Original Publish Date » March 25 , 2025
Last Updated » 4 weeks

Highlights

  • Liberals lead over Conservatives increases
  • CSIS alleges India organized support raised money for Poilievre’s Conservative Pary leadership bid

Quote of the Day

  • “It’s easy to be negative about everything when you’ve never fixed anything”
    — Mark Carney about Pierre Poilievre

The Numbers

» Liberals widen their lead in national polls – March 25 » Liberal 39.6% / Conservatives 37.3% / NDP 10.1% / Bloc 6.4% / Greens 3.3%

  • The Liberals are continuing to climb in the polls and are widening their lead over the Conservatives, putting them deeper into majority territory. The Conservatives are holding their vote but it is the steep slide for the New Democrats, who are at risk of dropping into the single-digits in popular support, that is contributing to the rise in the Liberals’ numbers. (CBC Poll Tracker / CP)

» Polls suggest Mark Carney’s Liberals have widened their lead over Poilievre’s Conservatives since election call. Carney’s Liberals are at 45.3% support and poised to win 195 seats in the 343-member House of Commons. That compared to 37.7% and 126 seats for Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives. (Toronto Star)

» Éric Grenier (The Writ / CBC Poll Tracker) and Philippe J. Fournier (338Canada) discuss whether Mark Carney’s Liberals have hit their ceiling and just how solid their support really is (Watch » The Numbers)

» Liberal lead over Conservatives increases to eight points. The governing party’s rise has been driven by the collapse of the NDP vote – now standing at seven per cent. Half (50%) of 2021 NDP voters plan on voting for the Liberals if the election were today.  (Angus Reid Institute)

» Liberals hold six-point lead over Conservatives » The Leger survey reports that 44% of decided voters surveyed would vote Liberal in the upcoming election, ahead of the Conservatives at 38%. (CP)

» ”Canada, which will hold a snap election next month, seems poised to deliver a huge setback to Donald Trump’s foreign ambitions, one that may inspire much of the world — including many people in the United States — to stand up to the MAGA power grab.” — Paul Krugman (Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences winning / Distinguished Professor of Economics at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York)

On the Campaign Trail

» Mark Carney embraces the power of positive campaigning

  • “It’s easy to be negative about everything when you’ve never fixed anything,” he said. “It’s easy to be negative about everything when you’ve never built anything, when you’ve never had to make a payroll. But negative slogans aren’t solutions. Anger isn’t action. Division isn’t strength. Negativity won’t win a trade war. Negativity won’t pay the rent or the mortgage. Negativity won’t bring down the price of groceries. And negativity won’t make Canada strong.”
    He didn’t utter Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre’s name, but he didn’t need to. (Marsha Lederman / Globe and Mail)

» Mark Carney pledged to buy new submarines, fleets of drones and more heavy-duty icebreakers while hiking pay for Canadian Armed Forces personnel as part of a commitment to raise defence spending. “We will deliver an unprecedented acceleration of investment in our armed Forces so that we can defend every inch of our sovereign territory, while also helping to support and defend our allies abroad,” Mr. Carney said during a campaign stop in Halifax at Irving shipyard Tuesday. (Globe and Mail // Video » Global News)

» Prime Minister Mark Carney says export taxes on shipments remain an option for retaliation in an escalating Canada-U.S. trade war and said he’s only interested in serious negotiations with President Trump, “not theatre.” (Globe and Mail)

» Who is that smiling man? Poilievre is attempting a second makeover » Poilievre’s advantage is slipping rapidly away. So he’s trying something he’s never done before. Being the hard-edged divider wasn’t working for Poilievre anymore. Hence the grins. (Toronto Star)

» Borrowing from the Conservative Party’s playbook, Maxime Bernier says the People’s Party (PPC) would cut foreign aid (CBC)

» Mark Carney campaigns with Sean Fraser in Musquodoboit Harbour, N.S (Video » CPAC)

  • Liberal MP and former cabinet minister Sean Fraser is cancelling his plans to retire from politics and announced he will seek re-election in his Nova Scotia riding of Central Nova. Multiple sources tell the CBC that Fraser made the decision Monday after a phone call from Liberal Leader Mark Carney asking him to reconsider. (CTV / CBC)

Election Interference

» The Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) alleges India organized support for Poilievre’s 2022 Conservative leadership bid » CSIS learned that Indian agents were involved in raising money and organizing within the South Asian community for Mr. Poilievre during the leadership race, which he won handily. (Globe and Mail)

  • Pierre Poilievre has declined to undergo the process of getting a security clearance, saying the Liberal government wants to muzzle him. Asked today about why he hasn’t obtained his top secret security clearance, Polievre responded, “‘I will not commit to … oath of secrecy.’ During an appearance in Vaughan, Ontario saying he won the Conservative leadership race “fair and square.” (Global News)
  • Mark Carney slams Pierre Poilievre’s ‘irresponsible’ lack of security clearance after reports India meddled in leadership. Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre’s refusal to get his security clearance is back in the spotlight on the campaign trail following reports the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) learned that India helped organize support for his leadership bid. (CBC)

» US National Security Agency (NSA) warned of vulnerabilities in Signal app a month before Houthi strike chat (CBS)

» The Leaders’ Debates Commission is planning a French-language debate on April 16 and an English debate on April 17. Both debates are to be held in Montreal at Radio-Canada’s studios. Quebec broadcaster TVA has rescinded its offer to stage a non-official second French-language debate, for which it requested the four main parties to pay $75,000 each to participate. (CP)

» The Alberta Premier Danielle Smith-American far-right Breitbart saga continues — While the Alberta premier’s office denies that Danielle Smith urged the U.S. to interfere in the Canadian election, the Power Panel discusses how federal party leaders have responded to Smith’s interview with Breitbart. ‘Let’s just put things on pause so we can get through an election,’ she said in the interview. ‘Let’s have the best person at the table make the argument for how they would deal with it — and I think that’s [Conservative Leader] Pierre Poilievre.‘ (Video » CBC’s Power Panel)

» Premier Smith’s comments continue to draw ire of federal leaders on election campaign (CP)

» Naheed Nenshi, the Alberta NDP Leader, says Premier Danielle Smith “proudly invited” a foreign country to interfere with Canada’s national election. (Video » CityNews)

Also

» Canada not mentioned in US threat assessment’s summary of fentanyl crisis » Fentanyl arriving to the US from Canada was not mentioned in a report released Tuesday that outlines what the US intelligence community considers the most direct, serious threats to the country, despite Trump claiming that illicit drugs coming through the northern border are “an unusual and extraordinary threat.” (Globe and Mail)

» Most provincial leaders see approval rise amid Trump’s threats » “… an attack on Canada” (Angus Reid Institute / Global News)

» Canadians are boycotting American vacations. “A boycott by the top international visitor threatens to upend local economies across the U.S. Canadians made about 20.2 million visits to the U.S. in 2024. Even a 10% reduction in Canadian travel could mean $2 billion in lost spending and 14,000 job losses.” How is the Trump administration responding? Here’s White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly: “Canadians will no longer have to worry about the inconveniences of international travel when they become American citizens as residents of our cherished 51st state.” (WSJ)

» US border patrol seizes over 52 kg of cocaine headed for Canada (CBC)

Top story in the US for the second day in a row

» The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Me Its War Plans (The Atlantic)

  • US Secretary of Defence, Pete Hegseth, lashes out at The Atlantic » “Nobody was texting war plans” (Axios)
  • US hostilities and branding European allies as ‘pathetic freeloaders‘ (The Guardian / Politico / Daily Mail / NYT)
    • In Europe, the takeaway from the security breach over US airstrikes on Yemen has been the deepening hostility of the Trump administration towards Europe.
  • “Several of President Donald Trump’s top national security officials shifted responsibility to Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth for sending potentially classified information that appeared in a group chat about US military strikes in Yemen that a journalist was included in.” (CNN)
  • “These guys might look like idiots, and talk like idiots, but don’t let that fool you: they really are idiots.” (John Ganz)

If these men had any sense of honor, they would already have resigned. The fact that they are all still in their jobs is just as damning as their terrifying and lawless incompetence.

— Timothy Snyder (@timothysnyder.bsky.social) March 25, 2025 at 9:43 AM

» If Pete Hegseth had any honor, he would resign (NYT)

» Trump stands by his man, national security adviser Michael Waltz , claiming the mishap had ‘no impact’ on Yemen strikes and that Waltz has learned his lesson (The Guardian / NBC / Midas Touch / Politico / Al Jazeera)

  • “If a scandal comes to light and no one does anything about it—is it a real scandal?” (Bill Kristol)
  • The biggest scandal of Trump 2.0 is no scandal at all on MAGA media (CNN)

» The incompetence on full display » As top Trump aides sent texts on Signal, flight data show a member of the group chat, Steve Witkoff, was in Moscow, Russia (CBS / The Daily Beast // Video » The Guardian / CTV)

» Russian military hackers have targeted the Signal app, the messaging app at the centre of the White House group chat fiasco, raising further fears about the security of US secret communications. Unlike other messaging apps, Believed to be one of the most secure consumer messaging apps, Signal does not track or store user data. (Telegraph)

Elsewhere

» US, Russia wrap up talks on proposed Black Sea ceasefire. Russia said on Tuesday the U.S. had agreed to help it lift restrictions on food, fertilizer and shipping companies in exchange for agreeing to a maritime security deal in the Black Sea. (Le Monde / BBC / Reuters // Video » France 24 / Euronews / BBC)

» France’s foreign minister Jean-Noël Barrot responded to a US official who had brushed aside worries that Moscow would seek to push further into Europe said Russian threat in Europe ‘not theoretical’ (Le Monde)

» European universities have begun recruiting researchers who lost their jobs in the US administration’s cost-cutting efforts, or are anxious over perceived threats to academic freedom. (NYT)

» Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko was sworn in for a seventh term, as human rights groups said the authoritarian leader’s rule was “unconstitutional.” Lukashenko mocked those who derided him as “Europe’s last dictator” by saying his country has more democracy “than those who cast themselves as its models.” “Half of the world is dreaming about our `dictatorship,’ the dictatorship of real business and interests of our people,” Lukashenko, 70, said in his inauguration speech at the Independence Palace in the capital of Minsk.  (AP)

» US Federal Judge says World War Two Nazis were treated better than Venezuelans deported by Trump (Reuters)

» Greenland did not invite an American delegation to come visit this week, the self-ruling island’s government said Monday, flatly denying a claim made by President Donald Trump. (Politico / Channel News Asia)

» Trump walking back, again, says he ‘may give a lot of countries breaks’ from April 2 tariffs. Trump added that some countries may receive breaks and hinted that tariffs on autos, pharmaceuticals, and semiconductors could still come “very soon” – but likely not on April 2. (Global News / CNBC / WSJ // Video » CTV)

» The Trump administration eliminated three watchdog offices inside the Department of Homeland Security that investigated complaints and advocated for immigrants. (NY Times)

» Credit rating group Moody’s has warned on the US fiscal outlook, saying Trump’s trade tariffs can hamper the country’s ability to cope with a growing debt pile and higher interest rates.  (Financial Times)

» US consumer confidence tumbles for 4th straight month amid Trump’s tariffs (Global News / CNN)

  • Americans’ expectations for the economy hit their lowest level in 12 years. (Yahoo Finance / CNBC)

» The US could default on its debt as early as July if Congress fails to act on the debt ceiling (NYT)

» Netherlands tightens US travel advice for LGBTQ+ people, highlighting an unease among European nations about Washington’s policies toward sexual minorities.  (Politico)

» Dozens more pregnant and postpartum women have died in Texas hospitals since the state banned abortion, our analysis shows. As the maternal mortality rate dropped across the US, it rose in Texas by 33% (ProPublica)

» Turkish President Erdogan calls protests ‘evil’ as unrest continues. 1,133 people have been arrested in five days of protests across the countryhttps://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/mar/25/eight-journalists-covering-anti-government-protests-held-in-turkey. The Turkish government says people have been “abusing” the right to protest, and warns that “terrorising the streets” will not be tolerated. At least 10 journalists have been detained in the cities of Istanbul and Izmir during dawn raids by Turkish police. Agence France-Presse reports that among the 10 arrested is one of its photographer, who was arrested in his home. Protests began when Istanbul’s Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu – an opponent of President Erdogan – was detained last Wednesday on corruption charges. Imamoglu says the charges are politically motivated, something Erdogan denies. Turkey’s presidential election is not scheduled until 2028 – Imamoglu was on Monday confirmed as his party’s candidate. (The Guardian / Global News / France 24 / BBC / Politico / Al-Monitor // Video » CTV Global News / BBC / DW / France 24)

» Thousands gather in Istanbul for the seventh day of protests after mayor’s arrest I (Video » AFP / Reuters)

» Michigan Democrat Mallory McMorrow, a rising Democratic star says it’s time for Chuck Schumer to step back and a new generation to take on Trump (Politico)