The one big takeaway from François Legault’s resignation: The Weekly Wrap

The BC Conservatives now find themselves in a leadership race of their own. They have an opportunity—perhaps their last—to turn electoral momentum into institutional durability. Whether they seize it remains to be seen. This is where Harper’s legacy comes into focus. Harper understood that winning elections was not enough. His central project was to build the Conservative Party of Canada as a durable political institution—one capable of consistently competing for power across cycles and leaders. That the Conservatives are effectively tied with the Liberals more than 20 years after the party’s creation, and more than a decade after Harper left office, is perhaps his most enduring political achievement. The contrast with Legault is instructive. Harper built a party. Legault built a moment. And moments, no matter how successful, rarely last. The NDP’s foolish obsession with Palestine is hurting the party Any hopes on the part of the Conservative Party that the NDP’s leadership race would tilt in a mainstream direction and better position the party to split the center-Left vote with the Liberals ostensibly went out the window this week. The announcement of a forthcoming leadership debate on Palestine reveals a lot about the current priorities and pathologies of progressive politics. The Palestinian question has come to occupy such a disproportionate place in progressive political identity in Canada, the U.S., and much of the Western Left. It’s now a litmus test that functions as a moral sorting mechanism that effectively defines who belongs in progressive coalitions and who does not. Positions on housing affordability, economic inequality, labour policy, or democratic reform are often subordinated to, or filtered through, one’s stance on Gaza. It’s frankly bizarre. And this has consequences. In the United States, for instance, it’s increasingly clear that the intensity and absolutism of Gaza-focused activism have complicated the Left’s ability to cohere around a credible strategy to resist Donald Trump and the illiberal excesses of his administration. Enormous amounts of activist energy, attention, and moral capital are being absorbed by a conflict over which American progressives have little direct influence, even as domestic institutions face mounting strain. Canada isn’t immune to this dynamic. The NDP’s leadership race is unfolding amid pressing national challenges, and yet the symbolic centre of gravity for parts of the party appears to lie thousands of kilometres away. What makes this especially striking is that Gaza itself is the subject of some debate within progressive circles. There is no clear consensus on strategy, end goals, or even shared framing. And yet the issue has assumed an outsized role as a source of moral identity and political signaling. The result is a kind of displacement. Gaza becomes a proxy for broader grievances about power, injustice, and the West itself—while also functioning as a mechanism for coalition discipline. In its most extreme forms, this moral framing has too often been willing to blur or excuse Hamas’s responsibility for the conflict. This may feel righteous, but it’s both ineffective and wrong. And it does nothing to advance the material interests of Palestinians, Canadians, or progressive voters, for that matter. Caring about Gaza isn’t a problem per se. Treating it as the defining test of progressive politics is. The upcoming NDP leadership debate on Palestine is a sign that the party hasn’t yet learned this lesson. A dark horse candidate for Canada’s Supreme Court This week’s announcement that Supreme Court of Canada Justice Sheilah Martin will step down later this year will give Prime Minister Mark Carney his first opportunity to appoint a justice to the country’s highest court. Supreme Court appointments are among the most consequential decisions a prime minister can make. They can shape the law for decades on matters of individual rights, federalism, and the role of political institutions themselves. And they require balancing multiple considerations, including professional excellence, regional representation, judicial temperament, and functional bilingualism. There’s already speculation in legal circles about possible successors. One dark horse yet unusually strong candidate is Malcolm Lavoie, Alberta’s current deputy minister of justice and deputy attorney general. Lavoie’s credentials are difficult to overstate. He holds a doctoral degree from Harvard University, clerked for former Supreme Court justice Rosalie Abella, has argued cases before the court, and has spent years at the centre of complex constitutional and administrative-law questions in government. He combines academic depth, practical experience, and a sophisticated understanding of how courts interact with legislatures, the executive, and different orders of government. Lavoie also meets the bilingualism requirement and brings a distinctly Western Canadian perspective to the court at a moment when regional alienation is once again on the political agenda. Just as importantly, the appointment of Lavoie, who was elevated to his current role in the Alberta government by Premier Danielle Smith, would be an expression of the prime minister’s ongoing efforts to strengthen his working relationship with the premier and her government. But such an appointment would be about more than regional politics or intergovernmental signaling. Lavoie represents a particular institutional sensibility that has become increasingly scarce: a respect for constitutional limits, democratic accountability, and the proper division of responsibilities among courts and elected governments, as well as between different orders of government. At a time when the Supreme Court is routinely asked to arbitrate questions that blur law and politics, this perspective would be an asset to the country. For a new prime minister seeking to establish credibility, seriousness, and balance in his approach to governing, Lavoie would be an inspired choice.