Canada Minute: Issue 80

Canada Minute - Your weekly one-minute summary of Canadian politics.

📅 This Week In Canada: 📅

• Prime Minister Mark Carney has made his first Senate appointments, moving to officially restore partisan voices to a chamber that former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau spent a decade filling almost exclusively with independents, though critics said his appointments were not actually independent. Among Carney's new appointees is Tom Pitfield, a longtime Liberal strategist who served on Carney's 2025 campaign and became a principal secretary in the Prime Minister's Office. Carney also named sitting Conservative MP Richard Martel to the Senate, triggering his immediate resignation from the Commons and opening a vacancy in a competitive Quebec riding that the Liberals will be hoping to win. The Prime Minister's Office said the Trudeau-era process that largely excluded partisans needs to end and confirmed the non-partisanship criterion for appointments is being removed. A senior official said the goal is to restore balance and speed up how quickly legislation clears the upper house. New Brunswick cancer researcher Dr. Rodney Ouellette and Manitoba accountant Geeta Tucker were also named.
  
  
• Liberal members of a parliamentary ethics committee voted to shelve a Conservative demand for a probe into the federal-provincial plan to buy unsold condos in British Columbia and convert them into affordable housing. The committee met after Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre wrote asking it to investigate what he calls a "condo bailout" for developers, bankers, and investors, and voted 5-4 to shut down the discussion after two hours of debate. Under the Canada-British Columbia Partnership on Condo Conversion announced last month, the two governments would convert more than 2,200 vacant condo units into affordable homes, with a total potential spend of about $1.45 billion. Conservative MP Aaron Gunn said the party would keep pressing for answers on "who benefits", while fellow MP Jacob Mantle argued the plan uses taxpayer dollars to socialize developers' losses. Housing Minister Gregor Robertson rejected the bailout label, saying the units would be bought below construction cost and that neither he nor the Prime Minister received direct lobbying from developers. The motion requesting the investigation remains alive and can be brought back later.
  
  
• The federal government has quietly cancelled the second phase of a long-running competition to supply the army with light utility vehicles and now intends to invite only a limited number of Canadian suppliers to bid directly. Public Services and Procurement Canada issued a notice late Friday moving to an updated approach for a program that the Defence Department says could run up to $4.9 billion. Six primary competitors had been identified, including US firms AM General and Oshkosh Defence, but the government now plans to limit the tender to two Canadian suppliers to deliver 1,600 to 2,100 vehicles and 400 to 500 light utility trailers for the militarized portion of the fleet. Officials said refocusing the program would strengthen Canada's defence industrial base, and the move came just ahead of the Ankara NATO summit. Carney's office also announced $800 million for joint strike missiles from Norway's Kongsberg Defence and Aerospace, designed to be carried in the weapons bay of an F-35, along with an agreement in principle on an Arctic military satellite communications project valued at up to $5 billion. Defence Minister David McGuinty declined to comment on the status of the vehicle program at the summit.
  
  
• In other defence news, Prime Minister Mark Carney has selected German shipbuilder ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems as the preferred supplier to build the navy's new submarine fleet. Announced dockside in Halifax on Monday, the deal puts Canada into negotiations to buy up to 12 submarines to replace its aging Victoria-Class boats, choosing the joint German-Norwegian bid over South Korea's Hanwha Ocean. No overall price was released, but the submarines alone are believed to run up to $24 billion, and with lifetime maintenance and sustainment the program is expected to reach $100 billion or more. Carney said he has set aside money in the government's long-term fiscal framework to buy all 12 boats, with the first four possibly delivered by 2034. If negotiations with the German bidder fail, Carney said Canada retains the right to turn to the South Korean supplier as a reserve. Critics warn the choice pulls Canada toward Europe at the expense of its Indo-Pacific ambitions, with one former diplomat calling it a squandered strategic opportunity in Asia.
  
  
• The Canadian Ombudsperson for Responsible Enterprise was still accepting complaints right up until Prime Minister Mark Carney announced its dissolution, despite his claim that the decision had been made "months" earlier. Created in 2019 to investigate alleged human rights abuses by Canadian companies operating abroad, the office was eliminated when Carney mentioned in passing at an unrelated news conference last month that the Government had decided the role was ineffective. A spokesperson for Global Affairs Canada confirmed the office only stopped taking complaints after that announcement, and advocates say more than 20 cases were left in limbo. Carney defended the closure by noting the office had launched only one investigation since its creation, but critics counter that the answer was to give the watchdog real powers rather than abolish it. Several ministers had publicly touted the office in the months before it was cut, including Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand, who in March said it "remains important". Complaints will now be redirected to a separate mediation office that advocates say lacks meaningful investigative teeth.
  
  

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