Federal Parties: 1) All opposition parties support changes to Indian Act status, Liberals say not yet; 2)Politics, trade on tap for Poilievre during trip to U.K. and Germany; 3) Poilievre calls for all-party working group on renewing trade deal with U.S.

1) All opposition parties support changes to Indian Act status, Liberals say not yet

Courtesy Barrie360.com and Canadian Press

By Alessia Passafiume, Feb. 27, 2026

All four opposition parties in the House of Commons are backing legislation to change status rules in the Indian Act to end what is known as the second-generation cutoff.

But the Liberals say while they support changes to registration eligibility, more consultations with First Nations are needed before the law is amended.

Bill S-2, introduced in the Senate with support from the Liberals, initially sought to restore First Nations status to some 3,500 individuals, whose ancestors had lost status before 1985 due to laws that meant you could not maintain status if you wanted to vote in federal elections or own property.

That law was amended in 1985, but by then thousands of individuals had already lost their status. Because First Nations Status is passed down from generation to generation, their descendants were not given status.

S-2 sought to fix that.

But the 1985 changes also introduced new limits preventing the transfer of status to a person who has at least one grandparent and one parent who don’t have status, a rule known as the second-generation cutoff. That rule meant the knock-on effects of those who lost status due to the pre-1985 law, were even broader.

After hearing weeks of testimony from First Nations leaders, senators broadened the bill to end that cutoff as well. The amended bill would allow status to be passed on to children as long as at least one of their parents is registered.

Some chiefs say if that status cutoff is not changed, it could leave their communities with no federally recognized members in the next generation — essentially eliminating their rights as a distinct people.

The Assembly of First Nations passed a resolution in December supporting the Senate’s changes and calling on Ottawa to commit to increased funding to offset the cost to their communities of absorbing new members. Several resolutions from previous AFN gatherings have also called for the end of the second-generation cutoff.

The Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs said it has consulted with the federal government on the issue for decades and accused the Liberals of using consultations as a delaying tactic.

MP Billy Morin, the Conservative critic for Indigenous Services, said in a speech Friday in the House of Commons the legislation gives Parliament a unique opportunity to broaden eligibility requirements without First Nations leaders going to court. He said the Liberals should support the changes proposed by the Senate.

“The Senate has rightfully challenged the 45th Parliament of Canada to make history with this bill,” said Morin, who previously served as chief of Enoch Cree Nation.

Morin said changes to eligibility requirements would add approximately 22,000 people to the Indian Act registry in the first year, and between 7,000 and 8,000 people per year for the next 30 to 40 years.

“The government chooses to focus on excuses, but the risk of doing nothing is greater. We have a chance now to change the narrative,” he said. “The government can be proactive in reconciliation by doing the right thing now, before going through long, costly litigation again to end sex discrimination in the Indian Act.”

NDP MP Lori Idlout criticized the federal government over what she called its unbalanced approach to consultation. She said that when the government wants to pass legislation — like the major projects legislation C-5 last year — it has no qualms about violating the rights of Indigenous Peoples.

“Now, in S-2, the Liberals want to do consultations on how to remedy this issue, stating there are a range of potential pathways. All of a sudden they worry about whether S-2 would be Charter-compliant,” Idlout said. “I call on them to use the same pace they did in C-5 to expedite the passage of this bill.”

Idlout also called for discussions with First Nations on how they want to move forward with their own membership lists outside the Indian Act.

Indigenous Services Minister Mandy Gull-Masty has signalled for months her government is looking to address the second-generation cutoff, but not through the changes to S-2 made by senators.

Speaking in the House of Commons on Friday, Gull-Masty said that as a First Nations woman she knows the harm caused by Indian Act status rules. She said the 3,500 people covered under the legislation she backed before the Senate amendments can’t wait any longer for their rights to be recognized.

“The second generation cutoff, this is a critical issue that must be addressed the right way,” she said.

“The question is not how we will do it, but it is when we will do it. We need to follow the lead of community to ensure that the solutions we bring forward are not only supported by community, but have consensus of rights-holders.”

2)Politics, trade on tap for Poilievre during trip to U.K. and Germany

Courtesy Barrie360.com and Canadian Press

By Canadian Press Staff, Feb. 27, 2026.

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is planning his first official international trip as opposition leader next week, with plans to meet with parliamentary colleagues and business leaders in both London and Germany.

The trip comes just after he outlined his vision for Canada’s relationship with the United States, at a speech in Toronto on Thursday.

A press release listing Poilievre’s itinerary says the goal of the trip is to “reinforce and strengthen” business and diplomatic ties.

The itinerary shows Poilievre is set to meet with British MPs and members of the business community in London on Monday and Tuesday.

The Conservative leader is also scheduled to attend a CANZUK reception on Monday evening. CANZUK International is a body that promotes closer ties on trade, migration and foreign policy between Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom.

He will conclude his time in London by delivering the Margaret Thatcher Lecture at the Centre for Policy Studies on Tuesday.

Poilievre’s office would not say at this point who exactly the Conservative leader is meeting with during the trip.

Poilievre heads to Berlin on Wednesday, where he will speak on the transatlantic relationship at the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, which is associated with the governing Christian Democratic Union.

He will also visit the port of Hamburg and a liquefied natural gas facility at the Jade-Wesser port on the North Sea coast.

Poilievre is expected to return to Canada next Sunday. The Conservative party says it is paying for the entire trip.

On Thursday Poilievre delivered a speech to the Economic Club of Canada in Toronto Thursday in which he directly denounced U.S. President Donald Trump’s rhetoric on Canada and insisted on a stable relationship with the United States.

The speech also touched briefly on policies and trade with other countries, including India and China.

—With files from Sarah Ritchie.

3) Poilievre calls for all-party working group on renewing trade deal with U.S.

Courtesy Barrie360.com and Canadian Press

By Sarah Ritchie, Feb. 26, 2026.

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre laid out his vision for the Canada-U.S. relationship on Thursday, directly denouncing U.S. President Donald Trump’s rhetoric about Canada while insisting on a stable relationship with our southern neighbour.

“The lesson in this moment is simple: the path to sovereignty is focusing relentlessly on what is within our power,” Poilievre said in a speech at the Economic Club of Canada in Toronto.

Poilievre called for the creation of an all-party working group on the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement on trade as the two countries begin a review of the deal.

He pledged to work with the Liberal government, while noting the Official Opposition has “a constitutional and patriotic duty to scrutinize the government.”

The Conservative leader did find common ground with the Liberals on Thursday, at least rhetorically.

A central theme of his speech was control. “We must divide the problem into what we control and what we do not control,” he said.

As Poilievre was delivering his speech on Thursday afternoon, Canada-U.S. Trade Minister Dominic LeBlanc was speaking elsewhere in Toronto.

“We have to control what we can control” when it comes to managing the fallout from U.S. tariffs, LeBlanc told the Canadian Club.

While Poilievre declined to name the Conservative MPs he would select for the proposed all-party group, he said they’d operate “in good faith” and put the country ahead of the party.

His address to the Toronto business crowd framed Canada’s path through the trade war as one of building resilience and strength at home.

He returned to a message he repeated often ahead of last April’s election — that the federal government needs to get out of the way of resource development and growth.

“The most effective response to uncertainty is not outrage, it is results,” he said.

Poilievre did mention Trump by name multiple times in the speech, a notable departure from the address he gave to Conservative delegates at the party’s convention in Calgary just last month, which did not name the president at all.

“The president’s talk of 51st statehood, whether it is a joke or not, is unacceptable. It goes without saying there is zero chance of Canada ever being a part of the United States,” he said.

The Conservative leader was broadly criticized for failing to talk enough about Trump’s trade war and annexation threats during the election campaign, even as it became clear that was becoming the dominant issue for voters.

He has said repeatedly that he believes Prime Minister Mark Carney needs to secure an agreement that restores tariff-free trade with America — even though the president has insisted he will not end tariffs.

U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said Tuesday if Ottawa wants a deal with Washington, it will have to accept “some level of higher tariff.”

On Thursday, Poilievre insisted that tariff-free trade is the goal.

“By unblocking our resources and unleashing our economy, we can become affordable and autonomous, and build the leverage to fight for tariff-free trade with the United States,” he said.

That leverage should include Canada tying its purchases of American military equipment to free trade, and creating a strategic energy and mineral reserve, he said.

Poilievre’s speech suggested that Canadians “leverage our friendship with the American people” as an asset in the CUSMA review.

He also took aim at the Liberal government’s efforts to improve relations with China, and at Carney’s widely praised speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos in January.

“We should not declare a permanent rupture from our biggest customer and closest neighbour in favour of a strategic partnership for a new world order with Beijing, a regime the prime minister himself said was the biggest threat to Canada just a year ago,” he said, paraphrasing some of Carney’s recent speeches.

Carney’s Davos speech made it clear he believes the Americans have permanently altered their relationships with other nations, Canada included.

“We are in the midst of a rupture, not a transition,” the prime minister said.

Carney travelled to China last month to meet with Xi Jinping — the first meeting between the two national leaders since 2017 — and secured a deal to end retaliatory tariffs on Canadian agricultural goods in exchange for dropping tariffs on some Chinese EVs.

Poilievre proposed Thursday that Canada should instead negotiate an auto pact with the U.S. that agrees to “keep Chinese vehicles out” of the Canadian market in exchange for tariff-free production in North America.

On India — where Carney is headed this week to meet with Prime Minister Narendra Modi — the Conservative leader took a much different tone.

Poilievre said he supports a free-trade deal with India, a country Canadian security officials have accused of carrying out a campaign of extortion and intimidation against Canadian citizens.

In a fireside chat with former MP Lisa Raitt after his speech, Poilievre was asked why he isn’t angrier with the U.S., as so many Canadians are.

“This is, by the way, something that Mark Carney has said — and I agree with him. He has said that we cannot control what the U.S. president says or does, we can control what we do on this side of the border,” he said.

The difference, he argued, is that Carney isn’t getting things done.

Fred DeLorey, a former Conservative campaign manager and the chair of NorthStar Public Affairs, said it was a good speech for Poilievre and for “the country as a whole.”

“I think the all-party working group was a really good idea, I’m surprised it took this long for anyone to propose that,” he said.

DeLorey, who was critical of Poilievre’s election campaign last spring, said Thursday the Conservative leader laid out a clear plan for dealing with the tariff issue that also stayed true to his values.