RANDALL WHITE, “CANADA’S CAPITAL REGION FROM FOUR HOURS AND FORTY MINUTES WEST”. FRIDAY, MAY 16, 2025. Prime Minister Mark Carney’s new Canadian federal cabinet held its first meeting the day before yesterday.

One of its “first orders of business” was a “tax cut for the middle class. Starting July 1, hard-working Canadians will keep more of their paycheques.”

This certainly underlines why some observers have wondered why Liberal PM Carney didn’t run for the leadership of the Conservative Party of Canada. (And finally run on the track former Conservative PM Stephen Harper tried to set him on back when.)

Yet even an only slightly closer look at the members of Mr. Carney’s “smaller, focused cabinet with mix of veteran MPs, new faces, and several role changes” suggests a more complex and ultimately serious (North American) “liberal” edge to Canada’s new government in Ottawa.

(1) General shape of things to come (according to CBC News)

PM Carney’s new cabinet has 28 ministers, and 10 secretaries of state (“a long-dormant designation Carney is reviving” — these secretaries will not attend full cabinet meetings : only those where their specific responsibilities are involved). It includes “a mix of many new faces and some veterans.”

The full group of 38 includes “24 new people — 13 of them recently elected …Speaking to reporters after the swearing-in ceremony, Carney pitched the cabinet overhaul as a nod to Canadians’ desire for change … ‘We’re going to deliver on that mandate with a new team, purpose-built for this hinge moment in Canada’s history … We’ve been elected to do a job and we intend to do it quickly and forcefully’.”

“Regional representation” is always important in Canadian cabinets. Here “Eleanor Olszewski, who just won a seat in central Edmonton, is the sole minister from Alberta and is responsible for emergency management. Saskatchewan doesn’t have a full cabinet minister but MP Buckley Belanger will represent that province as secretary of state with a focus on rural development.” (And note here that Alberta elected only 2 Liberals from its 37 MPs, and Saskatchewan only 1 Liberal from 14.)

Meanwhile, “Central Canada is well-represented … with 11 of the full ministers from Ontario [a share of the larger group virtually identical to Ontario’s democratic share of the Canada-wide population] … and seven from Quebec [again similar to the Canada-wide population share enjoyed by la belle province]… There are two ministers from BC and Nova Scotia and one each from Manitoba, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador and P.E.I.” (And BC, which gave 20 of its 43 seats to Liberal MP s on April 28, also has 3 of the 10 secretaries of state.)

(2) Introducing all 38 ministers and secretaries of state in four strategic groups

“ … John A. Macdonald regarded the ideal cabinet as one over which he held incriminating documents such as night place each member in the penitentiary.” (HAROLD INNIS, 1948)

What follows just lists each minister or secretary of state once — the first time they become relevant in the list’s four strategic groups. In the real world some individuals will inevitably be involved in more than one group, as it were. (Eg Ms Anand, Minister of Foreign Affairs, is obviously involved in Group III as well as Group I.) These groups have no practical meaning in the Ottawa real world of course. They just reflect my own mere voter’s sense of main policy objectives the new government is pursuing.

I am also especially impressed by Mr. Carney’s declaration: “We’ve been elected to do a job and we intend to do it quickly and forcefully’.” And, while recognizing most of the many very real difficulties, I personally hope that is more or less exactly what happens over the next few years.

Meanwhile, here is : “May 13, 2025 … Ottawa, Ontario … Today, the Prime Minister, Mark Carney, announced the members of Canada’s new Ministry …”

I. CANADA-US TRADE (“Anand, Champagne, LeBlanc, McGuinty and Anandasangaree will all play a role in managing Canada-U.S. relations” — CBC News)

• Dominic LeBlanc, President of the King’s Privy Council for Canada and Minister responsible for Canada-U.S. Trade, Intergovernmental Affairs and One Canadian Economy
• Anita Anand, Minister of Foreign Affairs
• François-Philippe Champagne, Minister of Finance and National Revenue
• David J. McGuinty, Minister of National Defence
  Stephen Fuhr, Secretary of State (Defence Procurement)
• Gary Anandasangaree, Minister of Public Safety
  Ruby Sahota, Secretary of State (Combatting Crime)

II. ONE CANADIAN ECONOMY

• Chrystia Freeland, Minister of Transport and Internal Trade
• Mélanie Joly, Minister of Industry and Minister responsible for Canada Economic Development for Quebec Region
• Tim Hodgson, Minister of Energy and Natural Resources
• Julie Dabrusin, Minister of Environment and Climate Change
  Nathalie Provost, Secretary of State (Nature)
• Gregor Robertson, Minister of Housing and Infrastructure and Minister responsible for Pacific Economic Development Canada
• Patty Hajdu, Minister of Jobs and Families and Minister responsible for the Federal Economic Development Agency for Northern Ontario
  John Zerucelli, Secretary of State (Labour)

III. DIVERSIFYING INTERNATIONAL TRADE, STRENGTHENING MILITARY AND EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT, DEVELOPING THE ARCTIC FRONTIER

• Maninder Sidhu, Minister of International Trade
  Randeep Sarai, Secretary of State (International Development)
• Jill McKnight, Minister of Veterans Affairs and Associate Minister of National Defence
• Eleanor Olszewski, Minister of Emergency Management and Community Resilience and Minister responsible for Prairies Economic Development Canada
• Rebecca Chartrand, Minister of Northern and Arctic Affairs and Minister responsible for the Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency

IV. MANAGING THE GOVERNMENT IN OTTAWA

• Shafqat Ali, President of the Treasury Board
  Wayne Long, Secretary of State (Canada Revenue Agency and Financial Institutions)
• Sean Fraser, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada and Minister responsible for the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency
• Steven MacKinnon, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons
• Lena Metlege Diab, Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship
• Steven Guilbeault, Minister of Canadian Identity and Culture and Minister responsible for Official Languages
• Rebecca Alty, Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations
• Mandy Gull-Masty, Minister of Indigenous Services
• Heath MacDonald, Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food
  Buckley Belanger, Secretary of State (Rural Development)
• Joanne Thompson, Minister of Fisheries
• Marjorie Michel, Minister of Health
• Rechie Valdez, Minister of Women and Gender Equality and Secretary of State (Small Business and Tourism)
  Anna Gainey, Secretary of State (Children and Youth)
  Stephanie McLean, Secretary of State (Seniors)
  Adam van Koeverden, Secretary of State (Sport)

And finally, in the same group IV box but with something of a particular forward-looking vibration, bringing prospects of welcome change even to the ordinary life of the complex federal bureaucracy in Ottawa :

• Joël Lightbound, Minister of Government Transformation, Public Works and Procurement
• Evan Solomon, Minister of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Innovation and Minister responsible for the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario

GREG BARNS SC. HOBART, MELBOURNE, BRISBANE, PERTH, AUSTRALIA. MONDAY, MAY 5, 2025. Newly minted Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and his Liberals have something in common with the winner of Australia’s national election on Saturday, Anthony Albanese and the Australian Labor Party (ALP). Both brought their governments back from the brink of defeat partly because of the Trumpian tinge of the conservative opposition parties.

Mr Albanese, Prime Minister since 2022, led his party to a thumping victory – one not predicted by even the most optimistic of polls. With votes still being counted, a product of Australia’s preferential voting system, Mr Albanese’s party, at the time of writing has won 86 seats in the 151 seat house of representatives, with the Liberal and National Party Coalition reduced to 39, and with minor parties such as the Greens (1) and independents (11) holding the rest. 12 seats are still close to call.

In an extraordinary coincidence like the Conservatives Pierre Poilievre, Mr Albanese’s opposite number Peter Dutton lost his seat in suburban Brisbane.

As recently as six months ago Mr Albanese and his government was heading for defeat. The Prime Minister would have been the first since James Scullin in 1931 to lose government after one term. And that was in the middle of the Great Depression. Going into this election campaign, as in Canada cost of living issues and interest rates were dominant, and the Coalition parties fuelled so called ‘culture wars’, capitalising on the disastrous Constitutional referendum championed by Mr Albanese in 2023 that would have given Indigenous Australians an advisory voice in the national parliament.

But then came Donald Trump and, it has to be said, a distastrous campaign by Mr Dutton. Mr Dutton, like Mr Poilievre, tried to distance himself from President Trump, but when under pressure in the election campaign reverted to Trumpian rhetoric and tactics, including blaming what he called ‘hate’ media.

While Mr Albanese has been circumspect in his handling in the Trumpian world, particularly on the 10 per cent tariff imposed on Australia, Mr Dutton was telling Australians he would be a better bet to deal with the narcissistic and chaotic American President.

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RANDALL WHITE, “CANADA’S CAPITAL REGION FROM FOUR HOURS AND FORTY MINUTES WEST”. SATURDAY, MAY 3, 2025. I should make two (or maybe three) things clear up front.

First, I am a (somewhat cranky?) 80- year-old man who was born in Canada. I have lived here all my life, with brief exceptions for travel abroad. I grew up in the 1950s and 1960s, with enthusiasms somewhat different from the 2020s and 2030s. Inevitably I will not be around to enjoy and/or endure much more of any longer term Canadian future.

Second, I did vote for the candidate of the Carney Liberals in my local electoral district on April 28, 2025. Early on in my history as a now well-seasoned participant in federal and provincial elections I voted New Democrat. Then I started voting Liberal on some occasions, New Democrat on others. Most recently I have mostly voted Liberal. And — to finally put my money where my mouth is — in this 2025 campaign I donated $100 to the Liberal Party of Canada.

I should no doubt also note that for more than a few years I have somewhat actively supported the broad political view that the ultimate destiny of the 1867 confederation in Canada is a Canadian parliamentary democratic republic, broadly on the model already pioneered by such fellow former self-governing British dominions as Ireland and India.

With all this relevant background duly noted, I want to make clear my massive, heartfelt protest over the news that “King Charles to travel to Canada, deliver throne speech … Visit will mark the 1st time a monarch has delivered the throne speech since 1977.”

Or to cite what newly elected PM Carney has himself posted on Twitter/X: “Later this month, Canada will have the privilege of welcoming Their Majesties The King and Queen to Canada — where His Majesty King Charles III will deliver Canada’s speech from the throne … This historic honour matches the weight of our times.”

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RANDALL WHITE, FERNWOOD PARK, TORONTO. WEDNESDAY, APRIL 30, 2025. The more or less final results of the 2025 Canadian federal election were still not fully known with certainty, even as we approached dinner on the day after election day.

It has nonetheless been clear since late on election day (Monday, April 28) that Liberal leader Mark Carney will at least be prime minister (and form a government), as leader of the party with the largest number of seats in the Canadian House of Commons.

What remained not altogether clear until possibly late in the evening of the day after the election was exactly how many seats each party will have — and whether the Carney Liberals with the largest number of seats will also have a working majority of seats in the House (and can thus rest secure in parliament until the next fixed date election in the fall of 2029).

(1) A short-lived Carney minority government ??

Now on the second day after the 2025 election it finally seems clear enough that the Liberals will not quite manage to win the 172 seats that constitute a bare majority in the House. The basic “preliminary results” as reported by Elections Canada, as of 9:04 PM, April 29, 2025 (with 99.9% of all polls reporting) are :

LIB 169 seats, 43.7% vote
CON 144 seats, 41.3% vote
BQ  22 seats, 6.3% vote
NDP 7 seats, 6.3% vote
Other 1 seat, 2.4% vote
Total 343 seats, 100.0% vote.

On similar preliminary numbers, 19,597,674 of 28,525,638 registered electors or 68.7 % actually turned out to vote in 2025. This is considerably above the historic low voter turnout in a Canadian federal election of 58.8% in 2008, but also considerably below the highest turnout of 79.4% in 1958. (And turnout in the four elections immediately preceding 2025 was 61.1% in 2011, 68.3% in 2015, 67.0% in 2019, and 62.6% in 2021.)

In 2025 results were so close in several of the 343 local “ridings” accounted for in the above table (officially “electoral districts” nowadays) that there will be automatic recounts in some cases. Apparently this could change the above numbers somewhat. Again, however, the current smart money seems convinced that none of this will be enough to give the Carney Liberals a majority in parliament, all by themselves.

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COUNTERWEIGHTS EDITORS. GANATSEKWYAGON, ON. , MONDAY, APRIL 21, 2025. UPDATED. SATURDAY 26 APRIL/SUNDAY 27 APRIL 2025. SCROLL BELOW FOR UPDATE TEXT. The 2025 Canadian federal election, which may or may not be “the most important election of our lives, ” will take place exactly one week from today.

It says a lot about how short, sweet, and sometimes more or less elevated a campaign it has been over the past few weeks that this is the first time we counterweights editors have pulled ourselves together for some group comment.

We start with the French and then English TV debates — Wednesday 16 April and Thursday 17 April this past week. The Canadian Press report on the second English debate is headlined : “’You, sir, are not a change’: Party leaders target Carney in final election debate.”

To all of us the trouble with Poilievre’s rhetoric that “You, sir, are not a change” is that Mark Carney in some apparently crucial sense is for many a welcome change from Justin Trudeau.

And insofar as there are some Trudeau Liberal cabinet carry-overs, that is, as Carney himself urged in the English debate, a good thing. It seasons the fresh new faces with hard-earned experience and outstanding talent.

Or as Globe and Mail columnist Lawrence Martin tweeted/X-posted after the English contest : “Carney’s best debate moment. ‘I know it may be difficult, Mr. Poilievre, you spent years running against Justin Trudeau and the carbon tax. They’re both gone, okay? They’re both gone.’”

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RANDALL WHITE, FERNWOOD PARK, TORONTO. MONDAY, APRIL 14, 2025. Bill Maher has been surprised that the crazy public Donald Trump we see on TV and so forth is not the real Donald Trump you meet when you have dinner with him at Mar-a-Lago.

Unlike Mr. Maher I am a Canadian, born and raised. I have largely lived, worked, and worshiped in Canada my entire life — a circumstance shared with millions of (if by no means all) other Canadians. (In 2021 some 74% of people living in Canada [91% of whom were Canadian citizens] had been born in Canada.)

My most immediate problem with Donald Trump, in other words, is his (almost) latest attitude towards Canada.

I agree he has at least kept this attitude under the covers in the most recent past. Along with my TV-watching partner I also believe the ultimate crux of Donald Trump’s now altogether clearly expressed hatred of Canada as an independent country flows from the patently obvious attraction of the two most important women in his life to former Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Whatever its deepest source, this hatred was finally expressed so strongly early in 2025 that many Canadians (a very solid majority on all the polling evidence I’ve seen) cannot possibly entertain any good thoughts about Donald Trump — even of the sort Bill Maher has been offering lately.

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RANDALL WHITE, NORTH AMERICAN NOTEBOOK, TORONTO. SUNDAY, APRIL 6, 2025. Nothing captures the bizarre concoction of arrogance and ignorance shown by both President Trump II and so many who work for him as the 10% US tariff they have foisted on two islands near Antarctica, inhabited only by penguins (and some of their friends, the seals).

To ice the cake, one of the president’s over-aggressive and allegedly eminent accomplices has almost at the same time urged a TV audience to just let Donald Trump fix the global economy.

Again and again over the next three years and seven months ??

The obvious first question is what role will the penguins on the Territory of Heard Island and McDonald Islands play in the new economic structure? Or, of course, how can anyone of any sense at all trust a US federal administration that puts tariffs on islands of penguins to even fail honourably in such a vast and complex enterprise as restructuring the world economy?

To be altogether fair, it seems that some blame here must be shouldered by World Bank statistics.

Perhaps because “some goods may have been mislabeled as coming from the territory,” the World Bank apparently had the penguins exporting “about $1.4 million worth of … unspecified ‘machinery and electrical’ products to the U.S. in 2022 … while the U.S. exported about $21,600 to the islands in the same year.”

Down on the ground, in fact (and of course again), the penguins do not have any machinery and electrical manufacturing plants on the Heard and McDonald islands. And they might find a few crates of Florida oranges attractive, but do they really know how to peel them properly?

Whatever, President Trump II has been in office only two months and change. Already his aging mind has managed to transfer some of its own vast chaos and anxiety to the wider global village, in ways that even close students of Trump I may not have expected.

The inevitable question is just what’s next? And it may arise again and again over the next three years and seven months.

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SPECIAL FROM ROB SPARROW, HIGH PARK, TORONTO. MARCH 26, 2025. Calling the 2024 Toronto Blue Jays anything less than a disaster would be generous. This was a team built to contend—at least in theory—but instead, it collapsed in historic fashion, ending with a dismal 74-88 record, finishing dead last in the AL East for the first time since 2013.

The numbers tell the story of an offensive collapse years in the making. The Blue Jays’ runs scored cratered from 846 in 2021 to 671 in 2024 – their lowest full-season total since 1997. Home runs – down from 262 in 2021 (the most in baseball) to just 156, the worst long-ball output in a full season since 2008. Batting average – down to .241, the team’s worst since the early ‘80s, when beloved broadcaster Buck Martinez was the team’s light-hitting catcher.

It didn’t help that the roster was constructed around the flawed hope that internal improvement could offset previous mistakes.

Moreover, the strategic decision over the past couple years to prioritize “run prevention” over offensive firepower—exemplified by trading away of Fan Favourites and Home Run Jacket founding members Teoscar Hernández and Lourdes Gurriel Jr.—has backfired badly.

A) Last Place Finish…Rotten to the Core…

In one sense, the 2024 season was a referendum on the Mark Shapiro-Ross Atkins front office, now entering its 10th year. When they took over in 2016, they inherited an aging but playoff-calibre roster. The teardown that followed was supposed to lay the foundation for a sustainable winner. Sure, the Jays endured bad years in 2018 and 2019, but those were expected rebuilding seasons. The unexpected playoff appearance in the COVID-shortened 2020 campaign, and the near miss by a game in the 2021 season, raised expectations that the 2020s decade of Blue Jay baseball held much promise.

Instead, both the 2022 and 2023 seasons concluded in two game wild card sweeps, ending with both a thump and a whimper. The thump being the collapse against the Mariners in ‘22 when they led 8-1 in Game 2, and the whimper being their loss to the Twins in ’23, headlined by their aggressive move to lift José Berríos early, and being held to just one run over the two-game series.

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RANDALL WHITE, CANADA’S CAPITAL FROM 4 ½ HOURS WEST. TOWN OF EAST TORONTO, ON. SUNDAY, MARCH 16, 2025. So in Ottawa this past Friday, March 14 Mark Carney was sworn in as the new Prime Minister of Canada, along with the other 23 members of his new leaner federal cabinet, at the head of his “new Canadian government.”

Already there is polling evidence that the new Mark Carney Liberals — not quite the same as the old Justin Trudeau Liberals, though there are inevitable common cabinet ministers — just might have a bright new future.

(1) Some polling evidence on Carney

The Carney Liberals could even defeat the sloganeering Pierre Poilievre Conservatives, in the snap federal election that PM Carney is widely expected to call very soon.

(Possibly even before the scheduled return of the Canadian House of Commons on Monday, March 24?)

An EKOS poll taken March 10–13 showed a dramatic 50% popular support for the Liberals under their new leader Mark Carney, elected March 9. Conservatives were at 32%, and New Democrats at a dismal 8%.

Numbers like this could mean something as widely thought crazily impossible only a few months ago as a Liberal majority government, in the coming snap election.

Meanwhile, in Mainstreet polls since late last year Conservatives have fallen from 47% popular support around November 21, 2024 to 39% around March 12, 2025. Between the same two dates New Democrats have even more precipitously fallen from 17% to 8%.

Liberals have risen from 17% to 41%. (At least 2 points ahead of the Conservatives — not as buoyant as the EKOS poll putting them 18 points ahead , but still ahead!)

(2) Swearing allegiance to King Charles III quaintly obsolete at best

As far as the ceremonial swearing-in of Mr. Carney and his cabinet itself goes, I share rhe views of my many fellow supporters of a free and democratic Canadian republic, not too much further down the road.

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COUNTERWEIGHTS EDITORS. GANATSEKWYAGON, ON. THURSDAY, MARCH 6, 2025. [UPDATED MARCH 9, 11 PM ET — scroll to bottom]. Justin Trudeau’s press conference in Ottawa this morning warmed our Canadian hearts.

The CTV News written report is somewhat misleadingly headlined “Trudeau vows to not be ‘caretaker’ PM, gets emotional at one of his last events.” The mainstream mass media (MMM?) have been part of the virtually systematic domestic denigration of Pierre Trudeau’s eldest son, that has (probably) at last started to seem to more than a few like a big mistake.

We counterweights editors are with Angie Rivers at the Waterloo Regional Police in Ontario, who posted this about PM Justin Trudeau yesterday : “Love him or hate him, you have to admit he hits it out of the park in a crisis.” To us that would be a more apt headline for the CTV news report this morning than the as-usual-belittling “PM, gets emotional at one of his last events.”

To us as well, what PM Trudeau did this morning on TV was (quite casually) summarize what it is about Canada that has deep roots in an indigenous and migrant past, and a long and prosperous future ahead of it, in a new world order only very gradually starting to take shape!

We disagree with Justin Trudeau passionately about the role of the British monarchy in this future — and in the Canadian present, but beyond that somewhat symbolic (albeit very important) issue we feel strongly that he has been a good prime minister of Canada, 2015–2025.

Until recently we also unhappily anticipated that this level of good leadership would be missing over the next four years, as a Canadian Trumpish (if not quite Trumpian?) regime clone came to office in Ottawa in 2025. But that was before a transformation long awaited in some Canadian circles arrived on the scene at last.

A chart recently released by the Leger polling organization nicely summarizes the raw numbers behind this transformation. In their Canadian federal polling work, Leger notes, the Conservatives have fallen in popularity from 47% of poll respondents on January 12, 2025 to 38% on February 22, 2025. Between the same two dates — a mere six weeks apart — the New Democrats also fell from 17% to 14%.

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