Ireland’s parliament has elected Simon Harris as the country’s new and youngest-ever prime minister, to succeed Leo Varadkar following his surprising resignation last month.
On Tuesday, parliament members erupted in cheers as Harris’s nomination was confirmed 88-69, after securing support from some independent lawmakers, as well as his coalition partners Fianna Fail and Green Party.
The 37-year-old former health and higher education minister, best known for helping steer Ireland’s initial response to the COVID-19 pandemic, was elected unopposed as the new leader of the centre-right Fine Gael party last month, days after Varadkar’s shock exit.
“I do accept this nomination to serve as taoiseach [prime minister],” Harris said. “I commit to doing everything that I can to honour the trust that you have placed in me.”
Acknowledging his new government’s coalition partners who supported his candidacy, Harris said that he intends to lead “in the spirit of unity and collaboration and mutual respect”.
Pledging to re-energise and “reset” his party, Harris told a weekend conference of its members that he plans to steer it back towards “core values” like promoting business, farming, and law and order.
I am deeply honoured to become Taoiseach of this great country today.
I will be a Taoiseach for All, a Taoiseach that will work every day to realise the hopes, dreams and aspirations of all our people.
Harris’s election as prime minister caps a meteoric political rise. He joined the youth branch of Fine Gael at the age of 16 and quickly rose through its ranks.
A county councillor at the age of 22, he was elected to parliament as a 24-year-old in 2011. At the time he was the youngest member of parliament and was nicknamed “Baby of the Dail” (Irish parliament).
He was appointed health minister in 2016 aged just 29 and higher education minister in 2020.
Reshuffle
As Ireland’s new leader, Harris faces a formidable to-do list, including tackling the housing and homelessness crises, and criticism of government policy on asylum seekers.
One of his first jobs will be to choose his cabinet of ministers. He is due to announce a reshuffle of his Fine Gael team – which makes up seven of the 18 seats in the cabinet – on Tuesday.
Harris said last week that some contenders will be “rightly delighted”, while others will “feel a sense of personal disappointment”.
“I will do my very best to use the best judgement that I have in the mandate I’ve been given by this party to put together the best cabinet,” he added.
When he was selected last month, Harris told party’s members that he would repay their faith with “hard work, with blood, sweat and tears, day in and day out, with responsibility, with humility and with civility”.
He also said he would pursue a “more planned and sustainable” immigration policy, following increased tension over the issue, and that he would “fight against the dangers of populism”.
With a reputation for slick communication skills, Harris will also urgently seek to galvanise his struggling party, which lags in polls as key elections loom.
Ireland votes in local and European parliament polls on June 7, while the next general election must be held by March 2025.
Fine Gael slumped to third place at the last general election in 2020, well behind left-wing, nationalist Sinn Fein, which secured the largest share of the vote.
In the last three years, polls have put Sinn Fein, which backs unification with Northern Ireland, a British province, as the preferred choice to lead the next government.
Before Harris, Varadkar was the country’s youngest-ever leader when first elected at age 38, as well as Ireland’s first openly gay prime minister. His mother is Irish and his father is Indian, which also made Varadkar Ireland’s first biracial taoiseach.
In March, Varadkar, 45, said it was the right time for him to step aside. “My reasons for stepping down now are personal and political, but mainly political,” he said without elaborating.
OTTAWA – Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says the NDP is caving to political pressure from Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre when it comes to their stance on the consumer carbon price.
Trudeau says he believes Jagmeet Singh and the NDP care about the environment, but it’s “increasingly obvious” that they have “no idea” what to do about climate change.
On Thursday, Singh said the NDP is working on a plan that wouldn’t put the burden of fighting climate change on the backs of workers, but wouldn’t say if that plan would include a consumer carbon price.
Singh’s noncommittal position comes as the NDP tries to frame itself as a credible alternative to the Conservatives in the next federal election.
Poilievre responded to that by releasing a video, pointing out that the NDP has voted time and again in favour of the Liberals’ carbon price.
British Columbia Premier David Eby also changed his tune on Thursday, promising that a re-elected NDP government would scrap the long-standing carbon tax and shift the burden to “big polluters,” if the federal government dropped its requirements.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
Simon Jolin-Barrette, minister responsible for consumer protection, has tabled a bill to force merchants to calculate tips based on the price before tax.
That means on a restaurant bill of $100, suggested tips would be calculated based on $100, not on $114.98 after provincial and federal sales taxes are added.
The bill would also increase the rebate offered to consumers when the price of an item at the cash register is higher than the shelf price, to $15 from $10.
And it would force grocery stores offering a discounted price for several items to clearly list the unit price as well.
Businesses would also have to indicate whether taxes will be added to the price of food products.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
Quebec legislature member Youri Chassin has announced he’s leaving the Coalition Avenir Québec government to sit as an Independent.
He announced the decision shortly after writing an open letter criticizing Premier François Legault’s government for abandoning its principles of smaller government.
In the letter published in Le Journal de Montréal and Le Journal de Québec, Chassin accused the party of falling back on what he called the old formula of throwing money at problems instead of looking to do things differently.
Chassin says public services are more fragile than ever, despite rising spending that pushed the province to a record $11-billion deficit projected in the last budget.
He is the second CAQ member to leave the party in a little more than one week, after economy and energy minister Pierre Fitzgibbon announced Sept. 4 he would leave because he lost motivation to do his job.
Chassin says he has no intention of joining another party and will instead sit as an Independent until the end of his term.
He has represented the Saint-Jérôme riding since the CAQ rose to power in 2018, but has not served in cabinet.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
