A month after postal workers walked off the job, the Government of Canada asked the Canada Industrial Relations Board to order an end to the strike. This may seem like a relief to Canadians, but it is also time to reflect on why the country is forced to suffer such disruptions every few years. How much longer do Canadians have to be held hostage to the whims of a Crown corporation with a monopoly on letter mail? Read More

The big news in Ottawa is that Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland has resigned on principle and Justin Trudeau is now definitely doomed unless he’s not. Wow. But did she jump, or was she pushed? Read More

The shallowest man in Canada had quite the day on Monday when Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland launched her volley of Molotov cocktails on the way out the door. Years of hypocrisy, pandering, and spinelessness laid bare for all the world to see as now former minister Freeland apparently decided she had had quite enough of bilking Canadians and subjecting them to ludicrous policies for the sole purpose of political expediency. What will this poor man do now? I refer, of course, to Jagmeet Singh. Read More

Chrystia Freeland has never been my favourite politician. Her positions are too left-leaning, her speaking style off-putting. Her interview with Secretary of State Hilary Clinton at the 2023 Liberal Convention was cringey in the extreme.   Read More

First Reading is a daily newsletter keeping you posted on the travails of Canadian politicos, all curated by the National Post’s own Tristin Hopper. To get an early version sent directly to your inbox, sign up here. Read More

Last Friday, the prime minister fired his finance minister, Chrystia Freeland, who shocked the country by resigning from cabinet on Monday, hours before the fall economic statement (FES) was set to be tabled. Yet obvious tension between the two made the resignation less surprising, especially since the FES abandoned any lingering pretense of fiscal prudence, along with Freeland’s primary fiscal guardrail — a cap on the 2023-24 deficit at $40.1 billion. Read More

The only thing that comes close to the chaos that unfolded in Ottawa on Monday that I can recall is the sense of shock that followed the resignation speech in November 1990 by Margaret Thatcher’s soft-spoken, self-effacing deputy prime minister, Geoffrey Howe. Read More

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau should not have been in a position to tell Chrystia Freeland on Friday, three days before she was to deliver a fiscal update, that he no longer wanted her to be finance minister, but that he did want her to stay on in a different cabinet post — only to find out Monday morning that she was resigning from cabinet altogether. Read More

Justin Trudeau has finally answered the question of how fiscally irresponsible a prime minister would have to be before Liberals, of all people, start complaining about the government’s lack of restraint. Read More

Justin Trudeau’s latest catastrophe puts an enormous weight on the shoulders of New Democratic Party leader Jagmeet Singh. It also represents a character-testing challenge and an opportunity — or perhaps we should call it a duty — to perform the sort of service to the country he was elected to provide. Read More