Federal Government: 1)PM looks at when to boost immigration as government gets system ‘under control’; 2)Carney says he has no plans to apply further trade pressure as U.S. midterms approach; 3)Carney reflects on ‘dark chapter’ at Truth and Reconciliation ceremony in Edmonton;4)(Update) Carney gives Alberta pipeline special interest designation, to be called Pacific Link
1)PM looks at when to boost immigration as government gets system ‘under control’
Courtesy Barrie360.com and Canadian Press
By David Baxter, September 29, 2026
Prime Minister Mark Carney says that with Canada’s immigration system back under control, the question now is when to begin a “controlled increase” of the country’s population.
“Now the question starts to become, when do we resume some controlled increase in the population, which is the nature of Canada?” Carney told the New York Times.
“So that will happen, and we just want to make sure that we’ve got it under control.”
Carney made the remark in a recent interview with the New York Times, just over a month before the government is required by law to release its immigration levels plan for the next three years.
Carney said in July the government had “taken back control” of the immigration system after rapid population growth under the government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
A spokesperson for Immigration Minister Lena Diab’s office said the prime minister cited significant declines in the number of new student and temporary worker arrivals in his interview.
The spokesperson also pointed to an October 2025 TD Bank report that suggested reduced immigration is easing housing market pressure, and to a Statistics Canada report tracking low population growth.
When asked if the government is planning any increase this year, the spokesperson said the 2027-2029 immigration levels plan will “ensure immigration remains at sustainable levels.”
That plan must be published by law by Nov. 1, with a grace period if that date doesn’t fall on a parliamentary sitting day. The deadline falls on a Sunday this year.
Conservative immigration critic Michelle Rempel Garner said now is not the time to plan for more immigration.
“Immigration levels need to go down, not up,” she said on social media.
The government had planned to increase the number of permanent residents being admitted to Canada annually to 500,000. It changed course with the 2024/25 immigration plan and started reducing the intake.
The government also began capping the number of temporary workers and students being admitted to Canada after it said major increases in those populations had contributed to strains on the housing and job markets, health care and other services.
The government has set a goal of reducing the temporary resident population to five per cent of the total population by the end of next year.
The most recent immigration levels plan called for 385,000 permanent resident admissions this year and 370,000 in both 2027 and 2028.
The government did introduce two temporary measures to welcome about 148,000 more permanent residents over the next two years that are not counted in the broader plan.
The C.D. Howe Institute’s immigration targets council recommends the government continue to reduce the number of arrivals over the next three years. The council recommends admitting 380,000 permanent residents next year, 350,000 in 2028 and 340,000 in 2029.
Parisa Mahboubi, the council’s chair, said it would be better for planning if Canada admitted immigrants at a steady rate, linked to a target percentage of population, instead of changing the plan every few years. She said those periodic shifts in immigration policy led to the government admitting “more than what Canada could absorb.”
She said a sign of a balanced immigration system would be the government no longer having to reduce the intake of temporary immigrants.
The council includes several top academics who study immigration policy, a Trudeau-era deputy minister and former Alberta premier Jason Kenney.
Mikal Skuterud, an economics professor at the University of Waterloo and C.D. Howe panel member, said the panel is still recommending historically high immigration rates at around 0.9 per cent of the population.
Carney told the New York Times Canada’s GDP is shrinking due to limited population growth. Statistics Canada estimated 0.5 per cent population growth year-over year as of July 1.
Skuterud cautioned Carney against listening too closely to “the business lobby” and said his government shouldn’t address a “tight labour market” with immigration.
“Businesses have to compete for scarce labour. And how do they compete? Well, they’ve got to offer higher wages to compete, or more attractive jobs more generally,” he said.
“I worry that Mark Carney, because the business lobby is going to pressure him … that the lobbying from them is going to cause him to make the same mistakes the previous governments have done, that he’s going to see immigration as a solution for businesses. And that’s a problem.”
The council also says it “strongly recommends” the government track all permanent resident admissions through a single target number to clearly indicate how many people it plans to admit in a given year.
It also recommends the government treat the five per cent target for the temporary resident population as a ceiling. It says the goal should be to reduce the number of temporary residents to three per cent of the population.
Statistics Canada estimates non-permanent residents accounted for 6.7 per cent of the population as of July 1.
Skuterud said this suggests the government is going to have a hard time meeting its goal of shrinking that population to five per cent of the total population by the end of next year.
Mahboubi said it’s hard to accurately estimate the non-permanent resident population because of limited exit tracking and the fact that some people overstay their visas or become permanent residents.
2)Carney says he has no plans to apply further trade pressure as U.S. midterms approach
Courtesy Barrie360.com and Canadian Press
By Kelly Geraldine Malone, September 29, 2026
Prime Minister Mark Carney said Tuesday he has no plans to apply new trade pressure on the U.S. as Americans prepare for crucial midterm elections that could end Republican control of Congress.
Speaking with reporters at a news conference in Vancouver on Tuesday, Carney said Canada has no intention of escalating the trade war, although he noted he never rules anything out.
“Our timing isn’t dictated by any specific aspect of the U.S. calendar,” Carney said.
“The reality is the cost of living is very high in the United States and there’s things Canada can do to help lower that cost of living.”
U.S. President Donald Trump has said he plans to spend the next month campaigning in the lead-up to the midterms in states he sees as crucial battlegrounds. He’s expected this week to campaign in the Republican strongholds of Oklahoma, Alabama and Ohio.
Carney’s comments came hours after Trump stepped up the cross-border trade war as his outright bans on imports of certain Canadian goods took effect. That hit the brakes on new shipments of most Canadian-made booze, dairy byproducts and some motorcycles.
One of Trump’s trade advisers, Peter Navarro, warned Ottawa against interfering in the midterms Tuesday and berated Canada over its successful lobbying efforts in the past.
Speaking at the American Growth Summit in Washington, he told the audience that any Canadians in the room intent on lobbying the U.S. government should “get the hell out of our country.”
“The problem you have is you lobby this country, and you’ve been successful in the past and you think you can keep doing that. Memo to Canada: You cannot keep doing that,” Navarro said.
“That game is up and if you interfere in our elections in Maine or Michigan, you will pay even more dearly.”
When Carney was asked about Trump’s recent claim that Canada will apologize to his administration in order to secure a deal in the next few weeks, the prime minister laughed.
Carney said he would take note of Trump’s and Navarro’s comments but would not respond to either.
“It continues to be the case that Canada stands ready to negotiate in good faith,” Carney said.
Canada-U.S. Trade Minister Dominic LeBlanc directly dismissed Trump’s claim.
“I’m not thinking the government of Canada is going to apologize for standing up for Canadian workers, Canadian businesses, defending our economy,” he said Tuesday, answering questions from reporters at an unrelated announcement in New Brunswick.
LeBlanc said the U.S. government “decided to apply a series of tariffs that violated the trade agreement” Trump’s first administration signed just six years ago. He said Canada will do what it must to support and protect its workers and businesses.
Trump said Monday he expects Canada to return to the negotiating table in the coming weeks with an apology.
“I think what’s going to happen is over the next three or four weeks, they’re going to come to us and they’re gonna say, ‘We’re gonna get rid of all the tariffs,'” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.
“We’re going to win everything.”
Tuesday’s import bans, which kicked in at 12:01 a.m. Tuesday, bar Canadian exports of about three dozen different alcohol products, including beer, wine and spirits such as whiskies, vodka and gin. They also apply to different whey products, some types of molasses, non-alcoholic beer and some motorcycles.
BRP Inc. in Quebec confirmed that its three-wheel Can-Am Spyder and Canyon motorcycles “will be excluded from importation into the U.S.” But BRP said the impact likely won’t be felt until next year because it has completed most production and shipments for the current season.
Jacob Jensen, director of trade policy at the centre-right American Action Forum think tank, calculates the ban will cover US$967 million worth of Canadian imports, based on 2025 numbers.
Of that, 87 per cent would be alcoholic beverages the U.S. targeted because some Canadian provinces responded to Trump’s provocations by banning U.S. booze from store shelves.
The trade restrictions could prove devastating for the affected industries but are unlikely to significantly undermine Canada’s overall economic growth in the near term.
They follow the trade war ratcheting up in August, when Carney suspended talks and summoned LeBlanc and his negotiating team home from Washington.
Both countries accused each other of adding eleventh-hour changes to the agreement. U.S. tariffs hit $28 billion in Canadian goods the next day, followed on Sept. 8 by Canadian retaliatory tariffs targeting the same amount of American exports.
Since then, Trump signed an order directing some federal agencies to remove Canadian goods from procurement lists, and another to change the name of Lake Ontario to Lake America. That move does not affect the lake’s name in Canada.
LeBlanc said Tuesday detailed trade talks are not happening but officials from both countries are still in contact.
“If the prime minister concludes at some point that there’s a deal possible that protects the sovereignty of our country, that would be in the economic interests of the country, then we would obviously be in a position to have that conversation,” he said.
— With files from Daniel Johnson in Toronto, Kyle Duggan in Ottawa and The Associated Press
3)Carney reflects on ‘dark chapter’ at Truth and Reconciliation ceremony in Edmonton
Courtesy Barrie360.com and Canadian Press
By Daniela Germano, September 30, 2026
Prime Minister Mark Carney came home to Alberta’s capital Wednesday to meet with First Nations leaders and families and honour the children who suffered and endured in Canada’s residential schools.
“Today is about all the truth,” Carney said in a speech Wednesday morning at Fort Edmonton Park in the city’s river valley near downtown.
“And it’s for the children. Those children. Those survivors. Those who didn’t survive.”
Wednesday was the sixth annual National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. The day is a sombre remembrance of 150,000 Indigenous children who suffered malnutrition and abuse over decades in Canada’s residential school system.
In 2015, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission concluded the schools were central to a state-backed policy of cultural genocide.
In Edmonton on Wednesday, dozens of people gathered at Fort Edmonton Park with bright orange shirts, the symbol for the children who attended residential schools, dotting the crowd. Many had bannock and sipped on warm beverages on the chilly autumn morning.
Carney, who was born in the Northwest Territories and raised in Edmonton, recalled in his speech the numerous visits to Fort Edmonton in his youth.
Before his speech, he entered the ceremony area flanked by Treaty 6 chiefs marching to the beat of drums and dressed in traditional attire. Alberta Lt.-Gov. Salma Lakhani also spoke and federal Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre was also present.
Carney said the ceremony urged everyone to hear the stories of those affected by the residential school system and “reflect on a dark chapter in Canada’s past and to commit to move forward together.”
“This is not a distant chapter in Canada’s past, but a truth that endures,” said Carney, who wore an orange tie and a pin of a beaded orange T-shirt on his lapel.
“Reconciliation is a journey, not a destination. It’s an attitude, not an achievement. Our job is to move together as far and as fast down the path as we can.”
Treaty 6 Grand Chief George Arcand Jr. said healing is especially important.
“We can’t have reconciliation without truth — a truth that First Nations know so well can be difficult and we see it rejected, replaced with opinion and misinformation,” he told the crowd.
“Untruths about Canada’s past stand directly in the way of healing our relationship and moving forward in a good way.”
Andrea Sandmaier, president of the Otipemisiwak Métis government, said truth and reconciliation isn’t just for one day of the year.
“Despite the progress that has been made, there are still people out there across Canada, in our very own communities, who refuse to listen to those truths, who deny the undeniable,” she said.
“This is not new to Indigenous people. It is something we have experienced for generations.”
Sandmaier urged non-Indigenous people who see residential school denialism in person or online to “call it out.”
“Do not let misinformation and racism spread unchecked through our communities.”
4)(Update) Carney gives Alberta pipeline special interest designation, to be called Pacific Link
Courtesy Barrie360.com and Canadian Press
By Fakiha Baig, October 1, 2026
A pipeline to haul Alberta oil to tankers on the B.C. coast took a big step forward Thursday.
Prime Minster Mark Carney, with Alberta Premier Danielle Smith at his side, announced the line – to be known as Pacific Link — is the first project to receive national interest designation under the Building Canada Act.
The designation doesn’t mean the line is a done deal, but it streamlines and simplifies rules, timelines and oversight to help make it a reality.
The goal is to get consultations, environmental safeguards, financing and Indigenous partnerships completed by Sept. 1, 2027, to clear the way for construction to begin.
“This is an important day for Alberta and for Canada,” Carney announced in the oilsands hub of Fort McMurray.
“Canada is working.”
The project, estimated at between $35 billion and $44 billion, is to be split among Trans Mountain Corp., which is a federal Crown corporation, and the Alberta government. Indigenous communities will be offered a minimum of 10 per cent ownership interest, financed through federal and province loan programs.
Pembina Pipeline Corporation is offering its expertise to project development as a private sector investor.
The roughly 1,250-kilometre pipeline would carry upwards of one million barrels of crude oil per day from Bruderheim, Alta., to a port near Delta, B.C., for shipment to international markets.
“A pipeline to the West Coast is part of our mission to transform our economy to double our non-U.S. exports over the next decade,” Carney said. The goal is “to unlock the full potential of Canada as a global energy superpower.”
“Today, 90 per cent of Alberta’s oil goes to the U.S.,” he said.
“Pacific Link will materially reduce that dependence by allowing us to export an additional one million barrels a day to growing markets in Asia.
The line has also been cited by both Ottawa and Alberta as a symbol of the power of pan-Canadian co-operation, as the province heads toward a referendum in 18 days on whether it’s time to quit Canada.
The symbolism was written on the lectern from which Carney and Smith spoke: Canada Strong for All.
Smith said the pipeline means the days of federal-provincial head-butting over Alberta developing its resources are over.
“Today, we’re turning the page,” Smith said.
The Building Canada Act, passed more than a year ago, gives Ottawa the power to issue special conditions for projects covering a dozen federal laws in order to help them proceed.
It has been a yearlong process that began last November, when Ottawa and Alberta signed an energy pact committing the federal government to declare a pipeline from Alberta to the West Coast a project in the national interest.
Industry watchers say it’s a fragile process, dependent on chicken-and-egg calculations: oilsands production won’t ramp up unless there’s a new pipeline, but no one wants to build a new pipeline unless they’re assured of ramped-up oilsands production.
Lance Mortlock, managing partner at EY Canada, said that in recent years producers have shied away from big-ticket investments in part because of shortage of pipeline capacity.
“My sense is they’ve been waiting to see if some of the conditions start to change,” Mortlock said.
“And now the work is beginning at some of these oilsands companies to say, ‘Well, what does that look like? What kind of assets would we develop? How big would we develop them? What’s the sequencing of those assets?’”
Industry has welcomed Ottawa’s moves to simplify the regulatory process, roll back Trudeau-era environmental policies and beef up tax incentives for new investments. Smaller scale, shorter-term pipeline expansion projects to the U.S. and West Coast are in the works.
Thursday’s declaration is the second major energy announcement this week. On Tuesday, the partners behind the LNG Canada natural gas export facility in Kitimat, B.C., gave the green light to an expansion that would double capacity.
The Alberta pipeline announcement is also about politics.
On Oct. 19, Albertans go to the polls to vote on whether the province should stay in Confederation or hold a second, binding referendum on beginning the process to separate.
Smith has held up the new pipeline as a tangible example of how Canada can work and why Albertans need to vote with her to stay.
Recent public surveys indicate strong majority to keep Alberta in Canada.
Smith has championed staying, but critics say it’s not about that. They say her referendum is a duplicitous double game, designed to stay onside with mainstream Albertans while placating rebellious separatists in her governing United Conservative Party.
The premier spoke about her commitment at the lectern Thursday, saying again she’s voting for Alberta to stay in Canada.
“And I’ve been doing as many speeches and public appearances and coffee parties as I can to convince more and more Albertans to do the same.
Smith said a recent poll suggests about 22 per cent want to separate. But that number is “still too high for my liking.”
— With files from Nick Wells in Ottawa, Lauren Krugel and Dayne Patterson in Calgary and Daniel Johnson in Toronto