2009, nine months into his first term, for “extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and co-operation between peoples.” See all the Nobel prize winners here.
a. Two. Canada’s first prime minister, John A. Macdonald, died of a stroke in June, 1891, two months after leading his Conservatives to re-election. He was 75 years old. The second was John Thompson, who died of a heart attack in December, 1894, while on a trip to England. He was 49 years old. The former Nova Scotia premier, who served as justice minister under Macdonald, became prime minister in 1892. Queen Victoria held a funeral for him in England, and his remains were returned to Canada and buried in a Halifax cemetery.
b. Darrel Stinson. It was 1997, and the Reform MP for the B.C. riding of North Okanagan-Shuswap, was vexed when Liberal MP John Cannis heckled him as a racist in the House of Commons. The Speaker called out both men for unparliamentary language.
d. Vernon March of the British village of Farnborough beat out 126 other entries to win a world-wide competition, held in 1925 and 1926, to design the memorial. However, he died of pneumonia in 1930, and his design was completed by seven of his siblings. The memorial was officially unveiled by King George VI on May 21, 1939, as about 100,000 people looked on.
a. 1980 (October, to be precise). In a 1974 sequel novel, Exxoneration, the U.S. president declares Canada is to become part of the United States. With clever strategy, Canadian forces repel a U.S. attempt to land troops at Toronto’s airport and the Downsview Canadian Forces base. And then the Soviet Union objects to the U.S. actions.
b. The Farm. The property was built in the mid-19th century by Henry Fleury, a pioneer who settled at Kingsmere with his family, and has been the official residence of the Speaker of the House of Commons since 1955.
a. Only one, Norman McLeod Rogers. In June, 1940, Rogers – then the federal defence minister – died when a bomber he was aboard crashed near the rural Ontario community of Newtonville. Rogers was en route from Ottawa to Toronto to deliver a speech to a joint meeting of the Empire and Canadian clubs. Three members of the RCAF also died in the crash.
a. 1914. In August that year, then-British Columbia premier Richard McBride bought a pair of submarines from a Seattle shipyard to ease provincial concerns over reports of German warships in the Pacific. In 1917, the subs – His Majesty’s Canadian Ships CC1 and CC2 – left Esquimalt for Halifax (via the Panama Canal, which had opened in 1914) for a mission in the Mediterranean. Both submarines were removed from service and sold for scrap in 1920.
b. Mr. Member of Parliament. The show, broadcast from 1965 to 1969, first aired as Mr. Member of Parliament. Gordon Pinsent starred, and it was shot on location in Ottawa.