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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.
Canadians head to the polls for federal election.
Race tightens as Canadians head to the polls. Will Liberals pull off the ultimate comeback?
It’s Election Day in Canada on Monday, and many are wondering whether newly installed Liberal Prime Minister Mark Carney will complete a shocking comeback for the party of former PM Justin Trudeau.
The Liberals were skating deep in their own zone just a few months ago — down a whopping 25 points in the polls as recently as January — but Trudeau’s resignation and Donald Trump’s trade war and aggressive rhetoric sparked a surge in Canadian nationalism and flipped the momentum. Since the end of February, Carney’s Liberals have been on a power play, polling ahead of Pierre Poilievre’s Conservative Party — at one point stretching the lead to 15 points.
Over the long Easter weekend, Canadians broke advance voting records as 7.3 million turned up at the polls — a 25% jump from the 2021 election — and that early vote, according to David Coletto of Abacus Data, likely gave the Liberals a critical first-period lead.
While the Liberals hope to score a majority — a clear mandate to effect change and wrangle Donald Trump — the match isn’t over yet. The gap between the two teams, er, parties, has narrowed in recent weeks, with the Liberals polling slightly ahead at 42.9%, and the Conservatives at 39.3%. The ground game will be key: With the Liberals enjoying a more efficient distribution of support in key cities and regions – particularly Ontario, Quebec, British Columbia, and Atlantic Canada - the Conservatives need all their players on the ice if they hope to clinch a win.
Final-day campaigning was impacted by a deadly car-ramming attack in Vancouver late Saturday that killed 11 people. On Sunday, Carney, Poilievre, and NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh expressed their condolences and outrage, and they rescheduled final events ahead of the polls opening on Monday.
Smoke rises following an explosion at the Shahid Rajaee port in Bandar Abbas, Iran, on April 26, 2025.
Hard Numbers: Deadly blast hits Iranian port, Tragedy strikes Filipino festival in Vancouver, PLO’s Abbas names successor, Liberals take the lead in Oz, Houthis say US strike killed dozens
28: Twenty-eight people are dead following a powerful explosion at Iran’s Shahid Rajaee port in the central southern city of Bandar Abbas on Saturday. The blast, which is believed to be linked to containers of hazardous chemicals, injured more than 1,000 others and caused extensive damage to buildings several kilometers away from the port. Reports suggest that sodium perchlorate — used in missile fuel — may have been to blame, but Tehran denies any military connection to the blast.
9: A celebration of Filipino heritage in South Vancouver, Canada, turned tragic late Saturday when a man drove an SUV into a crowd at the Lapu Lapu Day festival, killing nine people and injuring more than 20 others. A 30-year-old man was arrested at the scene, and while an investigation is underway, authorities have said they are “confident that this incident was not an act of terrorism.” PM Mark Carney offered his condolences and delayed final-day campaigning ahead of Monday’s federal election in the wake of the tragedy — and Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. expressed his sympathy and support for the victims.
170: Late last week, the Palestine Liberation Organization’s leadership created a vice presidency, with 170 of its 172 Central Council members voting in favor of a post that would open the path to a successor for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. On Saturday, Abbas, 89, nominated his close confidante, 64-year-old Hussein al-Sheikh, as VP, and the PLO’s executive committee approved it.
52: Australia’s ruling Labor Party looks set to claim victory in the May 3 election, with recent polling showing it ahead of the Liberal-National Coalition opposition, 52% to 48%, according to a Newspoll survey. The latest figures were revealed after PM Anthony Albanese shone in the final leaders’ debate on Sunday.
68: Houthi rebels in Yemen say a US airstrike on a detention center in the northwestern Saada province Sunday night killed at least 68 people, and injured another 47. The US military has not yet commented, but the news came hours after US Central Command said its forces had hit hundreds of targets following President Donald Trump’s order to ramp up the air campaign against the Houthis on March 15. The rebel group says targeting the civilian facility constitutes a “war crime.”
Election signs are displayed along the streets ahead of federal elections.
Canada’s Liberals close in on all-time comeback
A record-breaking 7.3 million Canadians voted in early polls over the long Easter weekend, a 25% jump from early turnout during the 2021 election. The early vote is likely breaking for the Liberals, who are favored among early and likely voters, according to David Coletto of Abacus Data.
The polls have narrowed a bit recently, but polling aggregator and projection site 338 Canada has the Liberals up five points on average over the Conservatives as of Wednesday, while the CBC’s Poll Tracker puts the Liberal advantage at just over 4 points, with a 77% shot at winning a majority.
The Liberals enjoy a more efficient distribution of support in key cities and regions – particularly Ontario, Quebec, British Columbia, and Atlantic Canada – which means their probable voters are more spread out and likely to win them a seat compared to their rivals. But observers, including election experts Philippe Fournier and Éric Grenier, note the race is far from guaranteed for the incumbents, which could make for a dramatic election night.
Canada’s political parties are united in offering plans to hit back against Donald Trump
Albertan Keith Gardner has been a member of the New Democratic Party his entire adult life. He’s the provincial riding association president for Lethbridge West, and he has worked on previous federal campaigns for the NDP. But in this year’s federal election, which takes place Monday, April 28, he’s voting for Mark Carney and the Liberal Party — and the reason is Donald Trump.
“There’s a kind of existential moment going on,” Gardner says. “I think the Trump piece elevates the stakes of the election.”
The election has been dominated by concerns like Gardner’s. Trump has shaped voter intentions, party strategies, and policy platforms. The two parties most likely to win, the Liberals and Conservatives, broadly agree on what needs to be done. Each supports reciprocal tariffs, reducing internal trade barriers, using government procurement to buy Canadian, and building infrastructure. They are also promising support for workers affected by Trump’s tariffs and Canadian counter-tariffs. While the parties’ methods differ — to varying degrees — the message is clear: Canada must protect its economy from its largest trading partner.
Canada looks inward — and plans to build
The Liberal Party’s platform mentions Trump eight times. Carney argues that Trump’s economic program is restructuring the global trade system, a move that threatens to hit Canada hard since the US-Canada trade relationship is worth roughly $1 trillion a year.
The Liberals are promising to reduce internal trade barriers, lowering costs by “up to 15%,” and build an internal trade corridor so goods, services, and workers can move freely and easily. To do so, they’ll undertake “nation-building projects,” including ports, airports, highways, and high-speed rail in Ontario and Quebec. They’ll also “build out” Canada’s east-west electricity grid.
Pierre Poilievre and the Conservative Party mention Trump six times in their platform. Their plan aims to “rebuild [Canada’s] economy and open new markets so we can reduce our reliance on the US and stand up to Trump from a position of strength.” The crux of the platform rests on fast-tracking approvals for infrastructure, including rail, roads, and power transmission lines — projects they say Canada can’t build now because of regulations.
The Conservatives are also all-in on pipelines, vowing to repeal the Trudeau-era Bill C-69, which requires impact assessment reviews for major projects. The Tories call it the “No More Development” law, claiming it “makes it impossible to build the mines, pipelines, and other major energy infrastructure Canada needs.” Carney supports the law. In contrast to the Liberals, the Conservatives are pledging to eliminate the emissions cap on oil and gas production and double oil production in Newfoundland and Labrador.
Looking outward … a bit
Foreign trade is getting less attention than internal trade, but the front-runners have some plans for boosting external commerce. The Conservatives will pursue a free trade and mobility agreement, CANZUK, with the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand. They would also push to export “cleaner” Canadian resources under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement, which allows countries to transfer carbon credits across borders.
While the Conservatives look to CANZUK, the Liberals are talking about new deals with MERCOSUR in South America and ASEAN in Asia. The Liberals would launch a CA$25 billion export credit facility to help foreign buyers finance Canadian goods. They would also fund efforts to make better use of existing trade, including Canada’s free trade deal with Europe and its deal with trans-Pacific states. The latter captures Australia and New Zealand but is a more limited deal than what the Conservatives are promising.
Weathering the Trump storm
After Trump leveled tariffs on Canadian goods, Canada hit back with reciprocal tariffs. The Liberals promise that “every dollar” from those duties will be used to protect workers and businesses. They’re speeding up and easing access to employment insurance – which, as the governing party, they started to do pre-election. They’re also looking to launch a CA$2 billion fund for the country’s auto sector for worker upskilling, shoring up the domestic supply chain, and protecting industry jobs from layoffs. Their plan includes an “All-in-Canada network” for making car parts, reducing the frequency with which components must cross the border.
The Conservatives will maintain “existing government supports” for the auto industry while removing sales tax on vehicles made in Canada for as long as the Trump tariffs are in effect. They’re promising a “Keep Canadians Working Fund” that uses reciprocal tariff money to support workers affected by the duties. The party says it will also “drastically” reduce the number of temporary foreign workers the country admits and ensure Canadian workers get a first crack at jobs, which could strengthen domestic wages for citizens and permanent residents.
Can the parties get it done, and will it be enough?
It’s easy to make promises during an election. It’s harder to deliver on them. Graeme Thompson, a senior analyst with Eurasia Group's global macro-geopolitics practice, says that some promises are easier to deliver on than others.
“I think internal trade is a low-hanging fruit if you can get the provinces aligned, which it seems like they are,” he says. “There is no question that non-tariff barriers within Canada are an impediment to domestic trade.”
But even if the government does deliver on that, the shadow of the US will continue to loom large.
“The problem is that in absolute terms, internal trade is minute compared to the value gained from trade with the United States,” Thompson says. “So, a hit to the Canadian economy because of tariffs could only very partially be recouped by domestic efficiencies in terms of trade.”
He says recouping losses by boosting external trade with non-US countries is easier said than done. Canada has other trade agreements, but Canadian businesses are still attracted to the US market, which is large, rich, next door, and culturally familiar.
“Until that changes, it’s going to be hard for Canada to diversify its trade by governmental efforts.” Thompson’s waiting to see if industry follows the government’s lead. “Until then, it’s just talk.”
For all that talk, whichever party wins next week will be expected to deliver. Gardner hopes that will be the Liberals, kept in check by the NDP. Looking south, he says, “One of the things I think we can do is we can have a federal government that clearly stands up, that preserves the things about Canadian society that we have achieved together, protects our notions of person and peacekeeping, protects public health care, protects all these things that frankly the NDP helped create and instill into Canadian political culture.”
It could be the Liberals who win, or it could be the Conservatives. But, either way, the message from voters during the election has been clear: They want a government that takes a firm stance against Trump’s threats.
The Canadian flag flies on Parliament Hill in Ottawa.
Who’s meddling in Canada’s election?
Canada’s foreign interference watchdog is warning that China, India, and Russia plan on meddling in the country’s federal election. The contest, which launched last weekend, has already been marked by a handful of stories about past covert foreign interventions and threats of new ones.
This week, the Globe and Mailreported allegations that India interfered in 2022 to help get Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre elected, though he was not aware of the efforts. They also broke news that former Liberal Party leadership candidate and member of Parliament Chandra Arya was banned from running for leader and reelection because of alleged interference tied, once again, to India.
Now, Canada’s election interference monitoring group is warning that China, India, and Russia will try to interfere in the current election.
Poilievre also accused Liberal leader Mark Carney of being cozy with Beijing due to a $276 million loan Brookfield Asset Management secured from the Bank of China when Carney was Chair of Brookfield’s board. Carney rejected those accusations and, on Wednesday, said that Canada should not pursue greater economic ties with China but should prioritize other Asian nations and Europe.
Other Canadian critics have complained that the US is interfering, citing Donald Trump consigliere Elon Musk’s public statements about the country. But officials say this doesn’t meet the bar for foreign interference. Neither, apparently, do the actions of Alberta Premier Danielle Smith,who recently admitted to Breitbartthat she pressed Trump administration officials to delay tariffs to help elect the Conservatives over the Liberals, since Poilievre would be “the best person” for the White House to deal with given that he would be “very much in sync with the new direction in America.”Canada’s Liberals and Conservatives are neck and neck as election begins, and running on similar promises
Canada’s federal election is on. The polls show a polarized contest between the Liberals and Conservatives, one dominated by Donald Trump and the question of who’s best-suited to deal with his tariff and annexation threats. Canadian nationalism has surged. The Liberal Party, recently down 25 points in the polls to the Conservatives, have seen their fortunes turn around under new leader and Prime Minister Mark Carney — a manwho’s been all too keen to, ahem, adapt ideas from his top rival.
Liberal, Tory, same old story?
A Trump-centric campaign risks obscuring other important policy issues. But how much does it matter when the two front-runners are so close together? So far, both parties — one of which is running on the slogan “Canada Strong” and the other on “Canada First” – have adopted similar proposals for a range of issues.
Both Liberal and Conservative campaigns launched with promises to cut personal income taxes. The Liberals are offering a 1% cut to the lowest bracket, and the Conservatives are putting forward a 2.25% cut. Both parties are also promising to cut federal sales taxes on new homes for first-time buyers, with Liberals including new builds worth as much as CA$1 million and the Conservatives ramping it all the way up to … $1.3 million, but they’ll expand eligibility to non-first-time buyers, including investors.
On defense, Carney is promising to spend 2% of GDP on the military by 2030 and expand Arctic security. Poilievre has promised more or less the same, with details to come. Both say they’ll speed up the building of energy infrastructure, including oil and gas pipelines, though Carney would keep a Trudeau-era emissions cap on the oil and gas sector, while Poilievre would not.
Affordability remains a major concern, even more so with tariffs threatening the economy. Poilievre even says he’d keep (though perhaps not expand) the Liberals’ public prescription drug, daycare, and dental care programs. Meanwhile, nearly a quarter of Canadians can’t afford food. In 2024, the Liberals launched a food lunch program, which the Conservatives attacked as a headline grab but didn’t outright oppose. The parties haven’t released more on food security and affordability yet, but they almost certainly will.
Can the Liberals rewrite the past?
While the Liberals are now led by Carney, with former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau gone, they’re still the same party that has governed for nearly a decade and earned ire from voters for policy shortcomings. With a policy agenda that, so far, looks similar to that of the Conservatives, the Liberals must persuade voters they’re not just better on policy, but that their guy is better on character and competence, and that his team is fit for purpose.
It’s a tricky task, and it’s fair to ask how much the Liberal Party has changed. Many top candidates and current Cabinet ministers are the same faces from Trudeau’s years, including Chrystia Freeland, Mélanie Joly, Dominic LeBlanc, Bill Blair, and François-Philippe Champagne. The Liberal surge even persuaded a handful of candidates who’d served in the caucus to run again after saying they were out under Trudeau, including high-profile players Anita Anand, Sean Fraser, and Nate Erskine-Smith.
When Carney announced his Cabinet just before he triggered the election, Conservatives were quick to point out that the group contained 87% of the same faces from Trudeau’s table. Among the faces are those who supported, just weeks earlier, policies Carney is now reversing, including the Liberals’ signature consumer carbon price and its planned increase to the capital gains inclusion rate (reversals Conservatives were calling for).
Canada’s “presidentialized” election
A leader-focused campaign in the face of Trump’s threats will, perhaps ironically, be thoroughly American. Graeme Thompson, a senior analyst with Eurasia Group’s global macro-geopolitics practice, notes that the tricky thing for the Liberals is this is a change campaign, with voters looking to reset after the Trudeau years. Carney will have to present himself as that change – which could mean an intense focus on him as leader.
Thompson calls it a “presidentialized” campaign, one that comes with a risk for the neophyte Liberal leader. “It opens the question of Carney’s political experience, or rather lack thereof – and the fact that he has never run an election campaign before, let alone a national general election campaign. It’s an open question whether his political inexperience comes out in a negative way.”
But a focus on character could also set Carney apart from Poilievre, even if the two don’t have much daylight between them on policy. Voters see Carney as the best person to be prime minister, and he enjoys high favorability ratings — over half the country likes him. The Conservative Party leader, on the other hand, isn’t particularly well-liked, with his unfavorables sitting at 59%.
Promise now, worry later?
For all the talk of character, Conservatives, including Poilievre himself, have accused the Liberals of stealing their ideas. That’s a fair criticism. As Thompson puts it, the Liberals have caught the Conservatives out and, indeed, have adopted their positions. But how far will that take the Liberals? And at what cost?
“These are all Conservative policies that were being wielded against Trudeau,” Thompson says, “which Carney has now adopted as his own. And it’s shrewd politicking.” But it’s also risky. “If the Liberals win, they need to deliver very quickly on showing that this is a new government and that they have new policies. The honeymoon period would be, I think, quite short.”
The Liberals will be happy to worry about all of this later. For now, they’re the beneficiaries of an election in which the very issues that were set to spell their doom have become temporarily incidental to Trump and to questions of character and competence – questions to which voters seem to think Carney is the answer.
The policy challenges that got Liberals into trouble in the first place are still lurking and waiting to reassert themselves in short order. But for the Liberals, those are problems for another day.
Pope Francis greets the crowd during a short appearance at Gemelli hospital, in Rome, on Sunday, March 23, 2025.
HARD NUMBERS: Pope returns to Vatican, Canadian PM calls snap election, Trump targets legal entry migrants, South Korean PM reinstated, US auto importers hit the gas, Orlando cops recover swallowed earrings
5: Pope Francis is back home at the Vatican. On Sunday, the 88-year-old pontiff was discharged from hospital, where he has been fighting double pneumonia for five weeks. The pope, who looked frail as he made his first public appearance since Valentine’s Day, has been advised by doctors that he will need to continue to convalesce for the next two months.
37: Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, leader of the Liberal Party, called a snap federal election on Sunday in Ottawa. The move launched a swift, five-week campaign — it will last just 37 days, the minimum duration required by law — in a bid to keep up the Liberals’ current momentum. The party is ahead of the Conservatives in some polls, having come back from a steep deficit just two months ago, but behind by a few points in others.
530,000: Washington has pulled the welcome mat out from under 530,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans. Migrants who came to the US under President Joe Biden’s legal entry parole program over the past two years learned on Friday that President Donald Trump’s crackdown on immigration will soon be retroactive. As of April 24, they will be stripped of legal status, and the administration is encouraging them to self-report – or face possible arrest and deportation.
7-1: South Korean Prime Minister Han Duck-soo is no longer impeached. The country’s Constitutional Court overturned his impeachment on Monday, reinstating him in a 7-1 ruling. Observers do not see it as a sign that President Yoon Suk Yeol, whose brief imposition of martial law in December sparked these legal matters, will also see his impeachment overturned.
22: Carmakers have thrown their shipments of vehicles and automotive components into high gear in anticipation of the 25% tariffs to be imposed by the Trump administration on April 2 on imports from Mexico and Canada as well as reciprocal tariffs on other US trading partners. Many fear the tariff regime will upend auto supply chains, so manufacturers are sending more vehicles than normal, leading to a 22% year-on-year increase of such shipments from the EU to the US in February — and 14% and 15% increases from Japan and South Korea respectively.
769,500: We’ve all heard of swallowing one’s pride, but one’s crime? Jaythan Gilder, 32, allegedly swallowed two sets of Tiffany & Co. earrings worth $769,500 around the time of his arrest more than two weeks ago on robbery and grand theft charges. Gilder was monitored by detectives at an Orlando hospital until the jewels were, uh, expelled from his system. The earrings, which match the ones taken from an Orlando Tiffany store last month, have been returned to the retailer (and thoroughly cleaned).