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Mark Carney is probably going to be prime minister. At least for a while.

He’s ahead in polling and fundraising for the Liberal leadership race. If he wins it, he gets the big chair. Numbers even suggest he’s tightening the race between his party and the Conservatives, who’ve long been up double digits over the governing side.

Carney could win the leadership and hold Pierre Poilievre’s party to a minority government. If things get wild—with Donald Trump and tariffs, maybe a strong Liberal campaign—it’s conceivable Carney could even hold on to government.

At first glance, and setting aside substance, it looked like Carney was aesthetically the wrong guy for all kinds of reasons, particularly because he’s an elite banker facing a population that seemed to be seized with populist, anti-establishment anger.

But not only is Carney putting up respectable numbers—at least for now—his program, to the extent it’s been fleshed out, is also thoroughly grounded in a liberal orthodoxy reminiscent of the last decade of the Trudeau government, albeit with some bits shaved off the edges.

A government that “spends less and invests more”

Carney is offering Canada a centrist agenda par excellence—tailored, though, to fit the anti-Trump, nationalist moment. That means deep love for the free market, coupled with a grudging nod or two towards the welfare state.

It means more of the same, comfortably set within the narrow bandwidth of ideological acceptability.

Despite poor messaging, which is to say he’s been saying one thing in Quebec and another in the rest of Canada, Carney has said that his government would “use all of the powers of the federal government, including the emergency powers of the federal government, to accelerate the major projects that we need in order to build this economy and take on the Americans.”

That means pipelines, the erstwhile unpalatable undertaking that’s suddenly become a matter of national security.

Those pipelines would complement an end to the carbon tax, which Carney says he’ll scrap because it’s divisive. Instead, he’d pursue a green incentive program and keep the industrial emitter program.

He’s also talking about a “carbon border adjustment” to ensure that prices are fair across borders. This would mean adjusting costs—that is, levying a tariff—against countries who are laggards on pricing the cost of carbon.

Maybe some of this will be good. But I doubt any of it will be onerous for corporate polluters, which means it will be insufficient.

Last year, the Trudeau government introduced changes to the capital gains tax, which would raise the inclusion rate and capture a bit more passive income earned by the ultra-wealthy.

Carney will repeal that, he says, letting Bay Street keep more of its money. He also says he’ll raise defence spending and hit NATO’s two-per-cent-of-GDP target by 2030.

Thoroughly a banker, a man who claims that former prime minister Stephen Harper asked him to be his finance minister, Carney also says he’d balance operational budget spending—which means program cuts.

He’d run a broader deficit to drive economic growth—that is, shoveling cash into the private sector.

“Canadians deserve a government that works for you,” he wrote on X, “a government that spends less, and invests more.” It’s a message he now repeats ad nauseam.

So, cuts. But not just cuts. A wealth redistribution to private industry.
During an interview with CBC News’ Rosemary Barton, Carney said government spending would “catalyze many multiples of private dollars” throughout the economy. That would be, Carney suggests, an incentive to build more housing and stimulate internal and external trade.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford says he was “shocked” Canada wasn’t included in U.S. President Donald Trump’s 90-day tariff pause.

“We were shocked that we weren’t part of the group, per se. And you know, (we’re the United States’) number one customer — we’re both each other’s number one customer — and we need to get through this and bring certainty back to the people of the United States and Canada,” Ford said in an interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on Thursday.

On Wednesday, Trump pumped the brakes on his so-called “reciprocal” tariffs announced last week, but kept a 10 per cent baseline tax in place for all countries.

While Canada was exempt from those levies, the 25 per cent U.S. tariff on autos, steel and aluminum, and goods non-compliant with the North American trade pact remain in place.

Canada has hit back with its own retaliatory tariffs on $60 billion worth of American goods, and stands prepared to unleash $95 billion more if the U.S. trade war continues.

Ford has said that while he was relieved Canada was left out of the duties announced last week, the tariffs that remain on Canadian goods are unacceptable.

“The reality is, a tariff on Canada is a tax on Americans, and that’s the last thing we want to see (for) the American people,” Ford said Thursday, adding that he still believes the Canadian government would drop its retaliatory tariffs if the U.S. ends the trade war.

At a provincial level, Ford’s government has introduced a suite of retaliatory measures, including pulling U.S, alcohol from LCBO shelves and banning American companies from approximately $30 billion in provincial contracts.

Previously, the Ontario government introduced, and then suspended, a 25 per cent surcharge on the electricity it sends to three U.S. states.

Ford said the trade war is having a chilling effect on a number of industries on both sides of the border, but noted that tourism is also being hit hard as some Canadians look to spend their vacation dollars outside of the U.S.

Kevin O’Leary played down concerns about a sharp rise in property prices following the introduction of a 5% deposit scheme for first-time buyers.

Earlier this year, Labour fulfilled its election promise to expand the Home Guarantee Scheme, reducing the required deposit from 20%.

The changes were also brought forward, coming into effect on October 1 instead of January 1, 2026.

While the government considers this an important victory for young Canadians trying to gain a foothold in a market with limited supply, others warn that this move will lead to even higher prices and burden Canadians with huge 95 percent mortgages.

The prime minister said on Wednesday that the change would have “minimal impact” on property prices.

“Prices will rise slightly, but 185,000 Canadians have already taken advantage of this scheme, and its impact on prices will be minimal,” Mr. Kevin O’Leary told reporters.

“The Treasury has done the modeling. They anticipate a very small increase, but it will enable more young people to become homeowners.

“And this is just one of the measures.

“We are dealing with supply, and we also have an incentive for state and territory governments — a $3 billion incentive — to build more homes, and we have reached our target of 1.2 million homes.”

“So, we will see acceleration and the incentives that we have, whether it’s our scheme that will lead to an increase in private tenants, or our increase in social housing, which will also lead to more construction, or the renovation of existing homes that are currently unoccupied so that people can move into them too,” said Mr. O’Leary.
“Before our very eyes… more than 500,000 additional homes have been built.

“We are seeing growth in construction volumes — 3 percent on an annualized basis.

“And that will continue to grow with measures like the one we saw here last night in the Inner West — 30,000 homes.”

However, according to the latest official data, the number of building permits continues to fall.

Data released Tuesday by Statistics Canada showed that the total number of approved housing construction projects in August fell another 6 percent after a 10 percent decline in July.

Lawyers say pre-judging cases risks prejudicing jury, contributing to misinformation

When Doug Ford stood next to family members of Andrew Cristillo, the Ontario father who was killed in a head-on collision in August, the premier didn’t mince words.

“This wasn’t an accident, it was a murder,” said Ford, speaking to reporters on Sept. 5.

The accused, Jaiwin Victor Kirubananthan, is facing several charges, including dangerous driving causing death. He is not facing murder charges, and the charges against him have not yet been tested in court.

Ford himself has a personal connection to the case. The same man was already facing charges related to a collision in January with an OPP vehicle in which the premier was travelling. The story of Cristillo and his grieving family is also no doubt one that has stirred many emotions.

Even so, some lawyers say Ford should be more careful about wading into criminal cases that are before the courts. His comments on the Kirubananthan case are not the only recent example, and lawyers say they come with risks, including prejudicing juries and contributing to misinformation.

“It’s not a great look. It disrespects the presumption of innocence, it disrespects the judicial process and the fact finding process in a criminal case,” said Adam Weisberg, a criminal lawyer in Toronto and vice president of the Criminal Lawyers’ Association.

The premier does often decline to comment on cases, citing that they’re before the courts, but his approach is not consistent. Ford’s office did not respond to CBC Toronto’s request for comment.

Pattern of chiming in

In August, the announcement by local police in Lindsay, Ont., that a resident had been charged for allegedly assaulting a home invader made headlines and sparked debate across the country.

Ford was one of many to weigh in, and he did so completely unprompted.

He brought up the case while speaking with reporters on Aug. 20, saying the charges show “something is broken,” and that people should be able to “use all the resources you possibly can” to protect their families.

Ford — like the general public — was not “privy to the facts of what happened that night,” notes Shakir Rahim, director of the criminal justice program with the Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA). Therefore, Ford was not in a position to make informed comments about the case, and whether the charges were reasonable, Rahim said.

Prosecutors failed to prove Linda O’Leary was operating her boat without proper care or consideration for others when it crashed into another vessel in central Ontario two years ago, a judge ruled Tuesday as he cleared her in the fatal collision.

O’Leary, the wife of celebrity businessman Kevin O’Leary, was charged with careless operation of a vessel under the Canada Shipping Act following the Aug. 24, 2019 collision on Lake Joseph, north of Toronto.

Linda O’Leary was driving the boat at the time of the crash, with her husband and a friend on board. The group was returning from a dinner party at another cottage, and the court heard that Linda O’Leary was the designated driver.

The other boat, a Nautique, carried a group of friends out on a stargazing excursion, the court was told. The boat belonged to Irv Edwards, who owned a nearby cottage, but his friend, Richard Ruh, was at the helm when the crash took place, the trial heard.

The two vessels collided at the bow, or front, at 11:30 p.m. — an impact that knocked some of the passengers of the Nautique to the floor, court heard. Two people on that boat — Gary Poltash, 64, of Florida, and Suzana Brito, 48, of Uxbridge, Ont. — died of their injuries. Three others were also hurt.

In delivering his verdict, Ontario Court Justice Richard Humphrey found that the Nautique had its lights off when it was struck, despite testimony from passengers who said some of the lights were on.

The lights were a central issue during the trial, with the defence arguing that the Nautique was essentially invisible to O’Leary until after the collision.

Humphrey noted Tuesday that security videos taken from the O’Leary and Edwards cottages “make it clear” the Nautique’s lights were not on when the boats came into contact.

“The purpose of the venture into the open waters of Lake Joseph by Mr. Edwards and his guests was to acquire an unobstructed view of the night sky without interference from artificial light,” the judge said.

“It defies logic to suggest they would have travelled to that location and activated the lights, the effect of which would have been to defeat their purpose.”

Ruh also testified that he put his sweater over the console lighting to mute it, and later pleaded guilty to failing to exhibit a stern light on a power-driven vessel under the Canada Shipping Act.

The Ford government is promising that its controversial law allowing new special economic zones in Ontario will only be used in a “narrow set of circumstances,” and projects that receive provincial exemptions must present the “utmost importance to Ontario’s economy and security.”

Months after passing the legislation, commonly known as Bill 5, Ontario unveiled a set of draft regulations meant to guide Premier Doug Ford and his cabinet as they choose which areas of the province should be designated as special economic zones.

Those zones, which the province currently defines as “a geographically bounded area within the province” where significant economic activities are or will be taking place, could potentially be exempt from certain provincial laws in order to fast-track economic priority projects.

Critics have slammed Bill 5 as a “power grab” by the premier, whose government, they claim, is looking to create “no law zones.”

The province, however, contends that in the face of U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariff war with Canada, the province needs to expedite projects — such as extracting critical minerals in the Ring of Fire– to create new domestic supply chains and boost the economy.

For more than fifteen years, successful Canadian entrepreneur and investor Kevin O’Leary has developed his brand into a global powerhouse. Since his first appearance on the Canadian television program Dragons’ Den in 2006 and his meteoric rise to stardom through the hit show and cultural phenomenon Shark Tank, O’Leary had become synonymous with his penchant for telling the “cold hard truth,” just as much as his investing savvy.

A natural storyteller, O’Leary had long recognized the value of a powerful narrative. Now bolstered by network deals and a growing social media presence, the balding businessman had cultivated an audience of millions who eagerly await his advice on personal finance, just as much as they rely on him for entertainment. At the same time, active investments, speaking engagements, book deals, and a foray into politics bolstered his image as a formidable businessperson and thought leader.

Within a decade, he had come to realize the vast potential of the virtuous cycle that underlies a successful personal brand. On November 11, 2022, news broke that could spell the end for Mr. Wonderful: FTX, a prominent cryptocurrency exchange firm that O’Leary had supported as an investor and paid spokesperson, declared bankruptcy amid reports of mismanagement of customer funds and a potential investigation by the US government.

Sitting in Boston Logan Airport and watching his multimillion-dollar investment drop to zero, his phone suddenly rings: CNBC is running a national story on FTX and O’Leary’s involvement, and if he wants to tell his side of the story, he has to go live on air in ten minutes. For O’Leary, the decision is more than whether to face the media.

He must decide how to protect his personal brand, defined by honesty and credibility, from associations with potentially massive fraud. How should O’Leary respond? And what direction should he take his brand in the face of a potential crisis?