Almost two years after reaching all-time highs in value, Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have faded from prominence in Canadian politics.
They also no longer appear on the public asset disclosure forms of several members of Parliament — including Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, once one of crypto’s most prominent supporters in the political sphere.
The Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner publicizes summaries of disclosures made by all MPs. Those disclosures list assets like cryptocurrency if their value is greater than $10,000. As recently as February, Poilievre disclosed ownership of shares in a Bitcoin exchange-traded fund, Purpose Bitcoin.
But in his most recent disclosure in September, Poilievre no longer lists the asset. The Conservative leader may have sold the shares, or their overall value may have fallen below $10,000, which would eliminate the need to disclose them publicly.
Poilievre’s office did not respond to several requests for comment from CBC News on the leader’s personal holdings or current position on cryptocurrency.
As Poilievre campaigned for the Tory leadership on the way to a landslide victory, he spoke positively about decentralized finance and cryptocurrency. At one point, he argued that crypto would allow Canadians to “opt-out” of inflation, which was soaring at the time. And he famously used Bitcoin to purchase a shawarma at a London, Ont., restaurant in March 2022.
Cryptocurrency assets have also disappeared from the disclosure forms of several other MPs who previously held them, including Conservatives Ben Lobb and Tony Van Bynen and Liberal Chandra Arya (who still holds stock options in cryptoexchange company Coinbase).
A number of MPs do still disclose personal crypto holdings. They include Liberal Joël Lightbound (who chairs a parliamentary committee that studied cryptoassets) and Conservative Ryan Williams.
Pierre Poilievre pays for his order in bitcoin at Tahini’s Mediterranean restaurant in London, Ont., in March 2022. (Pierre Poilievre/Twitter)
Peaking in value in November 2021 at over $80,000, Bitcoin’s price subsequently fell by almost three quarters to just over $21,000 at its lowest point in the last year. It has since rebounded in part, reaching around $48,000 this month.
Experts in cryptocurrency technology and regulation told CBC News that media and political attention in cryptocurrencies tracks closely with the price of the assets. Many cryptocurrencies have surged by around 30 per cent in the past month.
“It happens all the time,” said Jeremy Clark, an associate professor at Concordia University who specializes in blockchain technology. “Price goes up, it’s all over the news. It goes away, then two years later it goes back up.”
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Cryptocurrency broke into the Canadian political mainstream over the past several years.
Mentions of “cryptocurrency” in parliamentary chambers and committees peaked at 279 over 2022 but have since dropped to just 94 in 2023 to date. Most of the references have been made by Liberals, looking to call attention to Poilievre’s previous advocacy. Just recently, the Liberals launched an attack ad on Poilievre, leaning on his Bitcoin stance.
A private member’s bill attempting to encourage growth in the sector, sponsored by Conservative MP Michelle Rempel Garner, was voted down earlier this year.
A parliamentary committee studying the issue delivered a report on the issue in June, arguing crypto had the potential to generate “significant long-term economic and job creation opportunities in Canada.”
But a government response to the study did not commit to following through on its recommendations and instead referred more broadly to existing programs and regulations.
Mariam Humayun, an assistant professor at the University of Ottawa who researches cryptocurrency, said that despite the waning political and media interest, those in the industry continue to develop new technologies and products.
“They’ve been building, despite nobody paying attention to them and media not caring about it or politicians not caring about it,” Humayun said.
In fact, Humayun said, a certain skepticism has emerged in the cryptocurrency community regarding politicians.
“I think a lot of people in the Bitcoin space actually kind of are very wary of politicians, because they sort of see them as fair-weather friends,” she said. “They will embrace these things when everything is great, but then they don’t really talk about it when things are down, right?”
A question of regulation
Without clear direction from governments, responsibility for handling emerging regulatory issues in cryptocurrency has fallen to independent regulators, said Matthew Burgoyne, who co-chairs a specialized digital asset team at the Osler law firm.
Canada’s umbrella regulator, the Canadian Securities Administrators, has published several of what are called “staff notices” on the technology.
“They’re not law. They don’t have the the the force of law,” Burgoyne said. “But what’s happened is most cryptocurrency companies in Canada, primarily trading platforms, have followed staff’s suggestions.” That creates a situation where there’s “de facto” law, he said.
“I think in this environment it’s just important for the federal government to take a stand and I think that would alleviate some confusion,” Burgoyne said.
Conservative candidates take aim at Pierre Poilievre for his stance on bitcoin
Featured VideoConservative leadership candidates Jean Charest and Leslyn Lewis accused Pierre Poilievre of encouraging Canadians to invest in the digital currency.
The last few years also saw some developments on new digital currency technology. The Bank of Canada announced it would review the possibility of a digital Canadian currency, for example.
“My view from the Bank is that they don’t see cryptocurrencies as big enough yet. They’re keeping an eye on it, they’re aware of it, but they don’t see it as a threat to the Canadian dollar,” said Clark.
Clark said that even though the crypto industry is still developing, still deploying new technologies, it suffers from limited mainstream appeal. Most of the activity in the industry was in the financial services sector, he said, with little application to everyday life.
“I think if it doesn’t break out of tools for blockchain people trading blockchain things, ultimately it’s not going to succeed,” he said.
MONTREAL – A Quebec political party has voted to support one of its members facing backlash for saying that racialized people are regularly disparaged at the provincial legislature.
Québec solidaire members adopted an emergency resolution at the party’s convention late Sunday condemning the hate directed at Haroun Bouazzi, without endorsing his comments.
Bouazzi, who represents a Montreal riding, had told a community group that he hears comments every day at the legislature that portray North African, Muslim, Black or Indigenous people as the “other,” and that paint their cultures are dangerous or inferior.
Other political parties have said Bouazzi’s remarks labelled elected officials as racists, and the co-leaders of his own party had rebuked him for his “clumsy and exaggerated” comments.
Bouazzi, who has said he never intended to describe his colleagues as racist, thanked his party for their support and for their commitment to the fight against systemic racism.
Party co-spokesperson Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois said after Sunday’s closed-door debate that he considers the matter to be closed.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 18, 2024.
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Democrats who control both chambers of the Virginia legislature are hoping to make good on promises made on the campaign trail, including becoming the first Southern state to expand constitutional protections for abortion access.
The House Privileges and Elections Committee advanced three proposed constitutional amendments Wednesday, including a measure to protect reproductive rights. Its members also discussed measures to repeal a now-defunct state constitutional ban on same-sex marriage and ways to revise Virginia’s process to restore voting rights for people who served time for felony crimes.
“This meeting was an important next step considering the moment in history we find ourselves in,” Democratic Del. Cia Price, the committee chair, said during a news conference. “We have urgent threats to our freedoms that could impact constituents in all of the districts we serve.”
The at-times raucous meeting will pave the way for the House and Senate to take up the resolutions early next year after lawmakers tabled the measures last January. Democrats previously said the move was standard practice, given that amendments are typically introduced in odd-numbered years. But Republican Minority Leader Todd Gilbert said Wednesday the committee should not have delved into the amendments before next year’s legislative session. He said the resolutions, particularly the abortion amendment, need further vetting.
“No one who is still serving remembers it being done in this way ever,” Gilbert said after the meeting. “Certainly not for something this important. This is as big and weighty an issue as it gets.”
The Democrats’ legislative lineup comes after Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin, to the dismay of voting-rights advocates, rolled back a process to restore people’s civil rights after they completed sentences for felonies. Virginia is the only state that permanently bans anyone convicted of a felony from voting unless a governor restores their rights.
“This amendment creates a process that is bounded by transparent rules and criteria that will apply to everybody — it’s not left to the discretion of a single individual,” Del. Elizabeth Bennett-Parker, the patron of the voting rights resolution, which passed along party lines, said at the news conference.
Though Democrats have sparred with the governor over their legislative agenda, constitutional amendments put forth by lawmakers do not require his signature, allowing the Democrat-led House and Senate to bypass Youngkin’s blessing.
Instead, the General Assembly must pass proposed amendments twice in at least two years, with a legislative election sandwiched between each statehouse session. After that, the public can vote by referendum on the issues. The cumbersome process will likely hinge upon the success of all three amendments on Democrats’ ability to preserve their edge in the House and Senate, where they hold razor-thin majorities.
It’s not the first time lawmakers have attempted to champion the three amendments. Republicans in a House subcommittee killed a constitutional amendment to restore voting rights in 2022, a year after the measure passed in a Democrat-led House. The same subcommittee also struck down legislation supporting a constitutional amendment to repeal an amendment from 2006 banning marriage equality.
On Wednesday, a bipartisan group of lawmakers voted 16-5 in favor of legislation protecting same-sex marriage, with four Republicans supporting the resolution.
“To say the least, voters enacted this (amendment) in 2006, and we have had 100,000 voters a year become of voting age since then,” said Del. Mark Sickles, who sponsored the amendment as one of the first openly gay men serving in the General Assembly. “Many people have changed their opinions of this as the years have passed.”
A constitutional amendment protecting abortion previously passed the Senate in 2023 but died in a Republican-led House. On Wednesday, the amendment passed on party lines.
If successful, the resolution proposed by House Majority Leader Charniele Herring would be part of a growing trend of reproductive rights-related ballot questions given to voters. Since 2022, 18 questions have gone before voters across the U.S., and they have sided with abortion rights advocates 14 times.
The voters have approved constitutional amendments ensuring the right to abortion until fetal viability in nine states: Arizona, California, Colorado, Maryland, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, Ohio and Vermont. Voters also passed a right-to-abortion measure in Nevada in 2024, but it must be passed again in 2026 to be added to the state constitution.
As lawmakers debated the measure, roughly 18 members spoke. Mercedes Perkins, at 38 weeks pregnant, described the importance of women making decisions about their own bodies. Rhea Simon, another Virginia resident, anecdotally described how reproductive health care shaped her life.
Then all at once, more than 50 people lined up to speak against the abortion amendment.
“Let’s do the compassionate thing and care for mothers and all unborn children,” resident Sheila Furey said.
The audience gave a collective “Amen,” followed by a round of applause.
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Associated Press writer Geoff Mulvihill in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, contributed to this report.
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Olivia Diaz is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative.
NEW YORK (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump says he will nominate anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, putting him in charge of a massive agency that oversees everything from drug, vaccine and food safety to medical research and the social safety net programs Medicare and Medicaid.
“For too long, Americans have been crushed by the industrial food complex and drug companies who have engaged in deception, misinformation, and disinformation when it comes to Public Health,” Trump said in a post on his Truth Social site announcing the appointment. Kennedy, he said, would “Make America Great and Healthy Again!”
Kennedy, a former Democrat who ran as an independent in this year’s presidential race, abandoned his bid after striking a deal to give Trump his endorsement with a promise to have a role in health policy in the administration.
He and Trump have since become good friends, with Kennedy frequently receiving loud applause at Trump’s rallies.
The expected appointment was first reported by Politico Thursday.
A longtime vaccine skeptic, Kennedy is an attorney who has built a loyal following over several decades of people who admire his lawsuits against major pesticide and pharmaceutical companies. He has pushed for tighter regulations around the ingredients in foods.
With the Trump campaign, he worked to shore up support among young mothers in particular, with his message of making food healthier in the U.S., promising to model regulations imposed in Europe. In a nod to Trump’s original campaign slogan, he named the effort “Make America Healthy Again.”
It remains unclear how that will square with Trump’s history of deregulation of big industries, including food. Trump pushed for fewer inspections of the meat industry, for example.
Kennedy’s stance on vaccines has also made him a controversial figure among Democrats and some Republicans, raising question about his ability to get confirmed, even in a GOP-controlled Senate. Kennedy has espoused misinformation around the safety of vaccines, including pushing a totally discredited theory that childhood vaccines cause autism.
He also has said he would recommend removing fluoride from drinking water. The addition of the material has been cited as leading to improved dental health.
HHS has more than 80,000 employees across the country. It houses the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Medicare and Medicaid programs and the National Institutes of Health.
Kennedy’s anti-vaccine nonprofit group, Children’s Health Defense, currently has a lawsuit pending against a number of news organizations, among them The Associated Press, accusing them of violating antitrust laws by taking action to identify misinformation, including about COVID-19 and COVID-19 vaccines. Kennedy took leave from the group when he announced his run for president but is listed as one of its attorneys in the lawsuit.
