Hello, welcome to Politics Insider. Let’s look at what happened this week.
Conservative Party campaign manager Jenni Byrne says she won’t oversee the party’s next election bid.
Byrne told the podcast Beyond a Ballot she believes Pierre Poilievre remains the best choice to lead the party to victory, but she wants to step back and focus on her own consulting business.
Stephanie Levitz reports that the interview, published today, is the first time Byrne has spoken at length about the campaign and the party’s failure to win even though they had been leading in the polls for months heading up to the election call.
Also today, Prime Minister Mark Carney said Israel’s decision to take over Gaza City is wrong and won’t improve the humanitarian situation on the ground or help the remaining hostages.
Carney made the comments after an unrelated announcement in Trenton, Ont.
His reaction adds to international condemnation of Israel’s announcement earlier Friday that it will intensify its 22-month war with Hamas by taking over Gaza City, the largest urban area in the territory.
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says more military pressure is needed to achieve Israel’s goals of returning the hostages and destroying Hamas.
Carney said the move won’t help end the war.
Open this photo in gallery:
Prime Minister Mark Carney and Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand speak at a July, 2025, press conference in Ottawa about recognizing Palestinian statehood.Patrick Doyle/Reuters
This is the weekly summer edition of the Politics Insider newsletter, curated by Ian Bailey. It is available exclusively to our digital subscribers. You can sign up for more than 20 other newsletter on our signup page.
What else is going on
Ottawa to invest $2-billion into armed forces for pay increases, improved benefits: The commitment, announced today by Carney, is part of the government’s plan to boost military expenditure this fiscal year.
Advance polls open in Poilievre’s Alberta by-election: For the first time ever, Elections Canada says voters in the federal by-election for Alberta’s Battle River-Crowfoot riding must fill out a blank ballot.
Canadian economy sheds almost 41,000 jobs in July: The unemployment rate remained steady but at a multiyear high of 6.9 per cent, Statistics Canada said.
Métis leaders optimistic government will respect Indigenous rights as Ottawa moves forward with Bill C-5: A Thursday gathering discussed Bill C-5, which allows the federal cabinet to deem projects to be of national interest and then exempt them from various laws to speed up approvals and construction.
Defence review says Ottawa should stick with F-35 jets: The final decision on the $19-billion deal rests with Mark Carney’s Liberal government, say sources, who requested anonymity given the sensitivity of the situation.
On our radar
Prime Minister’s Week: Mark Carney began the week in the Vancouver Island city of Nanaimo, following a weekend visit to Vancouver. There, he toured the Canadian Forces Maritime Experimental and Test Ranges. In west Kelowna, the next day, he toured a wood-product manufacturing facility and announced support for Canada’s softwood lumber industry. On Wednesday, in Ottawa, Carney chaired a virtual cabinet meeting and also chaired a first ministers’ meeting to discuss Canada’s coordinated economic response to ongoing U.S. trade measures. On Thursday, Carney convened the Métis Major Projects Summit in Ottawa, to engage with Métis leaders on the Building Canada Act. On Friday, Carney was in Trenton, Ont. to tour a military facility and make an announcement regarding the Canadian Forces.
Political Break: The House of Commons is not sitting for the summer. It will resume on Sept. 15. The Senate will sit again on Sept. 23.
MPs in the Summer: As part of this weekly summer edition of the newsletter, we are checking in with MPs on what they are up to while the Commons is on break. This week, the focus is on Alexis Deschênes, the new Bloc Québécois member for the riding of Gaspésie-Les Îles-de-la-Madeleine-Listuguj. (He defeated former Liberal fisheries minister Diane Lebouthillier in the April federal election.)
His riding, covering the Gaspé Peninsula’s eastern section and the Magdalen Islands, is more than 17 times the size of New York. It includes two time zones.
Among Deschênes’s priorities is facilitating the return of Via Rail to the Gaspé Bay for the first time since 2013. “People talk to me about that a lot,” he said. “I’m able to assure them that I am resolute in putting as much pressure as I am able to on Via Rail so it can return.”
As for this summer: “I would not call this a summer off. It has been pretty busy for me since I am new and have needed to do many things at the same time, like hire people. I have six different offices in my big riding so we had to negotiate all that and make sure the furniture gets in and things like this. But, most of all, I would say it has been important to be present on the ground and to meet people in my riding, and to listen to their concerns.
I have done a lot of road travel to all corners of my riding. Last Sunday, I just finished a tour of the peninsula with the leader of the Bloc Québécois, Yves-François Blanchet. We visited the many areas of the riding and we will also go to the Magdalen Islands. So, its been an uninterrupted tour of the region.
What I proposed to people of my riding during the campaign was that I was going to listen, get people together and take action. This is still what I am doing. As a former journalist, I take my notepad everywhere I go, and I finally have an impressive list of homework to do. You have to use your power as a member of Parliament, so I have a list of things to do that I want to push forward during this month, to draft letters, to make representations, and get information.”
This interview has been edited and condensed.
New Ukrainian Ambassador: Yuliya Kovaliv has completed her term as Ukraine’s ambassador to Canada and left the country. The Ukrainian embassy has confirmed that Andrii Plakhotniuk, the country’s former ambassador to Sweden, will be coming to Ottawa as the new ambassador.
Question period
Regina-born actor Leslie Nielsen was the star of the 1988 feature film The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! A sequel to the film, entitled The Naked Gun and starring Liam Neeson as the son of Nielsen’s character, was just released. Nielsen’s older brother was a federal cabinet minister under two prime ministers. What was the name of Nielsen’s brother and what cabinet posts did he hold?
Scroll to the bottom of this newsletter for the answer.
Perspectives
Hero to zero: François Legault is following in Justin Trudeau’s footsteps.
At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, François Legault was Canada’s most popular premier. With an approval rating that peaked at 85 per cent, Mr. Legault appeared to walk on water. Prominent members of Quebec’s sports and entertainment star system rallied behind the Coalition Avenir Québec Leader as they urged the public to obey his anti-COVID rules.
— Konrad Yakabuski, Columnist
Toronto the Grind: Making your way around has never been such a slog.
The world surely does not need another piece of journalism where a reporter parachutes into a city where they do not live and makes pronouncements about the place.
— Marsha Lederman, Columnist
Canada’s lobster industry is on a roll, but we can’t take the good times for granted.
As I found while researching my book, The Lobster Trap, there’s a gold-rush mentality on the water in Canada and the U.S. – and the race to catch as many lobsters as possible is putting pressure on stocks in ways that have never been seen before. As a journalist who grew up in the Maritimes during the Great Lobster Boom in the 1990s, I used to think of lobster as something that was cheap and plentiful – so abundant they once made a McDonald’s sandwich out of it. I was surprised how many industry insiders told me they were now worried about the fishery’s future.
— Greg Mercer, Investigative journalist
Go deeper
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The answer to today’s question: Erik Nielsen was elected the Progressive Conservative MP for Yukon in 1957 and held the seat until 1987. He was public works minister for Joe Clark during Clark’s time as prime minister from 1979 until 1980. Under Brian Mulroney, who was prime minister from 1984 until 1993, Nielsen served as privy council president and defence minister. He was also a deputy prime minister to Mulroney and served as an interim leader of the federal Progressive Conservative party. Erik Nielsen died in 2008. Leslie Nielsen died in 2010.
