Welcome to Need to Know, The Hub’s twice-weekly roundup of expert insights into the biggest economic stories, political news, and policy developments Hub readers need to be keeping their eyes on.
Anti-business populism is an economic and political dead-end
By Sean Speer, The Hub’s editor-at-large
Over the weekend, Prime Minister Carney met with a group of senior energy executives in Calgary and reportedly said to them: “Thank you…for what you’ve been doing to help build our country…build our economy, build a future.”
It’s a straightforward message, but it’s also a rather extraordinary one, even if it shouldn’t be.
Over the past decade or longer, we’ve grown so accustomed to politicians on both sides of the spectrum taking populist shots at business leaders that it seems strikingly unconventional for a prime minister to laud them. Especially when it’s not for their corporate social responsibility or their civic philanthropy or their commitment to diversity, but instead for their basic profit-maximizing efforts to invest capital and build stuff.
Carney, of course, didn’t come up through conventional politics. A big part of his career was in corporate boardrooms making those types of decisions. This unique background has seemingly inoculated him from the cheap, knee-jerk, anti-business populism that has come to pervade our politics. That’s a positive aspect of his political persona.
Politicians shouldn’t be pro-business per se. They ought to instead be pro-market, as Milton Friedman used to say. But that doesn’t mean being anti-business either.
Today, a lot of them—including too many Conservatives—have come to be neither pro-market nor pro-business. They’re inclined to both intervene in markets and slag businesses and business leaders.
Carney’s more favourable disposition towards business is therefore a useful corrective. And there’s evidence that it might extend more broadly within this government. Last week, Ministers Evan Solomon and Melanie Joly both publicly congratulated Bell and TELUS for major investment announcements. This is a major contrast from the anti-teleco politics of the past 15 years or so.
What’s disappointing is that Conservative MPs were critical of the ministers for “blatant cheerleading” on behalf of these companies. Cheerleading? If a government sees its role as creating the conditions for private capital, then isn’t it a good thing if companies invest in the economy? Isn’t it a case of markets working? Isn’t that something worth celebrating?
Business leaders aren’t going to like everything the Carney government does. In fact, there’s a strong likelihood that on certain files—including internet regulation, for instance—the government will be bad for markets and businesses.
But the prime minister’s anti-populism disposition is a nice change from what we’ve come to expect. Entrepreneurs and executives occasionally deserve a thank you for their contribution to the country.
The NDP must return to its working-class roots
By Ryan Painter, a principal at Rhino Public Relations and Strategy and a former political strategist and campaign manager for the NDP
After years of bleeding support and abandoning its working-class roots to favour urban academic identity politics, the NDP under Jagmeet Singh was reduced to a historical footnote. In the 2025 federal election, the party won just seven seats, falling short of the 12-seat threshold required for official party status in the House of Commons. That’s not just a bad night; that’s a historic collapse.
To put this in perspective, the party never dropped this low even during the NDP’s darkest days, under leaders like Alexa McDonough or Audrey McLaughlin. The Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF), the NDP’s predecessor, managed more than this during the Cold War. In fact, the CCF’s first election as a party in 1935 resulted in them winning seven seats.
The NDP still held nine seats even in the 1993 wipeout that saw the PCs annihilated and the Reform Party surge. This is a new rock bottom.
Losing official party status means the NDP loses funding for research staff, speaking time, and the ability to participate meaningfully on committees. They’ve been relegated to the political penalty box, shouting from the sidelines while the grown-ups make the decisions. The party that once brought Medicare, national affordable housing, and the Canada Pension Plan to the national stage now finds itself irrelevant, by its own hand.
Here’s the hard truth: Canada needs a strong NDP. But not this NDP.
Not a party obsessed with X discourse and boutique causes while ignoring the economic pain felt by working Canadians. If there’s a future for the NDP, it won’t be found in gender pronoun workshops or anti-Israel rallies waving Hamas flags—it’ll be found in union halls, mill towns, and apartment blocks, talking about wages, rent, debt, and real-life struggles.
Maybe, just maybe, this humiliation will wake them up. If not, the NDP risks joining the Rhinoceros Party in the history books—as a quirky political relic that forgot who it was.
NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh speaks to supporters at a rally during the federal election campaign in Port Moody, B.C., on Monday, April 21, 2025. Nathan Denette/The Canadian Press.
Where’s the wind blowing in Alberta? Keep a close eye on these byelections
By Falice Chin, a freelance journalist based in Calgary and The Hub’s Alberta senior producer
A series of byelections in Alberta—three imminent provincial and one upcoming federal—is putting the United Conservative Party and the federal Conservatives in a politically delicate position, as renewed calls for separation could force both parties to clarify their stance on the province’s future within Canada.
For Premier Danielle Smith, the challenge is internal: keeping the UCP unified as more supporters express interest in greater autonomy or outright independence. A recent Angus Reid Institute poll found 65 percent of UCP voters would definitely or lean toward voting to leave. Smith has acknowledged the political risk, telling CTV the bar for triggering a referendum was lowered in part because “if there isn’t an outlet, it creates a new party.”
For federal Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre, the challenge is more external. As a national party leader aiming to one day become prime minister of a united Canada, he must navigate Alberta’s rising separatist sentiment without causing the broader public to question his loyalties.
That balancing act becomes especially fraught as he campaigns to re-enter Parliament through a byelection in Battle River–Crowfoot. It is one of the safest Conservative ridings in the country, but also a hotbed of independence activism.
The days of politicians saying one thing to one part of the country and something else to another are long gone. Any perceived sympathy for separatist rhetoric could be weaponized by critics outside Alberta, particularly in central Canada, where the nuances of Western discontent are often lost in indifference, a lack of understanding, or both.
Poilievre has said he opposes separation but understands the frustrations fuelling it—a message that will not satisfy all of his would-be constituents in a riding where groups like the Alberta Prosperity Project are actively campaigning for a referendum.
Jeffrey Rath, the cowboy-hat-donning lawyer with the group, has already dismissed Poilievre’s credibility in Alberta, even equating his election platform to that of a “Trudeau Liberal.”
At the provincial level, the spotlight is on Olds-Didsbury-Three Hills, a safe UCP seat left vacant after longtime MLA Nathan Cooper was appointed Alberta’s envoy to Washington, D.C. It’s the same riding (pre-redistribution) where Gordon Kesler became Alberta’s first and only elected separatist MLA in a 1982 byelection.
Smith has appointed Tara Sawyer, a former grain industry leader, as the UCP candidate. She’ll face Republican Party of Alberta leader Cameron Davies, a former Wildrose operative who dipped into UCP politics before becoming a pariah. Davies’s fledgling party now plans to run in all 87 ridings in 2027.
A loss for the UCP in this deep-blue riding would be extraordinary. But even a strong showing by Davies would signal growing momentum for the province’s newest separatist movement.
The other two provincial byelections—in Edmonton-Strathcona and Edmonton-Ellerslie—are in NDP territory and pose less of a direct threat to the UCP. Still, the NDP is expected to seize on the separatist undercurrent, appealing to patriotism and federal unity while pressing UCP candidates to take a clear stand.
The outcomes of these byelections won’t redraw Alberta’s political map overnight. But they are likely to reveal how a once-fringe idea is becoming a factor.
Byelections are often unpredictable and don’t always reflect broader trends. But this round has exposed an emerging dilemma for conservatives in Alberta and beyond: how to manage, contain, redirect, or channel the separatist sentiment now taking root within their own ranks.
Voter turnout, candidate performance, and party messaging will all be closely watched for signs of realignment.
The three provincial byelections take place on June 23. A date has not been set for the federal byelection.
The clock is ticking on Carney’s self-imposed deadlines
By Chase Tribble, senior consultant at Counsel Public Affairs
Prime Minister Mark Carney has kicked off the new Parliamentary session and outlined his commitments in the Throne Speech delivered last week by the King of England; now the real work begins. Canadians elected Carney with the sole mission of creating a stronger Canada in the face of an erratic president South of our border. With Canadians putting their trust in his bold vision for “One Canadian Economy,” as promised this past election, Carney must deliver.
So far, the prime minister has been announcing ambitious and fast-approaching deadlines for himself and his ministers to overhaul the government and secure trade deals. Promising to table legislation by July 1, 2025, to eliminate all federal barriers to interprovincial trade and labour mobility, and to remove all federal exemptions under the Canadian Free Trade Agreement. He has tasked Industry Minister Mélanie Joly with reducing red tape within 60 days to expedite processes in the innovation programs (namely the Strategic Innovation Fund), and most recently, Carney has said that he wants to secure a commitment from the European Union on a military industrial program by July 1st.
While these promises could be transformative measures, bold overhauls do take time. Can these actions be completed within the deadlines set by the prime minister, or will they be merely surface-level changes to tick a box? Regardless, the opposition now has specific calendar dates to hold the government accountable, as well as to scrutinize the government’s progress on its promises.
To their credit, the Carney government has already put forward policy which gives an income tax cut to “nearly 22 million Canadians,” has provided a plan to remove the consumer carbon price in a phase approach (a reversal of Trudeau’s hallmark policy), and remains steadfast on Carney’s promise to reduce or get rid of the GST on new homes (a measure first proposed by the Conservatives).
These quick wins will provide Carney with some cover for the next three weeks of Parliament, but once these self-imposed deadlines pass this summer, be sure to watch the opposition, who won’t hesitate to expose any lack of progress and remind Canadians what has been promised versus what was delivered.
