Local
On Friday, March 14, Governor General Mary Simon will preside over the swearing-in of Mark Carney as Canada’s 24th Prime Minister.
Carney will succeed Prime Minister Justin Trudeau after winning the March 9 Liberal leadership election with an overwhelming 85.9 per cent of the vote.
The Carney government will take power nearly three-and-a-half years after the most recent federal election in which the Liberals won the most seats (160) but fell ten seats short of a majority.
The Trudeau government began experiencing a steady decline in popular support in 2022 after entering a supply-and-confidence agreement with the NDP. 2022 was also the year in which Pierre Poilievre became leader of the Conservatives.
Despite dramatically low approval ratings, disastrous results in multiple by-elections, and increasing divisions within his party, it was not until Jan. 6, 2025, that Trudeau announced his plan to resign. By this point, however, the Liberal Party was uncompetitive in most opinion polls.
Local/National
The average one-bedroom rent in St. Catharines was down two per cent month-over-month to $1,655 in February, according to the latest Rentals.ca market update.
Sports
When the puck drops on the Greater Ontario Junior Hockey League (GOJHL) playoffs Friday night, three Niagara based clubs will begin their quest for the Sutherland Cup.
National
Canada is currently facing the potentially worst economic crisis we have encountered in decades. Many Canadians, including some of our political leaders, have chosen to respond to the threats U.S. President Donald Trump has made by a revival of an odd version of patriotism which involves such juvenile acts as booing the U.S. national anthem at hockey games, signing a futile petition to remove Elon Musk’s Canadian citizenship and taking U.S. products off the shelves at liquor stores.
Provincial
Finance Minister Jim Reiter needs to deliver a balanced budget on March 19.
Not balanced some time in the future, balanced on March 19.
On budget day in 2023, the government promised a $1-billion surplus. That surplus ended up shrinking to $182 million, according to the latest public accounts. That’s because while government revenue increased by 6.7 per cent during the year, the government also decided to spend 11.5 per cent more.
National
In these past few days Canadians witnessed the Liberal Party of Canada passing the baton from the beleaguered Justin Trudeau to the unknown-yet-charmed Mark Carney. In being sworn in as Canada’s prime minister today, the newly crowned Liberal leader is expected to not take much time before calling a federal election. If Ottawa rumours prove accurate, Carney will not even have to break stride in his race from the party coronation last weekend to the cross-country campaign hustings next week.
Opinion
On Tuesday, March 4, President Donald Trump entered Congress at the invitation of the Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson of Louisiana. The Democratic leadership chose to abandon the protocol of accompanying the president into the Capitol, setting the tone for an evening of norm-breaking, political gamesmanship, and unprecedented rudeness. The viewers (I subjected myself to the record-breaking 100-minute-long speech in deference to my readers) were largely partisan and about 75 per cent in most polls gave Trump a thumbs up.
