Canada Minute: Issue 85

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

📅 This Week In Canada: 📅

• Evan Siddall, the former Chief Executive of the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, has been named Chair of Build Canada Homes, the federal government's newest housing agency. The government cited his housing, institutional finance and governance experience, but made no mention of some of the controversies he was involved in in his former role. Siddall, who left the federal mortgage insurer in 2021, said on a 2019 podcast that Canadians had "glorified this idea of home ownership" and under his leadership the Corporation spent $450,000 of taxpayer money developing and promoting a home equity tax that would have raised an estimated $5.8 billion a year from homeowners. The federal government only shelved the proposed tax after a public backlash that included then-Conservative Leader Erin O'Toole calling it outrageous and out of touch. Siddall told the Commons finance committee in 2021 that tax policy was a matter for Finance Canada and denied advocating the tax.
  
  
• The federal government will cover half the cost of shipping Canadian steel across the country under a new $100-million program announced last Monday. Steel shippers can apply for a rebate offsetting 50% of the cost of moving domestic steel by rail or marine transport between provinces and territories, and the program runs for one year or until the money is gone. Transport Minister Steven MacKinnon said the rebate addresses price and logistical obstacles that have made it cheaper for buyers in Western Canada to import steel than to bring it from mills in Ontario and Quebec. The subsidy follows a series of federal quotas capping how much foreign steel can enter Canada duty-free, limiting countries without a free-trade agreement to 20% of what they shipped here in 2024 and free-trade partners to 75%, with a 50% tariff above those levels. Steel buyers in British Columbia have complained that steel has become more expensive and harder to obtain since those limits took effect.
  
  
• Replacing the members of Parliament who have resigned or announced plans to resign will cost taxpayers upwards of $22 million, according to an Elections Canada estimate. The agency puts the average cost of running a single by-election at about $2 million, though the figure varies with location and the length of the campaign. Three by-elections are set for August 31st in North Vancouver-Capilano, Chicoutimi-Le Fjord and Beaches-East York, following three held in April that were all won by the Liberals. Five more will be needed to fill upcoming vacancies in Saskatchewan, Ontario and Quebec. If every seat is filled by December 31st, this year will see 11 by-elections, the most since 2017, when Elections Canada put the cost of that year's contests at about $10 million.
  
  
• Senate Speaker Raymonde Gagné and her delegations have billed taxpayers at least $875,677 for international travel since she was appointed to the post in May 2023, according to parliamentary financial records reviewed by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. The records cover at least 14 trips, to destinations including Japan, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Spain, and several African countries, and the federation says the real total is higher because disclosures for trips to Chile, Tunisia and the Netherlands are incomplete. The most expensive was a September 2024 delegation to New Zealand at $118,965, followed by a March 2026 trip to Japan costing $107,594 for what Japan's foreign affairs ministry described as a courtesy call. Hospitality charges included a $2,822 dinner for 12 people at a London club and a $1,927 luncheon for 12 people in Madrid. International travel by the Speaker of the House of Commons also cost $771,243 over the same period
  
  
• Canada-US Trade Minister Dominic LeBlanc and lead negotiator Janice Charette met US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer in Washington twice last week, ahead of this Wednesday's deadline for the new round of 50% tariffs President Donald Trump has threatened to impose on a wide range of Canadian goods. Charette warned her American counterparts that going ahead with those tariffs could put further negotiations at risk, though industry sources say no ultimatum was delivered. Proposals under discussion include dropping Canada's counter-tariffs on autos, lifting the provincial bans on American alcohol now in place in eight of the ten provinces, and changing how dairy quotas are managed, in exchange for relief from US tariffs of 15%-50% on steel, aluminum, and copper, 25% on autos and trucks, and 10% on softwood timber and lumber. Ottawa has told Washington it cannot push the provinces to restock American alcohol without meaningful tariff relief for affected industries first. Ontario Premier Doug Ford said he is not interested in returning US alcohol to store shelves until a deal protects his province's manufacturing industry, adding that Canada has to "match tariff for tariff". Negotiators on both sides are hoping to put the outline of a deal in front of Trump before the deadline.
  
  

🚨 This Week’s Action Item: 🚨