At Issue - Canada’s biggest political moments in 2025

Episode Date: December 19, 2025

CBC chief political correspondent Rosemary Barton asks The National’s At Issue panel to look back on a jam-packed year politically. From an election, to tariffs, to pipelines, the At Issue panel breaks it all down in a special Holiday At Issue.  Rosemary Barton hosts Chantal Hébert, Andrew Coyne and Althia Raj.

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Donate at lovescarbro.cairbo. This is a CBC podcast. Hey there, I'm Rosemary Barton. This week, on an ad issue, the podcast edition for Thursday, December 18th. I intend to resign as party leader, as prime minister. The golden age of America begins right now. The question was about pipeline.

Sorry, I'm getting to it. Tonight, I've been forbs. I've been forward to party leader that I'll be stepping down as party leader. We've been stressing that monetary policy cannot undo the damage. caused by tariffs. Thank you very much to the great people of Battle River Crowfoot. History of nations, they're punctuated

by hinge moments. So this week, we are looking back on some of the biggest moments of 2025. I'm Rosemary Barton. Here, with me in person, is at issue to look back at what has been a remarkable year in Canadian politics from, as you saw, resignations, an election, a country

under threat from its closest neighbor. Here to break it all down. Shantelli Bear, Andrew Coyne, Althea Rush. Good to see you all. I kind of got goosebumps watching those clip packs because I'm like, look at all the stuff we did this year. And I probably say that every year. But it was a big year. There was a lot going on.

So we want to start with the question. What was the biggest political win of the year? Biggest political win, biggest political loss. I suspect the questions might be similar, but Chantelle used to us off. Because you put them back to back, it invites the answer, joined at the hip, the Kearney victory.

At this time last year, Mark Carney wasn't a politician. or he was maybe in his own mirror but we weren't watching him and at this time last year, Pierre Poyev had a huge lead and was probably thinking of how the drapes would fit in the prime minister's residence.

So one is the biggest political win, brought the liberals back from the basement and the other is back to the basement political loss. Andrew, you had the same. It's a win for the liberals. It's also very much a win from Mark Carney. personally. Yes, he benefited from not being either Justin Trudeau or Pierre Poitiav. Yes, he got an assist from Donald Trump declaring one to a next to the country.

But think of what happened there. He'd never been elected to anything. He'd never run for anything. I know. And in the space of a few weeks, wins the liberal leadership by a thumping margin, more than anybody expected, assumes the powers of the prime minister, all the awesome responsible is that, well, again, with no experience in office of any kind, other than being the governor of the bank of candidate, but no political experience. And then finally wins the election. I still think you can overstate what extraordinary thing. Now, you also want to do the loser at the same time.

Pierre Pallier also has to wear that loss as much as Mark Carney can be credited for that victory. He was the face of the party. Some would say he was too much the face of the party, given his personal unpopular numbers. The strategy they pursued, which seemed to miss the whole Trump wave, he's got a bare responsibility for that. yes, he managed to pull them out with a 41% of the sport

and they increased their seats and they got a moral victory, et cetera, but moral victories are for losers. He had a 25th century and he threw it away. And I'll see you have the same ones as well. Yeah, I guess it's kind of hard to have a different answer this year, but I would say the liberals winning a fourth term. This was a government that was basically, you know, most MPs thought they were going to lose their seeds,

liberal MPs, obviously, and to have them surmounted, a 25-point lead from the Conservatives was quite a feat. I don't know if I completely agree that no one expected it. They thought they were actually going to win a majority government after that election.

But they came really close. And the Conservatives have Stoian still to keep Pierre Puehliev, at least for now, front and center. I don't know that Mr. Pollyov could have pivoted more because his base really doesn't feel the same way or half his base really doesn't feel the same way about Donald Trump.

But, yeah, it was quite a change in fortune. When you look back a year ago, incredible, Abacus Data had a poll suggesting basically that Donald Trump was not going to help the liberals. This was smooth sailing for Pierre Puelleves. I hope we keep that in mind. The same to polls that say we all love pipelines. This time last year, with people are now saying it was a no-brainer, Mark Carney.

How many columns did you read comparing him to Michael Iniatia? and predicting that he would, so somewhere, he didn't do the Michael Ignatia thing. More of a political animal than we suspected. Okay, we got to pick up speed a little bit here. Biggest political surprise of the year, Althea, you go first. This is the same thing. Basically, the liberals coming out of almost nowhere and winning a fourth term. Also, Mark Carney, not being the environmentalist that a lot of liberals expected,

believed he was, told voters at the door during the election campaign. That has been a bit of a surprise. Andrew? The shift in the polls in particular, most of which happened before the campaign. Yep. So Justin Trudeau leaves on January 6th. They're an average of 25 points behind. By the time the election, but by the time Mark Carney became the prime minister, they were more or less level.

And by the time he called the election two weeks later, they were about five or six points ahead. So at the beginning of the campaign, they were already six points ahead. For most of the campaign, there were six or eight points. Conservatives closed the gap a little bit at the end. Most of that shift happened without any campaign going on. I think many liberal voters would have been surprised at the speed at which Mark Carney traded as climate credentials for the champion of fossil fuel development that he has become. I didn't hear that super energy, that energy superpower line that much during the election campaign. I must have missed it in the translation.

Sure didn't hear about a pipeline, that's for sure. Okay, who impressed you the most with their leadership? that can be anyone, Andrew. Yeah, you know, when I say impressed, I don't necessarily agree with what this. It doesn't mean a good thing. No, it just means remarkable. But some of it, I do. So Carney's ability to basically completely change the colors of the whole party. It tells you the powers of a party leader, the prime minister in particular.

It tells you how malleable the liberals are in particular. If you didn't think there were shapeshifters before this, you certainly did that. But stealing all of the conservatives policies in the space of the last nine or ten months, if I were conservative, I would certainly be absolutely furious, and you can see them spluttering sometime with indignation at it. It's politics at its semiest, but it worked. Yeah, well, if you're a conservative in your stun, then you miss the Clarity Act and the zero deficit that Jean-Cristin stole from Preston Manning and Stephen Harper. I didn't go for the impressed, but we do not often have ministers or resign on principle.

I think Stephen Gilbo managed to do just that. and to keep his comments very centered on his issue. He also got a lot of leeway. I'm impressed by how much independence he's been afforded. I'm assuming the prime minister's office is hoping he goes somewhere for Christmas. And he probably will, but I would agree that, and this was your choice as well, that it's not just that he left on principle, it's that he did it without bitterness. He wasn't, yeah, there was no real bitterness.

or animosity. There's a lot of criticism, but that's a different thing. Yeah, it's not very often. Frankly, the last time I can think of a comparable situation is Michael Chong leaving in 2006, but that you're sacrificing a third of your salary to say, I cannot defend this. And there's a lot of people around the cabinet table that don't agree with a whole bunch of stuff, but they don't say, I cannot, for my personal values and my integrity, I can stand by this. Like, that is pretty freaking impressive. So I agree with Chantyadden, Stephen Gibel.

Okay, who impressed you the least? This is our last one before we take a break. I'll be looking up my notes. What did I tell you? The guy south of the border. Oh, don't know what you forget him. I was like, I don't remember what I wrote to you guys. I know we should not be surprised, but I am continuously surprised.

And I'm surprised at the force, the speed at which norms are just vanishing. The checks that you thought existed, like I always assumed there were way more checks in the U.S. than they were in Canada. And then you realize how quickly everything can crumble. No shame. And the voice is calling this out, there are too few, you know? Like, even the No King's March. I would have thought there would have been a No King's March almost every day, at least every week. and yet there isn't.

It is shocking, surprising, disappointing to say the least. Okay, you two had the same one, so I'll let you go first. Well, I certainly can't top that, but if we're staying within Canada, at Jagmeet Singh. Tom Mulcair was driven from the leadership because he only got 44 seats. Jagmeet got 24 and then 24, and then the absolute floor fell through in the last election. But throughout that, he was gaffed prone, he often looked like he was not fully informed on the issues, he never got the sense that anybody in the NDP

was particularly excited to have him as leaders just they were kind of stuck with him and ultimately he paid the price. Yeah, he probably set the party back a decade. Remember, Alexa McDonough brought the party to Atlantic Canada, Jack Layton, to Quebec and other regions and in every election,

Jok Meets Singh made the NDP retreat not because he was promoting some wild idea that Canadians wouldn't want to sign upon, like, Medicare, but because he was just not doing much of anything. And those last two years where you support the government, but at every turn, you say they're terrible. I'll pick a lane here. I'm going to guess, Jigmson, we'll be glad to see 2025.

That's just a guess. At least he didn't win his seat because I think it would have been worse for him if he had stayed. Okay, we're going to take a quick break here, but when we come back, we'll keep the conversation going, looking back on 2025. Let's build the strongest economy in the G7. Let's build Canada strong. Talking about a tariff of 10% on China based on the fact that they're sending fentanyl to Mexico and Canada.

You don't negotiate through weakness. You negotiate through strength. Increased trade friction with the United States means our economy will work less efficiently. Still no win. Still no deal. still no elbows. Look inside yourself, Rosemary. Welcome back. I'm Rosemary Parton with me again. Chantelle, Andrew, and Althea.

Okay, best, worst political play of the year. Andrew. I hate to repeat myself, but the liberals switching out leaders, completely adopting 180-degree opposite policies in the space of a few weeks, there's a reason why this is the most successful political party in the democratic world over the last century. And it's not to do with their strident or sterling principles. It's the utter maliability.

But just from again, from a pure politics standpoint, you kind of have to give them a low whistle of appreciation. And that's sort of yours as well, a little more specific. I think the best play is Justin Trudeau deciding to walk away. It took a while, though. It took a while, but he could have dragged it out. And he allowed the leadership race. to happen so that Mark Carney

could win it. And now he's dating Katie Perry and seems to be having the time of his life, so that's definitely the best political play for him. And worse political play, I would say Mark Carney, not using cabinet. I think that the prime minister's desire to

and I think the conservatives are right about saying this basically run things like a boardroom and not like a cabinet government. If they had discussed the MOU in cabinet, more than two days before he announced it, I don't think Stephen Gibo would have quit. I don't think the electoral coalition

that the liberals brought the liberals to power would have been in jeopardy as it is at the moment. So I think that it's not just some of the measures in C5 or some of the measures in C-50, and I'm sure we'll talk about these bills later, but I do think that he doesn't use the political experience around the table to help him govern because he's not just there to run the show.

He's there to get reelected. Best, where's political play? I'll come back for your worst. And I didn't want to go back to the election because a few things happened. And so I went really down market. Forcing, on the part of the liberals forcing the conservatives,

well, it wasn't just the liberals that did that. The NDP also played around. role in that, but forcing the conservatives to show how desperately they wanted to avoid an election, even if they wanted to vote against the budget. I thought that is an interesting vignette. Everybody can understand the, and this idea of suddenly people who are within reach of the vote showing up because some app doesn't work. No, I thought that was an interesting play. It kind of tells you all you need to know about how the official opposition doesn't walk at stock. Your worst political play

is Quebec specific. It's Quebec. And it's Quebec Premier, Francois Legoe's insistence on believing that he's not a dead man walking. Maybe this time next year I'll say, I got it all wrong and he'll have a recovery. But if he had that recovery, we would today be sitting

saying how great for Justin Trudeau to have stuck around because he won. And Justin Trudeau would not have won the federal election. And I don't believe there's an election left in Francois Legault. But He has convinced himself so far that his first condition used to be Quebecers want me to run. Well, when your party is at 16 percent, Quebecers do not want you to run.

Your worst player. Just going back to the failure to spot the Trump way when the conservative campaign, you know, who did say it was Doug Ford, who called us an app election on it and won because of it. I take Althea's point that, you know, there's a large section of the conservative base that is okay with Trump, but that's exactly the point sometimes in politics the thing you have to do is break with your party's most extreme

faction that was the worry people had a lot of people about Pierre Pauli Edwards that in dealing with Trump he'd be too beholdenus to his base wouldn't be able to stand up to him

that was a moment for him to say look I know this isn't going to be popular with some of my supporters but this is the right thing to do et cetera and he missed that opportunity okay well let's jump ahead then to the premier of the year on that one and Chantelle you can pick up there

for that exact reason I don't live in Ontario as opposed to others, so I can look at Premier Ford from a distance. And I have to say that if you're going to look at premiers this year, he did dominate the provincial pack for the year. People who didn't like his ads will disagree, but he has been such a central player in the Canada-U.S. debate versus other premiers that I saw a poll that showed him one of the three,

three or four most popular politicians in Quebec, that included Quebec politicians. Then you think the Premier of Ontario suddenly gets into that. And the play, which was to call an election to use the Trump factor, was very smartly. I know Canadians and other provinces who would like to vote for Doug Ford. I mean, that's how popular he is elsewhere. Let's wait for his first French interview to continue down at the particular avenue. And her best premier of the year. Well, I wouldn't say it best for the year. Premier of the year, to me, his hands down is Daniel Smith.

Whether you agree with the things she was saying and doing or not, and I disagree with a lot of them, she dominated the national agenda, whether you're talking about invoking the notwithstanding clause, whether you're talking about radical health care reforms that may or may not be well considered, whether you're talking about the memorandum of understanding on the energy thing with all of the changes in federal policy that were involved in that, I've rarely seen a premier or a preface-to-premise had that much impact. in the national scene. Last minute to you.

I feel like we need to define what we mean by best premier. It's not best. It's the premier of the year. Well, I mean, in Ontario, I feel like the allegations of conflict of interest surrounding Doug Ford

would basically disqualify him. In Alberta, Premier Smith's basically cowtowing to the separatists fueling the movement. I understand the use of the not withstanding clause, the affront on labor rights.

They would win an award for taking up a room. That's who it is. Hitler was time in a year once. Tell me your person. Okay, so I pick the nice guy. Lob Canoe. There you go.

There you go. Just because he's nice. I think he hit, well, he's a nice person. He's popular. But he has managed to bring different parts of Manitobans and see themselves reflected in the government. And he is into consensus and conciliatory. I think you're just trying to suck up to the Manitoba. No, I, you guys picked others.

I'm just saying. I think it's nice to be able to say, you know what, there is so much more that unites us, and here's a leader who's focused on that. It's a very shrewd, skilled politician. We're going to take a short break here, but when we come back, we'll talk about what stories went under the radar in 2025. That's next. It's been a very long and busy here in Canadian politics here to look back at some of the stories that didn't get as much attention. Chantali Bear, Andrew Coyne, Althea Rush. Ethia, you start us off on this one.

A story that we should have paid more attention to. Maybe you paid attention, but the rest of us didn't. I should put it that way. The Prime Minister's willingness to discard democratic norms in our country, to me, is very alarming. We sought first with C5, which in, you know, I don't think anybody wants to make projects to go slow. Very few people want to make projects go slower. But in the type of legislation, the breadth of the law, law that he is giving himself the ability to disregard almost any law in the land, to vest that

power in one individual to say, these conditions will apply to this project or no condition will apply to any project, is crazy. And the liberals would have been protesting in the streets of a conservative had done this. And the precedent that it creates is, to me, very concerning. Even though they haven't done it yet. Even though no project has been listed as a project of national interest yet. But already you have Pierre Pahlia, for example, saying that he's going to use the law to pass a new pipeline kind of on the northern gateway route that he's going to create dozens of LNG projects using this piece of legislation. And then in the Budget Implementation Act, we see in the middle of it hidden, basically no one talked about this. They're giving

themselves the power to exempt an individual, a company who wants to test a product, a procedure, even a regulation, so another law, up to six years without, they would even, once the testing is done, they would allow the exemption to remain in place. And there's no attention paid to this and there's no justification. You both wrote about it, you're both here talking about it. To me, this is, it's really

concerning. Why do they need these powers? Okay, Andrew, you pick up and that and that'll bring in Chantelle for France. This is sort of the flip side of that perhaps, and I think it's the sort of boiling rage and division and volatility that's just below the surface Canadian politics. If you look at that

federal election, you say, oh, well, everyone vote, you know, you know, 80% voted for the two major parties, all is calm. But there was huge shifts within that election. There's been, you know, leaders being brought down. There's been a new party starting up. And I was struck by a piece by Andre Turcott, the pollster the other day, on the Hub website where you said, you know,

it's extraordinary the number of answers when people ask, we'll give very populist-type answers. They don't think politicians are listening to them. They don't think they have an influence on it, et cetera, et cetera. But then if you ask them, are you a populist? They'll say no. Do you support a populist party? No.

don't mistake the one for the other. And I think it may be a line to this. We have centralized power so much federally and provincially in the office of the prime ministers and the premiers, and I think it's starting to filter through to people. And that gets to your answer as well on this. But what Althea

was saying, we didn't pay enough attention. I believe that we will be paying a lot of attention to these powers once people see in practice what it means. A lot of the things put in place now, you know, people seem to be shrugging them off.

And they are shrugging off, I believe, the now routine use of the notwithstanding clause. Even though we talk about that all the time. Yeah, to basically say, because to tell you the truth when you say, like, close the derogation or the notwithstanding clause, people tune you up. Yeah. They don't connect it to their everyday life.

We will be talking for those who hate that conversation. The Supreme Court will hear a challenge that will be. with this issue in March, we will be talking about this this time next year, but it matters. Because he said, Althea said, the conservatives want to use those new powers to do X, Y, and Z. Well, the social conservatives would like to use the notwithstanding clause to do away with abortion rights, same-sex marriage. So at some point, how long does it take before people say, well, do we have a charter of rights or not? And if we don't want to have one, well, it's just... But it's all become routine.

Omnibus bills have become routine. Cutting off debate was through time allocations becoming routine. The biggest fight in Canadian politics, the pipeline debate in 1956, was because they brought in closure. Now it happens every other bill, and nobody bats it off. Okay, but on the notwithstanding clause, I agree with not thought, what has happened is we've normalized the use of it. Like, Bill 21, 2.0 in Quebec, rarely got any coverage in the rest of Canada, which is like, if you're wearing a turban, we don't want you to be a janitor in the school. But that's a Supreme Court decision. Not in March that we're going to hear?

Well, we're going to hear on Bill 21. We're mostly going to hear about the notwithstanding clause. Right, sure. But this is a new version of the bill. And in the stories that were written about this new version of the bill, they didn't even mention. I think it was that price also or CP, didn't even mention that they had used notwithstanding clause.

It's become not news anymore. Daniel Smith did it four times in a week. She did. Okay. On that depressing note, I'm glad I've had you all year. That's at issue. It has been a jam-packed year in Canadian politics. What moments stuck with you? What will you remember? Send us an email at ask.cbc.ca. You can catch me on Rosemary Barton live. Sundays at 10 a.m. Eastern. Thanks for listening to us right throughout the year. Happy holidays. We'll see you back here in 20206.