Playbook Canada

Cowboy hats, cowboy boots and big buckles: Nick Taylor-Vaisey and Mickey Djuric record on location at the Calgary Stampede, where this year’s celebrations are politically charged amid sharp grievances. One test to be decided: Can a pipeline soothe a separatist mood? Plus, Calgary Liberal MP Corey Hogan sits down for a 200-second interview.

A new POLITICO international poll finds voters everywhere fed up with their incumbents. Not in Canada. Nick Taylor-Vaisey and Mickey Djuric talk to Seb Wride of Public First about why Mark Carney is bucking the trend, why Canadians are loving the flag again after years of treating it as a loaded symbol, and why Albertans rank among the proudest Canadians in the poll, separatism aside. Plus: listen...

A special summer edition of Playbook Canada: Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen, fresh off flying around the moon on Artemis II, joins Nick Taylor-Vaisey and Mickey Djuric for a five-chapter conversation. He talks about why a first pitch at the Rogers Centre rattled him more than a rocket launch, the triple play he wants Canada chasing in the next era of space exploration, whether he’d ever run for...

Mark Carney went from the candidate nobody thought could win to majority prime minister in little more than a year. A new POLITICO Magazine feature co-authored by our own Nick Taylor-Vaisey traces how he pulled it off. Nick and Mickey Djuric run through Carney’s unlikely rise to power, while guest host Alex Burns explains how Washington reads, and misreads, his rise. Plus: Bill C-22, the Liberals’...

Pierre Poilievre skips the governor general's installation and heads to Calgary with a new pitch: project hope, not project fear. Nick Taylor-Vaisey and Mickey Djuric break down his bid to talk Alberta separatists out of leaving, and what it means for a Conservative leader who spent years calling Canada broken. Plus, Justin Trudeau works a red carpet with Katy Perry, and Mark Carney heads to his a...

The recession debate has taken over Parliament Hill, and Pierre Poilievre wants Mark Carney to wear it. Nick Taylor-Vaisey and Mickey Djuric dissect the fight over the exact meaning of two quarters of negative growth. The Liberals move to reverse a rule forcing US streaming giants to fund Canadian content, one day after Dominic LeBlanc met Trump's trade rep in Washington. Plus a look inside the Se...

A special edition of Playbook Canada: Google chief economist Fabien Curto Millet was in Toronto for Tech Week, and he sat down for a conversation that ran well past our usual 200 seconds. He makes the economic case for AI as the one force that could pull Canada out of two decades of sluggish productivity and offset the drag of an aging population. But he warns that Canada and the U.S. sit at the b...

Steven Guilbeault resigns from the Liberal caucus over the government's diluted climate plans — and he's not alone, with 14 Liberal MPs signing an anonymous letter criticizing the Alberta pipeline deal. Mark Carney lands in New York City to pitch Wall Street investors on Canada, and CANSEC is back in Ottawa, bigger and thirstier than ever, as the defense industry descends on the capital.

Little irritants are piling up ahead of the July 1 USMCA deadline: a suspended defense board, revived potato tensions, mushrooms duties and renewed attacks on the Online Streaming Act. Nick Taylor-Vaisey and Mickey Djuric unpack the friction. POLITICO’s Anne McElvoy joins to discuss her interview with Chrystia Freeland in Europe, including a Mark Carney nickname and a “lubricious” dinner from thei...

A grand bargain between Ottawa and Edmonton appears to be taking shape, and details leaking out of Alberta connect carbon, pipelines and national unity. As Carney's Cabinet turns one, insiders are whispering about who should go. And finally, the first time Ottawa faced a separatist threat, they wrote it all down. What 50-year-old Cabinet minutes tell us about today's national unity battles.

U.S. Ambassador Pete Hoekstra pulls back the curtain on why Canada-U.S. trade talks fell apart in October: Danielle Smith keynotes the Canada Strong and Free conference in Ottawa, and the separatism question walks in with her: The childcare agreements that helped define the Trudeau era are coming up for renewal. Carney keeps citing them. Now he has to fund them.

A decision on 24 Sussex is coming, raising questions about where Mark Carney will end up living: The Spring Economic Update was called boring, but buried inside it is a political play targeting voters Poilievre thought were his. And finally, the Hill has a new energy this week, but it's not flowing in the Conservatives' direction.

On this special edition, Nick Taylor-Vaisey and Mickey Djuric speak with Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne ahead of the release of his Spring Economic Update. They press him on how the government plans to attract investment in a time of global uncertainty, and find out how it is balancing fiscal prudence with mounting economic pressures. And finally, the most contentious question of all...

Mark Carney and Pierre Poilievre take their rivalry off the Hill and onto YouTube. Nick Taylor-Vaisey and Mickey Djuric explore what it means when the House of Commons stops being the main event: The Carney government has a hushed approach to trade talks. What the silence signals, and how long it can hold: And finally, Canada is the only G7 country that can't put a payload into orbit. A new bill a...

Reaction to the Liberal majority ripples through the Conservative caucus as Nick Taylor-Vaisey and Mickey Djuric dig into what the result means inside the opposition benches. Carney and Poilievre present duelling policies for high gas prices — each with its own gloss on tax relief at the pump. Finally, an international bromance blossoms. Mark Carney and Finnish President Alexander Stubb put their...

POLITICO's Nick Taylor-Vaisey and Calder McHugh break down the latest Ottawa bombshell, as another Conservative MP crosses the floor to join Mark Carney’s Liberals ahead of the party’s convention in Montreal. Plus, a closer look at the Liberal mood on the ground as delegates gather for a high-energy weekend. Finally, what the U.S.-Iran ceasefire could mean next, including the potential fallout on ...

Hosts Nick Taylor-Vaisey and Mickey Djuric examine the latest developments in Canada’s deepening trade relationship with China, with Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne and executives courting business in Beijing. Plus, a closer look at the Conservatives’ shift against high-speed rail. Finally, reflections on the life and legacy of NDP icon Stephen Lewis.  

POLITICO’s Deborah Kahn joins from CERAWeek in Houston to unpack Canada’s latest pitch to the global energy market with hosts Nick Taylor-Vaisey and Mickey Djuric. Then, as the NDP prepares to elect a new leader, Nick and Mickey dig into a race defined more by low energy than momentum, and Mickey speaks one on one with one of the front-runners, Edmonton MP Heather McPherson. Finally, the pair digs...

Hosts Mickey Djuric and Nick Taylor-Vaisey invite “China watcher” Phelim Kine to the show to discuss a stunning new POLITICO poll. The survey of thousands of people in Canada, Germany, France, the U.K., and the United States revealed how people around the world really feel about MAGA — and what is happening as a result. Speaking of polls: Will Carney’s soaring popularity hold? We discuss. Plus, Mi...

Co-hosts Nick Taylor-Vaisey and Mickey Djuric talk through the latest floor crosser, Lori Idlout, who abandoned Canada's progressive party this week to join the Liberals. Nick reflects on his recent trip to Washington and his conversation with U.S. Sen. Kevin Cramer. Plus, Conservative MP Shuvaloy Majumdar joins for the 200-second interview.

Co-hosts Nick Taylor-Vaisey and Mickey Djuric dig into the prime minister's latest thoughts on the strikes in the Middle East. Pierre Poilievre takes his first trip abroad as opposition leader and offers his best rebrand yet. And Manitoba's man in Washington, Richard Madan, joins the show. 

Co-hosts Nick Taylor-Vaisey and Mickey Djuric break down Prime Minister Mark Carney’s latest global tour, starting with a politically delicate reset in India, followed by stops in Australia and Japan as Ottawa looks to diversify trade beyond the U.S. Plus: the Liberal government ramps up pressure on OpenAI over AI safety after the Tumbler Ridge shooting revelations. And Finance Committee Chair Kar...

A new POLITICO/Public First poll finds what one pollster calls “a sort of unrequited hatred” shaping the Canada-U.S. relationship, with Canadians increasingly skeptical of Washington even as Americans maintain a warmer view of their northern neighbor. Meanwhile in Ottawa, another Conservative floor crosser shifts the balance in the House and revives fresh election speculation around Mark Carney’s...

Secretary of State for Sport Adam van Koeverden joins Playbook Canada from the Winter Olympics in Milano Cortina, where he’s watching Team Canada compete and looking ahead to a potential Canada–U.S. hockey showdown. But back home, the mood shifts dramatically as news of a mass shooting in Tumbler Ridge, B.C., brings Parliament to a halt and forces Prime Minister Mark Carney to confront a national...

It’s been referred to as “Harperpalooza” in Ottawa this week: a prolonged celebration of the 20th anniversary of Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s first election victory. Conservatives celebrated past glories at reunions and a swanky gala, but present-day obstacles loom.   On this episode of the Playbook Canada podcast, co-hosts Nick Taylor-Vaisey and Mickey Djuric examine how Pierre Poilievre’s Con...