Playbook Canada

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 their Kyiv days. Plus, Steve Outhouse replaces Ian Todd as Pierre Poilievre’s chief of staff, and former Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole sits down for a 200-second interview.

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: What color apple is best?