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Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre arrives on Parliament Hill for a meeting of the Conservative caucus following the federal election, in Ottawa, on May 6, 2025.
Canada’s Conservatives keep Poilievre as leader — for now
Canada’s Conservative Party caucus convened in Ottawa Tuesday for the first time since suffering a stunning federal election defeat last week. Leader Pierre Poilievre, who lost his Carleton seat, acknowledged the election results were “disappointing” but insisted that the party’s 41% vote share — the highest since the 1980s — was a milestone, and that the party must now “broaden our team.”
But who’s in charge? Parliamentary rules require the opposition leader to have a seat in the House of Commons, so until Poilievre secures a new seat through an upcoming by-election, party MPs have appointed former leader Andrew Scheer as interim opposition leader. The caucus also voted to adopt the Reform Act, which opens the way to a leadership review. Caucus has only used this act once, in 2022, to oust then-leader Erin O’Toole after he lost the 2021 election. His successor? Poilievre.
Can Poilievre avoid the same fate? For now, it appears he has the support to remain party leader – but he is not taking anything for granted. In a new video message, released after Tuesday’s meeting, the Conservative leader pledged to “learn and grow.” But that may not be enough for senior conservatives, who reportedly want “seismic changes” if he is to stay on, including the removal of his top advisor, Jenni Byrne, blamed by many for the party’s loss.US President Donald Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney meet in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, D.C., USA, on May 6, 2025.
Carney met Trump: How did it go?
The first official meeting between Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and US President Donald Trump was friendlier than you might expect given the recent tensions in the relationship. Carney described Trump as a “transformational” president, while the US leader said he had “a lot of respect” for his Canadian counterpart.
It wasn’t all pleasantries, however: Trump again said Canada should become the 51st state, to which Carney cautioned the former real estate magnate that “there are some places that are never for sale.”
Trump’s response? “Never say never.”
The start of a beautiful friendship? Despite some disagreements, the two leaders agreed to begin talks on new economic and security frameworks. The Canadian dollar even rallied slightly after the “positive” exchange.
But tariffs remain in place: Canada and the US are keeping their tariffs on each other’s steel, aluminum, and auto industries for now.
Next stop, the G7. The two men will meet again, along with other world leaders, when Canada hosts the G7 summit in Kananaskis, Alberta, next month. Ahead of that, Carney gave Trump a gift. What was it? A Kananaskis Country Golf Course hat, naturally, and some other gear from the resort.
For more on Tuesday’s White House tête-à-tête and upcoming trade talks, read GZERO’s interview below with former Canadian Progressive Conservative leader and Quebec Premier the Hon. Jean Charest.Newly elected Pope Leo XIV, Cardinal Robert Prevost of the United States, appears on the balcony of St. Peter's Basilica, at the Vatican, on May 8, 2025.
Hard Numbers: Conclave selects new pope, American TV loses amid Canadian hockey wins, Trump makes Ovechkin a Canuck, Wildfires scorch Alberta, Measles ravages Ontario, JD Vance’s half-brother advances in mayoral race
78 million: The 78 million Catholics living in the US and Canada finally have one of their own at the head of the church. After two days of deliberations, the Vatican conclave on Thursday named Robert Francis Prevost as pope, the first American ever to hold the job. Pope Leo XIV, as he will be known, is seen as a middle-of-the-road choice by comparison with his reform-minded predecessor, Pope Francis. But his strong, recent criticism of the Trump administration’s immigration policy sets up immediate tension between the Vatican and the White House.
29%: Canada’s hockey success is America’s loss, if TV ratings are anything to go by. Canada has five teams in the National Hockey League playoffs for the first time since 2017, but US audiences don’t seem interested. Playoff viewership on ABC/ESPN dropped 29% from last year, and the corresponding ratings for TNT/TBS fell 16%. No team from Canada has won the Stanley Cup since 1993. If it happens, a lot of Americans might miss it entirely.
895: Speaking of hockey, US President Donald Trump appears to think that the Washington Capitals’ star player Alexander Ovechkin is Canadian. “You happen to have a very, very good hockey player right here on the Capitals,” Trump said during his meeting with Prime Minister Mark Carney. “Just broke the record, and he’s a great guy.” Ovechkin, who just broke the record for all-time goals in the NHL with his 895th gino last month, is Russian. At least the US president knows where The Great One is from.
72 hours: Wildfires northeast of Edmonton have caused two county offices to issue states of local emergency, with Thorhild County ordering the residents of rural Boyle to evacuate their homes for 72 hours. But the effects may not be confined to Alberta: two years ago, Canadian wildfire smoke and pollution turned blue skies orange across North America.
1,383: The number of confirmed or probable measles cases in Ontario hit 1,383 on Tuesday, with another 265 cases in Alberta, and 40 more in Quebec. Canada’s total cases now exceed those in the United States, which stand at 935. On a per-capita basis, Ontario’s outbreak is 21 times larger than America’s. Experts blame the measles spread on falling vaccination rates – a study last year found that immunization rates among Canadian children in five provinces fell seven percentage points between 2019 and 2023.
2,894: Coffee shop owner Cory Bowman, half-brother of Vice President JD Vance, advanced to the general election for Cincinnati mayor, despite receiving just 2,894 votes (13%) in the all-party primary. Incumbent Mayor Aftab Pureval, a Democrat, dominated the primary election, winning 18,505 votes. The general election will take place in November.
Can Trump and Carney reset US-Canada relations?
But it has reduced cause for panic, in part because Trump stated a commitment of the United States to the basic alliance, to the security umbrella, to defending Canada as necessary, which was something he wasn't saying over the past few months with Justin Trudeau. He clearly likes Carney more than Trudeau, which is not surprising because that bar is pretty much on the floor. And also stopped with the governor speak, which is clearly disrespectful, but did push on the 51st state issue, and how much better it would be for Canada if they were actually a part of the United States, not that he intends to take it over militarily, but rather something he's going to keep talking about.
And Carney didn't interrupt Trump when he was going on and on, talking about that, but then responded with his best line of the conversation, which is, "I've spent the last couple months going around talking to the owners of Canada, meaning the voters, the citizens of Canada, and it's never, never, never going to happen." Trump says, "Never say never," and they kind of agree to disagree on something they shouldn't be talking about to begin with. But at the end of the day, not much there. The bigger problem, of course, is that there is an incredibly important trade relationship between the US and Canada. And no, it is not true that the US doesn't do much business with Canada. In fact, Canada actually buys more from the United States than any other individual country in the world does. And if you go talk to the governors, the senators, the representatives of all of the northern states that border Canada, they can tell you just how integrated those supply chains are, how essential the Canadian economy is for them.
And some of those are blue states, some of those are red states, and it don't really matter, they all care a lot about their relationship with Canada. So, it is important. But because Trump is individually taking the right to tariff from Congress, where it legally sits, and using legally contestable national emergency clauses to enforce tariffs, impose tariffs on other countries, including those that are governed by pre-existing trade relationships, like Canada, which has a robust USMCA, US-Mexico-Canada agreement, that Trump himself helped drive, negotiate, and trumpeted as a huge win at the time, but now he is singularly undermining it. And what that means is that we are very unlikely to get to a new agreed USMCA in the coming year, despite the utility of renegotiating it with the sunset clause, and instead... look, I don't think anyone's going to run away from it, I don't think it's going to break, instead, it means that every year we're going to kick it down the road and renegotiate so that you can keep it going.
And that means that the Canadians don't feel like they have a functional multilateral trade arrangement with the US and Mexico, that also means, because the US president can change it at any moment he wishes, and also that an enormous amount of time is going to be spent in those negotiations, not just now, but every year, creating more uncertainty for those that need to want to rely on the long-term stability of that trade relationship. And here is the rub, which is that the US-Canada relationship will stay important, it'll stay robust, but it will become more transactional, where it had been built on trust and shared values, and that means the Canadians will work really hard to hedge and de-risk their relations from their most important trading partner.
About 75% of Canadian trade is with the United States right now, they rely much more on the US than the Americans rely on Canada, Trump is absolutely right about that, but they now see that as a vulnerability. And for the last 40 years, the Canadians, really since '88, '89, the Canadians have focused singularly on increasing their interdependence with the United States. They built out all of this infrastructure from the provinces, not east-west, but rather north-south. If you look at the way that rail transit, and energy infrastructure, and supply chains work in Canada, it's as if these provinces were independent republics set up to do business just with the United States, not focused on what would make sense for an independent sovereign Canada over the long term, if that relationship suddenly were ruptured.
Well, that needs to change, and that's something that you're going to see the Canadians work very strongly on over the coming years. Easier for Carney to do, because his relationships internationally are much stronger than previous Canadian prime ministers, certainly generationally, if you think about the fact that he was Central Bank governor in the UK, and that one of his best international relationships is actually with the French president, Emmanuel Macron, and others and others, I think you're going to see a very strong effort to work with the UK, to work with the Commonwealth, to work with the EU, and to help shift those trade flows over time to hedge further away from the US.
And the costs of that will be significant, the impact of the trade rupture in the near term will be a major recession in Canada imminently, and a mild recession in the United States imminently as well, but over the long term, my view is no one benefits from that.
So, that's the main takeaway, a little less theatric maybe than the internet, apologies for that, but it is the way I see it, and I'll talk to you all real soon.
How will the Trump presidency influence elections in Europe?
Carl Bildt, former prime minister of Sweden and co-chair of the European Council on Foreign Relations, shares his perspective on European politics from Stockholm, Sweden.
How do you believe that the Trump presidency will influence elections in Europe?
Well, of course we don't know. But what we've seen during the last week with important elections in Canada and Australia, not Europe, but fairly similar in other ways, is that the Trump factor has been very important. It has boosted the incumbent governments. It has boosted the center-left. It has boosted those who are seen as standing up to American pressure, and thus produced results both in Canada, primarily in Canada, but also in Australia. Very different from what practically everyone expected a couple of months ago.
Europe, different place. But still we have two important elections coming up, within slightly more than 10 days. We have the first round of the presidential election in Poland. That's very important for the future possibilities of the Tusk government to continue reforming that particular country. And we have the second round of the presidential election in Romania. An important country often forgotten. But there of course, we had gross interference from Russia and TikTok, and a candidate was banned. In both of these cases, we see the Trump presidency acting. They received, in the White House the other day, the opposition candidate. The extreme right nationalist opposition candidate the other day. And they've been making distinct noises in favor of the same political alternative in Romania. Will this backfire in the way it did in Canada, Australia? Remains to be seen. Very important elections both of them. Watch this space.
U.S. President Donald Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney meet in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., May 6, 2025.
Friends with (economic) benefits? Carney, Trump talk trade
What does Donald Trump want most from Canada? “Friendship,” he said during his meeting Tuesday with newly elected Prime Minister Mark Carney. But while their IRL encounter was civil enough, don’t expect matching friendship bracelets any time soon.
Trump again taunted Canada about the benefits of being “the 51st state” and shot down Carney’s reply that his country would “never be for sale.” Carney, who won Canada’s election last week after a stunning political comeback fueled largely by Trump’s aggression towards Ottawa, said his administration was committed to boosting investment in Canadian security.
But despite all the posturing, no progress was made in calming a trade war that affects $800 billion in annual commerce. US tariffs of 25% remain in place on steel, aluminum, and cars that do not comply with NAFTA, as do Canadian retaliatory measures of 25%.
Although Trump has stopped short of applying his promised “reciprocal tariffs” on Canada so far, uncertainty about US economic policy has Canadian manufacturers hunting for other markets (they currently send 75% of their exports to the US) while both sides gear up to renegotiate their USMCA trade agreement in 2026.
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith announces proposed changes to several pieces of democratic process legislation, in Edmonton on Tuesday, April 29, 2025.
Smith makes Alberta referendum easier
Alberta Premier Danielle Smithtabled a bill on Tuesday that will make it easier for voters in her province to force a referendum to secede from Canada. Though she has not endorsed separation, critics accuse her of exploiting the sentiment to animate her base and distract from other issues. The bill could theoretically clear the way for the province to become the 51st state.
The bill lowers the threshold for a citizen-initiated petition from about 600,000 signatures to about 170,000, which separatists hope would allow the vote to happen.
During the election, Smith warned that a reelected Liberal government would increase secessionist sentiments in both Alberta and Saskatchewan, staunchly conservative provinces that profit from the oil and gas industry. Many Prairie voters blame the federal government for legislation that made it harder to develop pipelines and an emissions cap on the money-spinning oil sands.
Former Reform Party Leader Preston Manning, a revered elder statesman, made a splash during the election when he published an op-ed predicting that another Liberal government could lead to Western separatism: “Voters, particularly in central and Atlantic Canada, need to recognize that a vote for the Carney Liberals is a vote for Western secession – a vote for the breakup of Canada as we know it.”
It’s unlikely to pass. A poll this month showed that 30% of Albertans and 33% of Saskatchewanians would vote to separate if the Liberals were reelected, but other polls have shown lower levels of support, concentrated in rural areas.
Canada’s Clarity Act theoretically allows for a province to separate after a referendum but only if it achieves a clear majority on a clear question, which would lead to a constitutional process at the federal level — an uncertain process.
Alberta’s Indigenous peoples, who have treaties that pre-date the creation of the province, are generally said to oppose the idea.
Britain's King Charles holds an audience with the Prime Minister of Canada Mark Carney at Buckingham Palace, on March 17, 2025.
Will King Charles give the throne speech in Canada?
King Charles is rumored to have been invited to Canada to deliver the speech from the throne, likely in late May, although whether he attends may depend on sensitivities in the office of UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
The last monarch to deliver a speech from the throne at the opening of a session of Canada’s Parliament was Charles’s mother, Elizabeth, in 1977. She previously did so in 1957. It is normally done by the governor general, the monarch’s representative in Canada. The speech sets out the government’s legislative priorities, an occasion of pomp and circumstance held in the Senate, Canada’s normally sleepy chamber of sober second thought.
Buckingham Palace announced that new Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney “had an audience of The King via telephone” on Tuesday, a day after he won a minority government. Carney last met the king in March during his brief trip to Europe after he became prime minister but before he called the election.
The visit, in which the King wore a red tie, was one of a number of occasions when the monarch used symbols to show his support for Canadian sovereignty. Starmer, meanwhile, has only reluctantly offered support, apparently out of deference to Donald Trump, who wants to make Canada the 51st state, but the British PM did hail the UK and Canada as the “closest of allies” after Monday’s election.
The Canadian PM’s office would not say if Carney had formally invited the king during their Tuesday call. “We can not comment about content of an audience with the King,” said Audrey Champoux, Carney’s press secretary.
Sources in both Ottawa and London say there is communication across the pond to that end, although no firm plans have been made.
Starmer, who is desperate to nail down a trade deal with Trump, will want to avoid displeasing Trump, whom he has invited to a second state dinner. The PM’s office might try to stop the king from making the Canadian trip, but it is not clear that would succeed, says Philippe Lagassé, an associate professor at Carleton University whose research focuses on Westminster systems.
“It depends on how strongly the British government wants to press on the sovereign not to go,” Lagassé said. “And the king, as far as we understand, seems keen on making his presence known in Canada. From what we can gather, the little tidbits of information that we’re gathering, this does matter to him. So he would have a say, right?”
Formally, Charles is the king of Canada as well as the United Kingdom, which means Starmer doesn’t quite have a veto on such a trip. “You don’t want it to get to the point of them saying, ‘Look, we are formally giving you advice not to go.’ And he can then say, ‘I have formal advice from my Canadian government that I should go.’”
The king might do more than just read a speech, said Lagassé. “I don’t know if they’ve settled on his $20 bill yet, but if you really wanted to lay it on thick, you could have him do a bunch of stuff, send him to the North, send him to Alberta, have him check out the military.”
A visit by Charles would be seen as a gesture of support for Canadian sovereignty, which is under threat from the Trump government.