Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne says the Model T Ford was a start-up failure, proving success with cabinet’s electric vehicle policy will take time. A spokesperson later explained Champagne was tired and meant the Tesla Model S, not the bestselling Model T: “It was a misspeak.”
Liberal MP Steven Guilbeault (Laurier-Sainte-Marie, Que.) yesterday bid farewell to a half-empty House of Commons, confirming he will resign this summer. Guilbeault sat quietly as one Conservative MP faulted him for environmental policies that “caused so much hardship for so many families across this country.”
Federal managers yesterday confirmed Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Buy Canadian policy benefits 100 percent foreign-owned corporations with storefront operations in Canada but couldn’t say if a company hiring temporary foreign workers would qualify. Carney announced the policy last September 5 on a promise to “build Canada strong.”
A Bank of Canada executive yesterday blamed immigration in part for high youth unemployment rates. Nicolas Vincent, external Deputy Governor, said young jobseekers face difficulties not seen in a generation: “Their contribution to the rise in overall long-term unemployment exceeds what we saw during the recession in the early 1990s.”
Federal boundary commissioners renamed several ridings with Indigenous references to promote reconciliation, one participant yesterday told the House affairs committee. A cabinet bill currently before the committee would delete Indigenous names given two ridings: “Indigenous place names are already deeply embedded in Canadian political geography even if we do not always stop to notice: Mississauga, Skeena, Nanaimo, Temiscaming.”
Labour Minister Patty Hajdu yesterday said cabinet seeks “better relationships” with organized labour and employers. Cabinet ten times in two years unilaterally issued orders under the Canada Labour Code to quash legal strikes, a record: “Strikes are very disruptive.”
The Public Health Agency in an April 30 memo said measles was not “widespread across Canada” despite a 2025 outbreak. Canada’s loss of measles-free status with the World Health Organization was merely a “classification used to guide surveillance,” it said.
An unidentified automaker is drafting a secret plan to export Canadian-made passenger cars to Asia and the Middle East, Industry Minister Mélanie Joly said yesterday. MPs on the Commons industry committee expressed skepticism: “No company has come to any committee on Parliament Hill or gone to the media to suggest that this is a viable business plan.”
Canadians are resigned to failure in eliminating U.S. tariffs, says in-house Privy Council research. Federal focus groups were unable to reach any consensus on whether Prime Minister Mark Carney was “on the right track” after promising to negotiate a win for Canada: “Few thought that it was likely that an agreement could be achieved where all tariffs would be removed.”
Parliament has no business policing political speech to ensure its truthfulness, Government House Leader Steven MacKinnon said yesterday. It was up to voters, not the House of Commons, to “determine the truthfulness of claims” by public office holders, he said.
The Commons yesterday by a vote of 199 to 139 rejected a Conservative motion to sustain property rights after a judge granted Indigenous title to 1,846 acres near Richmond, B.C. including private lots. One cabinet minister said she “agrees with some of the principles of the motion” but would not debate a judgment under appeal: “We recognize the Cowichan decision has caused uncertainty and anxiety.”
The Department of Employment says its Canada Summer Jobs program does help student hiring through 50 percent wage subsidies but cannot say how many jobs it creates. A first-ever analysis called it “a good policy tool” at more than a quarter billion a year: “How do you know if the program is achieving its objectives without measuring exactly that?”
Cabinet will not disclose the budget for the June 8 swearing-in of the new Governor General. The ceremony is the first of its kind since Prime Minister Mark Carney promised to cut spending and “make tough choices.”
Mark Carney misidentified the first Alberta prime minister in a videotaped tribute to “great Albertans,” records show. Carney’s office could not name the first Alberta prime minister when asked: “I think when I come to Parliament of the great Albertans.”
Parliament should withhold federal funding from municipalities that fail to build more homes, says the Canadian Human Rights Commission. It promoted a variation of a 2025 campaign proposal by the Opposition to reward local authorities that build and punish those that don’t: “Municipal governments would be required to demonstrate concrete progress.”
