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Former Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney reacts to a standing ovation at the Canadian Club in Ottawa, Canada, on Sept. 14, 2007.
Mulroney’s passing sparks an outpouring of grief in Canada and US
Americans don’t pay much attention to Canadian politics for the simple reason that they are a less exciting version of what is going on in the US – with added snow.
However, the passing of former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney at the age of 84 has prompted a flood of glowing obituary articles in many American media outlets. Politico’s headline referred to Canada losing its “Washington Whisperer” – a man who gave eulogies for not one, but two former US presidents – Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.
In 2004, at Reagan’s state funeral, Mulroney said the late president possessed a “rare and prized gift called leadership.” At Bush’s funeral in 2018, he said every head of government who dealt with the former president knew they were dealing with “a gentleman, a genuine leader, one who was distinguished, resolute and brave.”
Canada’s 18th prime minister spent much of his time in office strengthening the ties with the US, efforts that culminated in the Canada-U.S. free trade agreement (which later broadened to include Mexico as the North American Free Trade Agreement).
Mulroney became a valued friend of Reagan, with the two men of Irish heritage singing “When Irish Eyes Are Smiling” with their wives at a 1985 meeting in Quebec City, which became known as “the Shamrock Summit.”
Mulroney’s popularity did not always prosper domestically because of his friendships. He was succeeded by Liberal Prime Minister Jean Chrétien, who was once caught on a hot microphone telling Belgium’s prime minister that he liked to stand up to the Americans: “It’s popular … people like it, but you have to be careful because they’re our friends.”
Mulroney had no truck with such posturing and would reap the rewards of his close relationships by being able to speak frankly to his US counterparts at crucial moments.
During free trade negotiations, the clock was ticking down on a deadline, with Canada’s red line issue – an independent dispute resolution mechanism – still unresolved. Mulroney called Reagan and asked how the US had been able to strike a nuclear arms reduction deal with the Soviets yet could not get a free trade deal with their best friend over the line. Reagan subsequently instructed his negotiating team that the dispute resolution mechanism had to be included.
When George H.W. Bush politely told Mulroney that the Europeans were tired of Canada speaking up on the future of Europe, Mulroney’s notes of the call revealed he told Bush: “Tell the Europeans we’re not renting our seat in Europe. Tell them to go to the graveyards in France, Italy, and Belgium. We’ve paid for our seat.” Bush was so moved by the response he referred to it in his memoir.
After he introduced a national sales tax in 1991, Mulroney’s approval rating plummeted. “Popularity is bad for you. I try to avoid it like the plague, and I’ve been reasonably successful,” he joked.
Yet, his political opponents kept the tax in place, and it now yields a tenth of all revenues.
Former President George W. Bush issued his own tribute to Mulroney last week, saying he was “a great man … smart, charming, funny and kind.”
Anthony Wilson-Smith covered Mulroney for many years as a reporter and wrote a touching tribute in Canada’s Policy magazine. “Mulroney was most beloved and trusted by those who knew him best,” he said, feelings that reflected his regular acts of “quiet kindness.”
Mulroney will be laid to rest in Montreal on March 23, and it is expected that some senior American public figures will attend.
He was a consequential, transformative leader, as the outpouring of appreciation on both sides of the border shows.
FILE PHOTO: Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (left), President of Mexico, and Justin Trudeau (right), Prime Minister of Canada, are delivering a message to the media at the National Palace in Mexico City,on January 10, 2023, on the occasion of their meeting with Joe Biden, President of the United States, at the 10th North American Leaders' Summit, where they are discussing migration, economic and drug trafficking issues.
Will Trudeau bring back visas for Mexican visitors?
Justin Trudeausaid last week that Canada is in talks with Mexico to try to find ways to cut down on the number of asylum-seekers flying into Canada with the help of organized criminal groups.
Trudeau is under pressure from the Conservatives, and the Americans to reinstate a visa requirement on Mexican travelers, which his government lifted in 2016. The government said last month it is considering doing so.
The Biden administration would also like the visas to return because the number of migrants crossing the northern border has spiked in the past year — 2,200 interceptions in 2023, up 240% from 2022. Most of the crossings are made in the lightly patrolled areas of upstate New York, New Hampshire, and Vermont.
The route via Canada to the US is appealing to Mexicans and other Latin Americans who face detention and deportation at the more heavily patrolled southern border. A network of human smugglers has sprung up to facilitate the crossings, but would-be migrants face danger in the cold northern woods.
The Liberal government seems to be signaling that it’s working with Mexico rather than moving immediately to require Mexican visitors to apply for visas, which would be a setback for the trade and diplomatic relationship.
Dem bias in Ottawa has Trudeau targeting Trump
The most intense debate in the Canadian House of Commons of late has been about a humdrum trade deal update between Canada and Ukraine. It is being disputed by the opposition Conservatives because it contains reference to a carbon tax.
Since Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre has made “axing the tax” in Canada his number one priority, he has removed his party’s support from the deal, even though Ukraine has had a carbon tax since 2011.
But the governing Liberals say they detect an ulterior motive: the rise of right-wing, MAGA-style conservatism in Canada that has undermined the Conservative Party’s support for Ukraine.
Trudeau’s camp takes aim at MAGA bull's-eye
The Liberals ran an online ad on Monday, ahead of a Canada-Ukraine free trade deal vote in the House, that featured a photo of Justin Trudeau shaking hands with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky while claiming Poilievre’s party is “importing far-right, American-style politics and refusing to stand with our ally in their time of need.”
Conservatives say they support Ukraine and have just called on Ottawa to send surplus weapons – specifically 83,000 CRV7 rockets slated for disposal – to Kyiv. But the Liberals need to disrupt Poilievre’s momentum and seem convinced that comparing him to Donald Trump might do it.
After the former president won the New Hampshire primary in January, the Liberals made a direct comparison between the two men in an online ad, which said that Trump was one step closer to the White House and that Poilievre was ripping a page from his playbook. The ad noted that both men referenced “corrupt media,” their countries being “broken” and used the slogan “bring it home.”
Trump’s eye-for-an-eye approach
This is a dangerous game, given Trump is ahead in most polls and is an Old Testament-style politician, more inclined to take an eye for an eye than to turn the other cheek.
Why would Trudeau risk baiting the man who could be in the White House this time next year, where he would wield the power to enervate the Canadian economy?
The prime minister knows Trump takes note of every slight and pays everyone back with interest. After the G7 meeting in Charlevoix, Quebec, in 2018, Trudeau gave a closing press conference in which he said Canada would not be pushed around in trade negotiations by the US. According to Trump’s former national security adviser, John Bolton, in his book “The Room Where It Happened,” the president raged against Trudeau, calling the prime minister a “behind your back guy” and ordering his aides to bad mouth Trudeau on the Sunday talk shows.
But Trudeau’s Liberals are trailing the Conservatives by up to 16 percentage points in every public opinion poll, and this tactic may work.
An Abacus data poll from Jan. 28 suggested there is some evidence to suggest that associating Poilievre and Trump correlates with voting intentions, with those who feel that the two men are different more likely to vote Conservative. Tying the two men together in a pejorative fashion is good for the electoral fortunes of the Liberal Party, so the thinking seems to go.
That remains to be seen. Attacking a political rival is always a challenge when the target is held in more esteem than the source of the attack, which is the case here, according to another Abacus poll that found Poilievre much more liked than Trudeau.
Canada’s former man in Washington says to hold fire
The risk is amplified in that the Canadian public may well see through such a transparent tactic and decide that Trudeau is putting his party’s interests ahead of the country’s.
That was the warning issued at the weekend by David MacNaughton, whom Trudeau once appointed as Canada’s ambassador in Washington. He told the Toronto Star that Trudeau is taking a risk by taking indirect shots at Trump.
Doing so will make it harder to fight Trump’s promised 10% tariffs on US imports if he comes to power, he said.
“We used to be seen by the Americans as a trusted friend, ally, and partner, and right now, I don’t think that feeling is as strong as it used to be,” he said.
That MacNaughton has been forced to say this in public suggests he is being ignored in private.
Trudeau revives Team Canada
Trudeau has revived the Team Canada approach to relations with the US that served his government well during the renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement that yielded the U.S.-Mexico-Canada deal in 2018.
The new effort will be led by Kirsten Hillman, Canada’s current ambassador in Washington, Francois-Philippe Champagne, the industry minister, and Mary Ng, the trade minister (notably not Mélanie Joly, the foreign minister, or Chrystia Freeland, the deputy prime minister who fell foul of Trump during the USMCA negotiations. “We don’t like their representative,” Trump said at the time).
Municipal mayors, provincial politicians, and business leaders will all be urged to reach out to their contacts to sell the message that the two economies are more integrated than ever. Trade statistics based on the first three years of the new USMCA show that total US trade with Canada and Mexico totaled $1.78 trillion in 2022, a 27% increase over 2019 levels.
When not criticizing “ideologically driven MAGA Conservatives” in Parliament, Trudeau has tried to sound civil.
But as professional diplomats who have worked with Republicans in the US point out, “no amount of Team Canada can overcome those ill-advised MAGA statements.”
Libs and GOP on different planets
Another problem is that the two are on different political planets.
The Liberal government is not keen on engaging with Republican politicians and officials, in part because of an aversion that dates back to the Jan. 6, 2021, attacks on the US Capitol.
The lack of readiness evokes memories of November 2016, when Trump was elected and the Canadian government was caught completely off-guard. The professional bureaucrats who are meant to advise governments had provided no contingency plan for a Trump administration and Trudeau had even invited the sitting Democratic vice president, Joe Biden, to Ottawa for a state dinner the following month. “They were so excited at the prospect of Hillary (Clinton), even better than Obama because she was a woman. They couldn’t wait for the transition,” said one person involved in the planning process. After Trump was elected, the Canadian government couldn’t even reach him to arrange a congratulatory call.
Louise Blais, a former Canadian ambassador to the United Nations, was consul general in the southeast US at the time – MAGA land – and had built up an array of contacts among Republicans that proved invaluable. Among other things, she secured a phone number for the president-elect.
As she wrote in the Globe and Mail last weekend, even the most conservative Republicans are friendly towards Canada, realizing the relationship is a net positive for them. But they value a rapport built up over the years, not arranged in a panic, and they cherish mutual respect.
Blais recalled how former House Speaker Newt Gingrich told her in 2016 that Republicans were hearing what Canada was saying about then-candidate Trump. “Be careful because you are picking sides,” he said.
Trade deal no protection against Trump’s tariffs
The long-standing Democratic bias at the official level is a luxury Canada can ill afford. Ottawa has a free-trade agreement with the US, but if the new president wants to impose a double-digit tariff on everything that crosses into America, Canada would be dragged into an expensive, retaliatory trade war.
Veteran Conservative MP Randy Hoback wrote on his Substack that the Canada-U.S. relationship is too critical to be jeopardized by domestic political concerns. “Trudeau’s actions are hazardous to our economy and national security,” he said.
Trudeau’s current emissaries don’t speak the same language as Trump’s party. A real Team Canada needs to include some people, like Hoback, who can speak Republican.
Trudeau and a dimming spotlight
Is Trudeau’s spotlight fading to black?
The New Democratic Party, the socialist third party in Canada’s Parliament, gave Justin Trudeau an ultimatum at the weekend that could push him to the exit.
At a convention in Hamilton, Ontario, on Saturday, NDP members unanimously passed a resolution calling for the party to withdraw its support for Trudeau’s government unless he brings in a national socialized pharmacare system.
Since 2022, Trudeau has relied on the NDP to maintain his parliamentary majority, so he must now either spend billions providing free prescription drugs to every Canadian or risk an election he would almost certainly lose.
The opposition Conservatives have been leading in opinion polls since August, and it is getting harder to imagine that Trudeau will make a comeback. This week is the eighth anniversary of the 2015 election that brought him to power. If he leads his party into the next election, it will be his fourth. No Canadian prime minister has won four in a row since Wilfrid Laurier in 1908. Trudeau increasingly looks like he is living on borrowed time.
Inflation – bad for incumbents
The opinion polls look grim. All the pollsters show the Conservatives with a hardening lead in the 10-point range, which shows that many voters have decided that Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is an acceptable alternative.
The pugnacious Poilievre solidified his position in public opinion with a successful convention in September and is now seen as a preferred prime minister by 33% of Canadians, 10 points ahead of Trudeau. He keeps gathering momentum with deft social media performances. The polls show his party would win a majority if an election were held today.
Philippe J. Fournier, editor-in-chief of poll aggregator 338Canada.com, says the last time a Canadian government was this unpopular was likely in the 1990s when Brian Mulroney was prime minister. “At the federal level, I can't recall any precedent for a government that has two years to go that is so down in the polls.”
As in the United States, inflation is top of mind for voters. Numbers released Tuesday show Canadian inflation slowed to 3.8% in September, but prices are still too high for many. Inflation is mostly the result of global supply chain issues that started during the pandemic, but Poilievre has effectively blamed it on the free-spending ways of the Trudeau government. If Trudeau goes along with the NDP’s pharmacare ask, Poilievre will portray it as yet another costly government program.
Trudeau can’t tack to the right
Since making a deal with the NDP, Trudeau has enjoyed the comfort of knowing that his government won’t fall on a snap vote in the House, but it has constrained him from advancing more centrist economic policies that might appeal to voters who have voted Liberal but are now planning on giving the Conservatives a try.
There is no threat of an imminent election — the Liberals can drag their feet on pharmacare, and the NDP does not look to be in a hurry to end an arrangement that has given them a historically unusual level of influence over the federal government — but Trudeau is in a jam.
“On the one hand, they're talking about fiscal responsibility and the need to control spending,” says Graeme Thompson, a senior analyst with Eurasia Group's Global Macro-Geopolitics practice. “But on the other hand, they depend on fairly expensive promises to the NDP to implement new social policy. And at some point, those two things are incompatible. They are a little bit damned if you do, damned if you don't.”
Since many Liberal MPs are staring at the near-certain prospect of defeat, it’s possible that more of them will start to oppose unpopular Liberal policies, giving Trudeau’s government fresh headaches. They must be wondering if they would be better off under a different leader.
Alternatives to Trudeau
Several of his ministers are interested in the job, but none have much of a national profile, and it’s hard to know how they would do in the job.
Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland — the most important minister in his government — won admiration for her forthright and energetic advocacy for Canada during trade negotiations with Donald Trump, but she has not demonstrated an ability to rally support for her economic policies, and it is not clear she would want the top job.
Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly is telegenic and enjoys a high profile, especially in Québec, where she is an important political organizer, but she struggled as heritage minister, and critics have portrayed her as a lightweight. Also, she is a Québecer, and by tradition, the Liberal party alternates leaders. It’s not a Québecer’s turn.
The popular and unbelievably energetic industry minister — François-Philippe Champagne — is another Québecer.
Treasury Board President Anita Anand, meanwhile, won praise for her work procuring vaccines during the pandemic and dealing with a sexual harassment crisis in the defense department, but she has not demonstrated the ability to connect with voters.
Some Liberals are longingly pinning their hopes on Mark Carney, former governor of both the Bank of Canada and Bank of England, but he has never held elected office, and the Conservatives say they would be delighted since he is just the kind of elitist that populist Poilievre would like to run against.
The good news for Trudeau is that there is no obvious successor waiting in the wings. The bad news for the Liberals? They can’t be sure that any of the alternatives would be any better.
Speaker of the House of Commons Anthony Rota looks on during Question Period on Parliament Hill in Ottawa.
Dead cats, Nazis, and murder
Has politics ever been this interesting? In trying to understand wild stories about a Nazi in Canada’s Parliament and allegations that India assassinated a man on the steps of a temple in Surrey, British Columbia, I started to think about dead cats, wagging the dog, and flooding the zone with sh-t.
Dead Cats? Let me explain.
There are various ways to describe strategies that governments use when they want to distract public attention from one crisis. Often, they simply introduce another.
The Dead Cat Strategy was made famous by an Aussie political operator named Lynton Crosby, who used it to help Boris Johnson shift attention away from his shambolic UK leadership stumbles. Johnson actually wrote about it once, saying that when losing an argument the best thing to do is to deploy Crosby’s strategy and throw “a dead cat on the table.”
“Everyone will shout ‘Jeez, mate, there’s a dead cat on the table’,” he said, “and they will not be talking about the issue that has been causing you so much grief.” Johnson’s entire political career was, essentially, a buffet of dead cats.
Where there is a political cat, there must be a dog. “Wag the Dog” was the name of a 1997 Hollywood film about a fictional government that used military action to distract from a president’s troubles. Life imitates art. The next year, after the revelations about the Monica Lewinsky scandal blew up, President Bill Clinton ordered the bombing of a Sudanese pharmacy factory. His secretary of defense was immediately asked if the attacks were just “wag the dog” distractions from the sex scandal. Either way, it didn’t work. Do you remember the bombs or the blue dress?
And, of course, during his time as Trump whisperer, Steve Bannon infamously told writer Michael Lewis that the way to undermine the media was simply to “flood the zone with shit.” And flood the zone he did. That phrase, in my view, marked the unofficial declaration of the Disinformation War that is still raging today.
What does this have to do with the political difficulties Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is facing with India in the wake of the June 18 murder of Canadian citizen Hardeep Singh Nijjar, or why the Speaker of the House invited a man who was an actual Nazi to be celebrated in Parliament during the visit of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky? (You would have to work very hard and forget some key moments in history to do something as insulting, damaging, and embarrassing as inviting a guy who was in an SS unit to Parliament to celebrate fighting … the Russians, but that is what the Speaker actually did. He apparently missed the part in World War II where the Russians were allies in the fight against the Nazis. And they say kids don’t know their history … sigh). It was not a planned channel change a la “Wag the Dog,” but the Nazi story has become a major distraction from the ongoing fallout of the Indian assassination scandal and the war in Ukraine, and that’s a huge problem.
As I outlined in my column last week, Trudeau says there are “credible allegations” that the Niijar murder was orchestrated by “agents of the” Indian government. While India denies involvement in the death of a man they regarded as a terrorist, the evidence is now overwhelming. There are recordings of Indian diplomats talking about it beforehand, and there is video of the assassination squad conducting the bloody killing — using between 40 and 50 bullets. This was a political statement, not just murder.
In the immediate aftermath, it looked like Canada would stand alone, as most countries need a close relationship with India as a hedge against China. But definitive evidence of an extrajudicial killing has a way of chilling a courtship, so now its India feeling the pressure to provide a way out.
I spoke with senior intelligence sources this week about India and Canada, and they tell me that allies like the US, France, Germany, and Australia have all urged India behind the scenes to cooperate with an investigation, even as PM Narendra Modi has escalated the diplomatic war with Canada.
Sources also tell me the US is heavily pressuring India to cooperate with Canada and find someone accountable for the murder. “There is room for accountability that does not involve Modi himself,” a senior intel source said. In other words, get some people to take the fall, show respect for the rule of law, and don’t sour more G7 relations. That way, we can all get productive on other issues. Over to you, Mr. Modi.
Canada too is feeling the pressure to do more to crack down on Khalistani-related security issues, but sources say that what India wants Canada to do in terms of monitoring and arrests could violate the Canadian rule of law. As a source told me, “India is right to say that there are extremists in Canada, but India can be dismissive about our belief in freedom of speech and the right to freedom of assembly, and we won’t violate that.”
The other thing to watch for? Arrests.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police is conducting an independent investigation, and when they make arrests — it could take a while — India will be forced to be made accountable. Intel sources say they are concerned those arrests might lead to more domestic violence, so this is far from over.
In the meantime, as this killing is forcing India to decide what kind of player on the global stage it will be, Canada is consumed by the invitation of a Nazi to Parliament. There is no sugar coating this. It was a humiliating, damaging, and painful moment, and it handed Russia – which has long tried to justify its illegal, murderous invasion of Ukraine as a battle against Nazis – a huge propaganda victory.
It has also allowed the fight for continuing support for Ukraine to get bogged down in old wounds and historic battles that remain agonizing generations later. Besides exposing Canada’s hideous past in terms of allowing Nazis to come to Canada — ”There was a point in our history where it was easier to get (into Canada) as a Nazi than it was as a Jewish person,” said Canada’s Immigration Minister Marc Miller — our eyes are now off the main thing: Russia’s invasion and how to get them out.
No one wagged the dog, tossed a dead cat, or flooded the zone here as a strategy of distraction. This time it was just pure incompetence, but the result is the same: Distortion. Disinformation. Flooding the zone with … crap.
At a time when we need to get serious about urgent issues, the timing couldn’t be worse.
New university graduates line-up in a hall before convocation in Ontario, Canada.
Foreign students get caught up in Canada’s housing crisis
As Canada’s housing crisis continues – with the average selling price up 6% in six months, to CA$668,754, and the average 1 bedroom rental price at CA$2,078 – policymakers are looking at the effect of international students on prices. Last year, Canada saw over 800,000 international students arrive in a country of roughly 40 million people, over half of whom ended up in Ontario. In 2022, nearly 1 in 48 people in Canada were international students on a study permit.
International students are critical to university budgets and major contributors to the economy, at somewhere near CA$18 billion in 2018. With tuition caps on domestic rates and insufficient government funding, schools turn to foreign students to make up the difference. Those same students are also permitted to work while in Canada, and do. International students often become permanent residents, with roughly 30% of them doing so within 15 years.
But Housing Minister Sean Fraser is now considering a cap on the number of international students welcomed to the country in order to take pressure off housing prices. This comes as Canada recently revised its immigration target upwards, aiming for 500,000 admissions in 2025.
Canada isn’t building enough housing to keep up with demand, including purpose-built rentals and non-market options. The Canada Mortgage Housing Corporation says the country must build over 800,000 units a year. In 2022, it built 260,000. On-campus housing options are also inadequate, lagging behind growing demand.
In the coming months, with students set to start school in September and applications for next year due in February and March, we’ll be watching to see how the government manages competing needs to fund universities, welcome newcomers, juice GDP, and house students – and everyone else.
Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Sophie Gregoire.
Trudeaus split: Canada’s first couple separate
The love story of the glamorous duo, Canadian PM Justin Trudeau and Sophie Grégoire, est fini. News of their separation broke Wednesday, leaving onlookers worldwide stunned. Grégoire has been at Trudeau's side for the past 18 years and been a prominent partner throughout his political career.
Grégoire is reportedly moving out of Rideau Cottage, where Trudeau will stay with their three children.
GZERO’s Publisher Evan Solomon interviewed the PM back in 2014 about his biography “Common Ground,” in which he spoke about his marriage going through difficult times. "Our marriage isn't perfect, and we have had difficult ups and downs, yet Sophie remains my best friend, my partner, my love. We are honest with each other, even when it hurts,” Trudeau wrote.
When pressed by Solomon as to whether this was a signal that their union had endured extramarital affairs, Trudeau said it had not. “I say we are deeply in love and committed to each other and we continue to be.”
Many will recall that Justin’s father Pierre, who twice held the role of prime minister of Canada, also endured a very public split from his wife Margaret in the late 1970s, with the two divorcing in 1984, at the end of his second stint at the political helm.
Earlier this year, to mark his wife’s 48th birthday, the PM took to Instagram to wish her a “Bonne fête” and to note that there is no one he’d rather have at his side.
We will be watching to see what, if anything, this means for Trudeau’s reelection bid, expected in 2025, as the breakdown of his marriage – and any details that might emerge – will likely garner a lot of media attention that his political opponents may try to leverage.
Danielle Smith of the United Conservative Party (UCP) gestures during her party's provincial election night party.
Populism in Alberta
The big political news of the week in Canada was the down-to-the-wire Alberta election, which pitted the ruling United Conservative Party against the left-leaning New Democratic Party. The UCP, led by controversial populist Danielle Smith, managed to defeat the NDP, whose leader, former premier Rachel Notley, managed to win most of the urban seats.
The results reveal a province more polarized than is typical for Canadian politics, where most legislatures have three parties. Alberta, which is politically influenced by Western states, now resembles them politically in a heavily polarized two-party alignment.
The reelected Smith, who spent much of the election struggling to explain controversial past comments about vaccines and lockdowns, promised to fight PM Justin Trudeau’s climate policies, including a cap on emissions from the oil industry and a net-zero electricity grid by 2035. Her election will pose a political challenge for the ruling Liberals as they try to bring down emissions in a province where the prime minister is widely despised.
Before the election, she brought in the Alberta Sovereignty Within a United Canada Act, which targets Canadian legislation in areas she sees as infringing on provincial jurisdiction. Legal experts are skeptical about the constitutionality of the law, which has not yet been used, and any attempt to use it in an area of federal or shared jurisdiction would likely end up in court.
The election outcome bodes well for Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre, who, like Smith, took over his party amid the fallout from COVID lockdowns and can expect to be attacked by Liberals for it in the next federal election. He now has less to fear: The results in Alberta suggest that right-leaning voters won’t let controversial views from the receding pandemic prevent them from voting along partisan lines.