Hello,
Interim Conservative leader Candice Bergen announced Tuesday that she will not seek re-election in the next general election, but is committed “in the immediate future” to continuing to serve as an MP. Ms. Bergen, who represents the Portage-Lisgar riding in Manitoba, said that serving her constituents for the past 14 years has been the honour of her political life.
Ms. Bergen also called her seven months leading the federal Conservative Party “incredibly gratifying and rewarding,” and she expressed support for the party’s next leader, who will be elected on Saturday.
“I will wholeheartedly be supporting whoever takes my place as leader after Sept. 10. I’m incredibly optimistic about the future of the Conservative movement in Canada. When Conservatives are strong and united, Conservatives win,” she said in a statement posted on Twitter.
Ms. Bergen was elected as an MP in 2008. She was a minister in Stephen Harper’s government, and served as Opposition House leader for four years, before she was appointed deputy leader of the party in 2020. (The Globe and Mail profiled Ms. Bergen in that role in 2021, which you can read here.)
On Tuesday, Conservative MPs reacted on Twitter to Ms. Bergen’s planned departure.
Dan Albas thanked the MP for her service, saying “the courage, integrity & kindness you have shown as a MP is an inspiration.” Jasraj Singh Hallan added that he was “grateful for Candice’s thoughtful, compassionate and unifying leadership.” Leslyn Lewis, who is a candidate in the Conservative leadership race, said she is grateful to Ms. Bergen for “her example of leading with unity, impartiality and grace.”
This is the daily Politics Briefing newsletter, written by Ian Bailey, with files today from Marsha McLeod. It is available exclusively to our digital subscribers. If you’re reading this on the web, subscribers can sign up for the Politics newsletter and more than 20 others on our newsletter signup page. Have any feedback? Let us know what you think.
TODAY’S HEADLINES
MANHUNT CONTINUES FOR SUSPECT – One of two brothers accused of a stabbing massacre in Saskatchewan has been found dead with wounds that RCMP say do not appear to be self-inflicted. The second suspect remains on the run. At least nine of the 11 deceased are from the James Smith Cree Nation, as well as at least 15 of the 18 who were injured. Story here.
VICTIMS OF VIOLENT ATTACK IDENTIFIED – A crisis worker, a mother of two and an elderly widower are the first victims identified in the stabbing rampage in Saskatchewan as their family and friends expressed shock and disbelief, honouring them for their dedication to their communities. Story here.
STABBING SUSPECT HAD A VIOLENT PAST – Myles Brandon Sanderson’s criminal history is both long and violent, beginning in his youth and spanning almost 20 years, with convictions for domestic violence, armed robbery and numerous other violent attacks, including a double stabbing committed with a fork. Story here.
ATTACK PUTS SPOTLIGHT ON RURAL POLICING – Mounties in Saskatchewan are being praised for quickly issuing cellphone alerts to the public about the threat as it developed, but the police force has said little about its operational response to emergency calls that started coming in before dawn on Sunday morning. The sprawling geography of Saskatchewan poses challenges for rural Mounties, whose areas of enforcement often stretch across a series of small villages and remote First Nations. Story here.
ERIN O’TOOLE ON HIS POLITICAL FUTURE – After Erin O’Toole was ousted from his position as leader of the federal Conservatives this year, the public may have assumed he had disappeared. Asked if he had considered leaving politics altogether after being voted out of the leadership, he told The Globe and Mail about the honour that comes with representing the riding he grew up in. And he said quitting would have been at odds with the lessons he tries to teach his children. Story here.
INTEREST HIKE LOOMS – The Bank of Canada is expected to announce another oversized interest rate increase this week, pushing borrowing costs into “restrictive territory,” despite signs that inflation has peaked and the Canadian economy is slowing down. Story here.
PRESSURE TO EXTRADITE PRIEST ACCUSED IN SEXUAL ASSAULTS – For decades, Johannes Rivoire has lived as a free man in France, despite multiple charges that he sexually assaulted Inuit children while working as a priest in Nunavut beginning in the 1960s. Pressure is mounting on several fronts to have him extradited from France, but legal experts are divided on whether the former priest could ever be forced back to Canadian soil. Story here.
THREE-DAY FEDERAL LIBERAL RETREAT BEGINS – The Liberal cabinet began three days of meetings in Vancouver to discuss the government’s fall plans on Tuesday, with discussions over rising living costs and the economy expected to feature heavily. Story here from CBC News.
FEARS THAT SYMPATHETIC MOUNTIES WOULD LEAK PLANS – The RCMP harboured concerns that active Mounties sympathetic to the convoy protests in Ottawa might leak operational plans to those protesters, says an internal threat advisory obtained by CBC News. Story here from CBC News.
NORTHERN INFRASTRUCTURE A SECURITY ISSUE: MP – Iqaluit was able to avert a water-shortage crisis last week, but the member of Parliament for the territory says infrastructure in the North is an issue of Arctic security. Story by The Canadian Press here.
DEMOCRACY NEEDS TO BE PROTECTED: MAROIS – Ten years after Quebec’s election night shooting, society has a duty to guard against violent and hateful speech that threatens democracy, former premier Pauline Marois said Sunday. Story by The Canadian Press here.
GORBACHEV’S SMALL TOWN ONTARIO STROLL – Jamie Bradburn of TVO.org remembers a 1983 visit to the Ontario community of Amherstburg by a Soviet delegation that included a Politburo member named Mikhail Gorbachev. Story here.
CONSERVATIVE LEADERSHIP RACE
CAMPAIGN TRAIL – Jean Charest is in Montreal. Pierre Poilievre is in Ottawa. Scott Aitchison is campaigning virtually. There was no word on the campaign whereabouts of Roman Baber and Leslyn Lewis.
THIS AND THAT
COMMONS NOT SITTING – The House of Commons is not sitting again until Sept. 19. The Senate is to resume sitting on Sept. 20.
Rural Economic Development Minister Gudie Hutchings, on Gambier Island, was scheduled to make an announcement about improving high-speed Internet access in British Columbia and take media questions.
THE DECIBEL
On Tuesday’s edition of The Globe and Mail podcast, immigration lawyer Will Tao talks about delays in processing study permit applications, and how the system often leaves applicants from the global south behind. As of Aug. 15, nearly 170,000 study permit applications were pending with Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada. Although plans have been made to get many of these students to the start of their classes on time, many might have to be kept waiting. The Decibel is here.
PRIME MINISTER'S DAY
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, in Vancouver, was joined by Squamish Nation Council chairperson Khelsilem to announce that the federal government will provide $1.4-billion to create nearly 3,000 homes on traditional lands in Vancouver’s Kitsilano neighbourhood. It marks “the largest First Nations economic partnership and the largest loan from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. in Canadian history,” according to a government press release.
Mr. Trudeau was later scheduled to attend the cabinet retreat.
LEADERS
No schedules released for party leaders.
PUBLIC OPINION
Seven in 10 Canadians say access to health care has worsened compared to before the pandemic, according to a new Nanos Research survey conducted for The Globe and Mail. Story here.
OPINION
Alan Bernstein and Meric Gertler (Contributed to The Globe and Mail) on how the U.S.’s huge investment in science and innovation demands an equivalent approach in Canada: “Canada’s success in AI has taught us that innovation can flourish when public and private-sector investments complement each other, rather than duplicate them; when government and business are prepared to take risks; and when public funds are strategically deployed to support high-risk, high-reward research and develop the scientific and entrepreneurial talent needed to drive a thriving knowledge economy. Now we need to expand on what we’ve learned from AI as the basis for a comprehensive and ambitious research-and-innovation policy.”
Duncan Dee (Contributed to The Globe and Mail) on how it’s fully within the government’s control to avoid another messy travel season: “With the end of the summer travel peak, now is the time for the federal government to use the relative calm to better prepare itself for the travel peaks to come. Unless it believes it has limitless resources to continue to simply add more personnel to solve its problems, the government needs to switch gears and have a serious look at the governance models and processes that resulted in a period of sustained air-travel hell. The government needs to be open to changing things that don’t work – for example, an air-traveler screening governance model that involves far too many players and blurs the lines of accountability.”
Ben Eisen and Milagros Palacios (Contributed to The Globe and Mail) on how Canada’s government-driven labour market recovery is unsustainable: ”At first glance, according to several commonly used indicators, Canada’s labour market has recovered from the initial COVID recession that began in 2020. Canada’s unemployment rate is now lower than when the pandemic hit, and the employment rate (the share of the adult population that’s working) has almost recovered to pre-COVID levels. However, the story is more complicated than the headline numbers suggest. The latest monthly labour force statistics confirm that the government sector – not the private sector – has driven job growth since 2020.”
Tom Rachman (Contributed to The Globe and Mail) on Liz Truss, the new PM of Britain: “What, I wonder, does Ms. Truss’s judgment tell her when she hears tales of contemporary Britain: the emergency ward near Manchester where waits for a medical bed exceeded 40 hours, or the Liverpool supermarket where baby-formula theft got so bad that employees quit calling the police, and just directed culprits to a food bank. People going hungry? Not to worry! Let them eat cake.”
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Ian Bailey