.Bloggers note: Canada’s biggest political moments of 2025
Elections, resignations, trade twists and a Katy Perry surprise; 2025 shaped up to be a remarkable year in Canadian politics. CBC chief political correspondent Rosemary Barton asks The National’s At Issue panel to break down the biggest wins, losses and stand-out moments. At Issue is Canada's most-watched political panel, hosted by CBC Chief Political Correspondent Rosemary Barton and featuring leading political journalists Chantal Hebert, Andrew Coyne and Althia Raj.
00:00 Biggest political win/loss of the year?
05:47 Who impressed you the most?
07:52 Who impressed you the least?
11:06 Best/worst political play of the year?
15:12 Provincial premier of the year?
@ 17:58 Should have gotten more attention
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FROM
Should have gotten more attention
He's a very shrewd skilled politician.
It's been a very long and busy year in
Should have gotten more attention
Canadian politics here to look back at
some of the stories that didn't get as
much attention. Shantal Bear, Andrew
Coin, Althia Rush. Um Althia, you start
us off on this one. A story that we
should have paid more attention to.
Maybe you paid attention, but the rest
of us didn't. I should put it that way.
The prime minister's
um willingness to discard democratic
norms in our country to me is very
alarming. We saw it first with C5 which
in no I don't think anybody wants to
make projects go very few people want to
make projects go slower but in the type
of legislation the breath of the law
that he is giving himself the ability to
disregard almost any law in the land to
vest that power in one individual to say
these conditions will apply to this
project or no condition will apply to
any project is crazy. And the liberals
would have been protesting in the
streets if a conservative had done this.
And the precedent that it creates is to
me very concerning
even though they haven't done it yet.
Even though no project has been listed
as a project of national interest yet.
But already you have Pierre Palia for
example saying that he's going to use
the law to pass a new pipeline kind of
on the northern gateway route that he's
going to create dozens of LNG projects
using this piece of uh piece of
legislation. And then in the budget
implementation act, we see in the middle
of it hidden basically no one talked
about this. They're giving themselves
the power to exempt an individual, a
company who wants to test a product, a
procedure, even a regulation. So another
law up to six years without
they would even once the testing is
done, they would allow the exemption to
remain in place. Okay.
And there's no attention paid to this
and there's no justification.
You both wrote about it. You're both
here talking about it. But to me, this
is it's really concerning. Why do they
need these powers?
Okay, Andrew, you pick up on that and
then I'll bring in Shantel.
Well, this is sort of the flip side of
that perhaps. And I think it's the sort
of boiling
rage and division and t and volatility
that's just below the surface of
Canadian politics. If you looked at that
federal election, you'd say, "Oh, well,
everyone vote, you know, 80% voted for
the two major parties. All is calm." But
there was huge shifts within that
election. There's been, you know,
leaders being brought down. There's been
new parties starting up there and and I
was struck by a piece by Andre Turkott
the pollster the other day on the hub
website where he said you know it's
extraordinary the number of answers when
people ask will give very populist type
answers they don't think politicians are
listening them they don't think they
have an influence on it etc etc but then
if you ask them are you a populist
they'll say no do you support a populist
party no
don't mistake the one for the other and
I think it may be aligned to this we we
we have centralized power so much
federally and proincially in the office
of the prime ministers and the premers
and I It's starting to filter through to
people that that
and that's sort of that gets to your
answer as well on this
but what Altier was saying we didn't pay
enough attention. I believe that we will
be paying a lot of attention to these
powers once people see in practice what
it means.
Uh a lot of the things put in place now
you know people seem to be shrugging
them off. uh and they are shrugging off
I believe uh the now routine use of the
notwithstanding clause
even though we talk about that all the
time
yeah to basically say because
to tell you the truth when you say like
close the deagion or the notwithstanding
clause people tune you up
uh they they don't connect it to their
everyday lives
we will be talking for those who hate
that conversation the Supreme Court will
hear a challenge uh that will deal with
this issue in March We will be talking
about this this time next year, but it
matters because he said uh the Alia said
the conservatives want to use those new
powers to do x y and zed. Well, the
social conservatives would like to use
the notwithstanding clause to do away
with abortion rights, same-sex marriage.
Do you want So, at some point, how long
does it take before people say, "Well,
do we have a charter of rights or not?"
And if we don't want to have one, well,
let's just
But it's all become routine. Omnibus
bills have become routine. Um, cutting
off debate through time allocation is
becoming routine. The biggest fight in
Canadian politics, the pipeline debate
in 1956 was because they brought in
closure. Now it happens every other bill
and nobody bats on.
Okay. But on the notwithstanding clause,
what I I agree with on that, what has
happened is we've normalized the use of
it. Like bill 21.0 O in Quebec barely
got any coverage in the rest of Canada
which is like if you're wearing a turban
we don't want you to be a janitor in
this
Supreme Court decision is it not in
March that we're going to hear
well we're going to hear on bill 21
we're mostly going to hear about the
notwithstanding clause sure the use
but this is a new version of the bill
and in the stories that were written
about this new version of the bill
they didn't even mention Canada I think
it was that also or CP didn't even
mention that they had used the
notwithstanding clause like it it's so
it's become not news anymore Danielle
Smith did it four times in a week.
She did. Okay. On that depressing note,
I'm glad I've had you all year. That is
an issue for this week as we look back
at the year that was. The next one we're
going to look ahead. I'm Rosemary
Barton. Thanks so much for watching.
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