OTTAWA — Voting has ended in the Conservative party’s leadership election — but its members still need to wait until Saturday to find out who their next leader is.
Ballots had to be received by a deadline of 5 p.m. on Tuesday in order to be processed, validated and counted in time for this weekend’s announcement.
The party is using a ranked-ballot system to choose its next permanent leader among five hopefuls: Pierre Poilievre, Jean Charest, Leslyn Lewis, Scott Aitchison and Roman Baber.
With Patrick Brown’s name still on the list despite his disqualification in July, the party says anyone who puts him first on their ballot will see their vote transferred automatically to their second choice.
Whoever wins will become the fourth permanent leader of the party, after Stephen Harper, Andrew Scheer and Erin O’Toole.
Candice Bergen, who took over the role of interim leader after O’Toole’s ouster in February, announced Tuesday that she won’t be running in the next federal election.
The 57-year-old was first elected in 2008 in Manitoba’s Portage-Lisgar riding.
She was a parliamentary secretary to the minister of public safety and minister of state for social development in Harper’s government.
She was named Conservative House leader in 2016 and became the party’s deputy leader in 2020 under O’Toole.
Bergen says she will stay on as member of Parliament in the immediate future and is looking forward to embracing new opportunities.
“I will wholeheartedly be supporting whoever takes my place as leader after Sept. 10,” Bergen said in a statement. “I’m incredibly optimistic about the future of the Conservative movement in Canada.”
The next leader will be announced Saturday at a convention centre in downtown Ottawa.
The party settled on a points-based system to ensure regional representation in the result.
Points are divided across Canada’s 338 electoral districts, each of which gets as many points as it has party members, up to a maximum of 100 points. Point totals are calculated based on candidates’ percentage of the vote in each riding.
If nobody gets more than 50 per cent in the first round, whoever has the fewest points will drop off the ballot. People who selected that candidate as their first choice will see their votes transferred to their second choice. The process could be repeated up to three times.
Last week, the party said that it already received ballots from more than half of the 678,000 members eligible to vote.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 6, 2022.
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.
