Hello, welcome to Politics Insider. Let’s look at what happened this week.
U.S. President Donald Trump disembarks the new Air Force One as he arrives at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York on Friday.Evan Vucci/Reuters
U.S. President Donald Trump is threatening new tariffs on Canada over wildfire smoke that, he said, has “invaded” American cities in recent days, calling it “Willful Negligence” on the part of Canadian authorities.
Nathan VanderKlippe reported that in a post to his Truth Social site today, Trump, said the smoke has created an “incalculable” expense for the U.S., and the “cost of this pollution must of necessity be added to the TARIFFS Canada is currently paying.”
The President said he would call Prime Minister Mark Carney to discuss the issue, and made no concrete proposal for what tariffs, if any, he could apply. The U.S. Supreme Court, in a ruling earlier this year, constrained Trump from summarily imposing tariffs on an emergency basis.
Meanwhile, Canada’s premiers, territorial leaders and the Prime Minister will be converging on Prince Edward Island next week.
The provincial and territorial leaders have their summer meeting as members of the Council of the Federation on July 21 and 22, and Mark Carney will join them on the 23 for what will become a First Ministers’ meeting.
Premier Rob Lantz will be playing host to the gathering in Charlottetown, with an agenda that the federation says will include Canada-U.S. relations, international and internal trade, affordability, sovereignty and public safety.
The leaders are scheduled to hold a news conference on July 22.
What else is going on
Toronto MPP resigns from Ford cabinet: Stan Cho announced his exit as tourism, culture and gaming minister today after it was revealed that he billed more than $16,000 in local hotels in recent years despite representing a Toronto riding not far from the legislature.
Wagner’s test: Eight years into his role as the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, Richard Wagner is weighing a country-shaping, career-defining judgment on Quebec’s Bill 21 and whether to limit politicians’ use of the Charter’s notwithstanding clause.
Think tank’s website cloned by hostile foreign intelligence agency: Brian Lee Crowley, the founder and managing director of the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, said he believes the perpetrators were trying to leverage the institute’s reputation as a way to trick Canadians into providing sensitive and classified information by offering them research contracts.
Canadian writing Captain America comic: ”He’s maybe already a little bit Canadian! Polite, some humility, highly attractive," veteran writer Chip Zdarsky says of being the writer calling the shots on Marvel’s monthly Captain America comic.
Political Lives, John Hamm: The small-town doctor who went on to become the 25th premier of Nova Scotia died Monday at the age of 88.
On our radar
Prime Minister’s Week: Today, Mark Carney attended the Dock 2026 (un) Conference at what his office described as a “Central Ontario” location, but no specific details were provided on the gathering or location. Carney did not have any public events from Monday through Wednesday but held a news conference in the southwestern Ontario city of London on Thursday to announce that Canada will spend about $2-billion over four years on 190 armoured combat-support vehicles.
Party Leaders: In the Quebec city of Saint-Hyacinthe, Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet announced on Thursday that Caroline Emond, a former Quebec delegate-general to European Institutions in Brussels, will seek the party’s nomination for the coming federal by-election in the riding of Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot—Acton where MP Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay has stepped down to run for the Parti Québécois in the fall provincial election. In North Vancouver, Green Party Leader Elizabeth May announced on Wednesday that Shelley Luce will be the party’s candidate in the riding of North Vancouver-Capilano, which has been represented by Jonathan Wilkinson, now headed for a diplomatic post in Europe. NDP Leader Avi Lewis is in the Montreal area through July attending to commitments that include working on his French with an intensive-lesson plan and a private instructor. No schedules released for Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre.
Summer Reading: Conservative housing critic Scott Aitchison, asked about his summer fiction and non-fiction reading, cited a pair of titles.
A New Blueprint for Government - Reshaping Power, the PMO, and the Public Service by Kevin Lynch and James Mitchell
“I would describe A New Blueprint as an expert or an insider’s guide to how our federal government has become cumbersome and ineffective at solving real problems we face and how its own evolution has contributed to the problems we face as a nation. It also prescribes some solutions to what ails the system. It is a fascinating read," the former mayor of the Ontario community of Huntsville said in a statement.
Aitchison, an MP since 2019, said the book has informed parts of a book he is currently writing with the working title of From Main Street to Parliament Hill. He said he is close to completing a first draft of the book, which uses the process of building a home in Canada “as the lens through which I illustrate how all levels of government in Canada have become slow, cumbersome, indecisive, expensive and a burden on all we do.
“I describe the difference between our current “paralysis by process” vs decisive leadership initially through my own personal story growing up in Huntsville, to my time as a young municipal councilor to becoming mayor and then a parliamentarian."
Aitchison is also reading the novel Outcaste by Sheila James, whom he called a “delightful author” he sat with at the Politics and the Pen gala in Ottawa this year.
Ministers on the Road:
In São Paulo, Brazil, Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand met with her Brazilian counterpart on Tuesday and co-chaired the fifth bilateral Strategic Partnership Dialogue between Canada and Brazil, announcing $125-million in FinDev Canada investments in Brazil.
In Charlottetown, Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne met on Tuesday and Wednesday with his provincial and territorial counterparts as part of the finance ministers’ meeting to discuss various issues.
In Halifax, Agriculture Minister Heath MacDonald this week co-hosted the annual conference of federal, provincial and territorial ministers of agriculture, concluding Friday, with Nova Scotia Agriculture Minister Greg Morrow.
Also in Halifax, Rechie Valdez, the minister of women and gender equality and secretary of state for small business and tourism, today announced $1.4-million to help prevent human trafficking and support survivors across Canada.
In Delta, B.C., Transport Minister Steven MacKinnon, also the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, announced the referral of the Port of Vancouver Gateway Strategy to the Major Projects Office.
In Halifax, Jobs Minister Patty Hajdu and Nova Scotia’s Labour Minister Nolan Young met on Thursday with provincial and territorial ministers to discuss Canada’s labour-market outlook and collaborative approaches to work-force development in Canada.
In the Quebec city of Saguenay today, Housing Minister Gregor Robertson, and Quebec Housing Minister Karine Boivin-Roy talked about negotiations to jointly build affordable homes.
Defence Minister David McGuinty, Industry Minister Mélanie Joly and Transport Minister Steven MacKinnon will open the Canada Pavilion at the Farnborough International Airshow in Britain on Monday. Doug Guzman, the chief executive officer of the Defence Investment Agency, will also attend. McGuinty is staying until Wednesday for meetings.
New diplomatic appointments: Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand has today announced a new ambassador to Ukraine (Tamara Mawhinney) and a new consul to the Greenland capital of Nuuk (Corinne Petrisor).
Earlier in the week, former energy executive Susannah Pierce was named the new consul-general in New York, and former federal cabinet minister Kamal Khera is the new consul-general in Los Angeles.
Mexico’s Foreign Affairs Secretary visits: Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand played host to Roberto Velasco Álvarez, Mexico’s Foreign Affairs Secretary in Ottawa today. It’s Álvarez’s first visit to Canada since taking on his position in April. The pair also held a news conference.
MacPhail to advise on Senators: Former B.C. finance minister Joy MacPhail is among the newly named members named to the Independent Advisory Board for Senate Appointments, which advises the Prime Minister on recommendations for Senate appointments.
Question period
This week in 1976, MPs voted to officially abolish the death penalty, but it was a close vote. By how many votes did Bill C-34 pass?
Scroll to the bottom of this newsletter for the answer.
Perspectives
Conservatives’ performative anger is a symptom of a movement that has lost its way
Figures like Mr. Poilievre are the kinds of leaders parties elect when they are in a particular frame of mind. And that frame of mind at the moment is uncertain, insecure, lacking direction or purpose or sense of self but driven only by a desire to lash out, to offend, and to attack. It was directed at those outside the party for a while, but it was only a matter of time before it turned inward.
— Andrew Coyne, Columnist
Why did members of a northwest Ontario First Nation have to be ‘their own heroes’ amid wildfire?
What unfolded in the hours that followed was a brutal manifestation of a harsh and oft-repeated truth: Indigenous people on the land bear the brunt of climate change.
— Tanya Talaga, Columnist
A viral essay declares the end of reading is here. But there’s no end to its pleasures
Its author, Rose Horowitch, deftly lays out America’s literary crisis, at a time when gambling is a more common leisure activity than reading a book. When people consume news from often-suspect sources: Only 10 per cent of Americans in their 20s read a newspaper daily. It is this postliterate world that allows a Donald Trump to get elected. (Speaking of gambling, heh.)
— Marsha Lederman, Columnist
Go deeper
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The answer to today’s question: The legislation passed by six votes. Capital punishment remained, until 1998, under the National Defence Act for Armed Forces members convicted of cowardice, desertion, spying for the enemy or unlawful surrender.