Erin O’Toole names Shadow Cabinet

Duane Rolheiser

Published

5 years ago

6 minute read

The Honourable Erin O’Toole, Leader of Canada’s Conservatives and of the Official Opposition, today announced the Conservative Shadow Cabinet for the second session of the 43rd Parliament.

“Today, I am proud to present the Conservative government in waiting that will defeat Justin Trudeau’s corrupt Liberal government in the next election,” O’Toole said. “In the coming weeks, we will be presenting a plan to put hardworking Canadians first, lead our nation out of this crisis and rebuild our great country.”

Conservative House of Commons Leadership Team:

Deputy Leader: Hon. Candice Bergen (Portage – Lisgar, Manitoba)
Quebec Political Lieutenant: Richard Martel (Chicoutimi – Le Fjord, Quebec)
House Leader of the Official Opposition: Gérard Deltell (Louis-Saint-Laurent, Quebec)
Chief Opposition Whip: Blake Richards (Banff – Airdrie, Alberta)
Deputy House Leader of the Official Opposition: Karen Vecchio (Elgin – Middlesex – London, Ontario)
Deputy Opposition Whip: Alex Ruff (Bruce – Grey – Owen Sound, Ontario)
Caucus-Party Liaison: Hon. Tim Uppal (Edmonton Mill Woods, Alberta)
Question Period Coordinator: Eric Duncan (Stormont – Dundas – South Glengarry, Ontario)
National Caucus Chair: Tom Kmiec (Calgary Shepard, Alberta)

Conservative Shadow Cabinet:

Leona Alleslev (Aurora – Oak Ridges – Richmond Hill, Ontario) – National Security Committee
Rob Morrison (Kootenay – Columbia, British Columbia) – National Security Committee
Lianne Rood (Lambton – Kent – Middlesex, Ontario) – Shadow Minister for Agriculture and Agri-Food
Alain Rayes (Richmond – Arthabaska, Quebec) – Shadow Minister for Canadian Heritage, Official Languages & Quebec Economic Development
Cathy McLeod (Kamloops – Thompson – Cariboo, British Columbia) – Shadow Minister for Crown-Indigenous Relations
Dane Lloyd (Sturgeon River – Parkland, Alberta) – Shadow Minister for Digital Government
Kenny Chiu (Steveston – Richmond East, British Columbia) – Shadow Minister for Diversity and Inclusion and Youth
Warren Steinley (Regina – Lewvan, Saskatchewan) – Shadow Minister for Economic Development & Internal Trade
Hon. Peter Kent (Thornhill, Ontario) – Shadow Minister for Employment, Workforce Development and Disability Inclusion
Dan Albas (Central Okanagan – Similkameen – Nicola, British Columbia) – Shadow Minister for Environment and Climate Change
Michael Barrett (Leeds – Grenville – Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, Ontario) – Shadow Minister for Ethics
Tracy Gray (Kelowna – Lake Country, British Columbia) – Shadow Minister for Export Promotion & International Trade
Jamie Schmale (Haliburton – Kawartha Lakes – Brock, Ontario) – Shadow Minister for Families, Children and Social Development
Hon. Pierre Poilievre (Carleton, Ontario) – Shadow Minister for Finance
Richard Bragdon (Tobique – Mactaquac, New Brunswick) – Shadow Minister for Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard
Hon. Michael Chong (Wellington – Halton Hills, Ontario) – Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs
Hon. Michelle Rempel Garner (Calgary Nose Hill, Alberta) – Shadow Minister for Health
Brad Vis (Mission – Matsqui – Fraser Canyon, British Columbia) – Shadow Minister for Housing
Raquel Dancho (Kildonan – St. Paul, Manitoba) – Shadow Minister for Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship
Gary Vidal (Desnethé – Missinippi – Churchill River, Saskatchewan) – Shadow Minister for Indigenous Services
Hon. Andrew Scheer (Regina – Qu’Appelle, Saskatchewan) – Shadow Minister for Infrastructure and Communities
James Cumming (Edmonton Centre, Alberta) – Shadow Minister for Innovation, Science and Industry
Chris d’Entremont (West Nova, Nova Scotia) – Shadow Minister for Intergovernmental Affairs & Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency (ACOA)
Garnett Genuis (Sherwood Park – Fort Saskatchewan, Alberta) – Shadow Minister for International Development & Human Rights
Hon. Rob Moore (Fundy Royal, New Brunswick) – Shadow Minister for Justice and the Attorney General of Canada
Mark Strahl (Chilliwack – Hope, British Columbia) – Shadow Minister for Labour
Hon. Erin O’Toole (Durham, Ontario) – Shadow Minister for Middle Class Prosperity
James Bezan (Selkirk – Interlake – Eastman, Manitoba) – Shadow Minister for National Defence
Greg McLean (Calgary Centre, Alberta) – Shadow Minister for Natural Resources & Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency (CanNor)
Philip Lawrence (Northumberland – Peterborough South, Ontario) – Shadow Minister for National Revenue
Eric Melillo (Kenora, Ontario) – Shadow Minister for Northern Affairs & Federal Economic Development Initiative for Northern Ontario (FedNor)
Marilyn Gladu (Sarnia – Lambton, Ontario) – President of the Queen’s Privy Council & Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario (FedDev Ontario)
Shannon Stubbs (Lakeland, Alberta) – Shadow Minister for Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness
Pierre Paul-Hus (Charlesbourg – Haute-Saint-Charles, Quebec) – Shadow Minister for Public Services and Procurement
John Nater (Perth – Wellington, Ontario) – Shadow Minister for Rural Economic Development
Rosemarie Falk (Battlefords – Lloydminster, Saskatchewan) – Shadow Minister for Seniors
Pat Kelly (Calgary Rocky Ridge, Alberta) – Shadow Minister for Small Business & Western Economic Diversification (WD)
Stephanie Kusie (Calgary Midnapore, Alberta) – Shadow Minister for Transport
Luc Berthold (Mégantic – L’Érable, Quebec) – Shadow Minister for Treasury Board
John Brassard (Barrie – Innisfil, Ontario) – Shadow Minister for Veterans Affairs
Jag Sahota (Calgary Skyview, Alberta) – Shadow Minister for Women and Gender Equality
Todd Doherty (Cariboo – Prince George, British Columbia) – Special Advisor to the Leader on Mental Health and Wellness
Tony Baldinelli (Niagara Falls, Ontario) – Special Advisor to the Leader on Tourism Recovery

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After 15 years as a TV reporter with Global and CBC and as news director of RDTV in Red Deer, Duane set out on his own 2008 as a visual storyteller. During this period, he became fascinated with a burgeoning online world and how it could better serve local communities. This fascination led to Todayville, launched in 2016.

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Saskatchewan becomes first Canadian province to fully eliminate carbon tax

Published on April 1, 2025

Todayville

From LifeSiteNews

By Clare Marie Merkowsky

Saskatchewan has become the first Canadian province to free itself entirely of the carbon tax.

On March 27, Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe announced the removal of the provincial industrial carbon tax beginning April 1, boosting the province’s industry and making Saskatchewan the first carbon tax free province.

“The immediate effect is the removal of the carbon tax on your Sask Power bills, saving Saskatchewan families and small businesses hundreds of dollars a year. And in the longer term, it will reduce the cost of other consumer products that have the industrial carbon tax built right into their price,” said Moe.

Under Moe’s direction, Saskatchewan has dropped the industrial carbon tax which he says will allow Saskatchewan to thrive under a “tariff environment.”

“I would hope that all of the parties running in the federal election would agree with those objectives and allow the provinces to regulate in this area without imposing the federal backstop,” he continued.

The removal of the tax is estimated to save Saskatchewan residents up to 18 cents a liter in gas prices.

The removal of the tax will take place on April 1, the same day the consumer carbon tax will reduce to 0 percent under Prime Minister Mark Carney’s direction. Notably, Carney did not scrap the carbon tax legislation: he just reduced its current rate to zero. This means it could come back at any time.

Furthermore, while Carney has dropped the consumer carbon tax, he has previously revealed that he wishes to implement a corporation carbon tax, the effects of which many argued would trickle down to all Canadians.

The Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities (SARM) celebrated Moe’s move, noting that the carbon tax was especially difficult on farmers.

“It puts our farming community and our business people in rural municipalities at a competitive disadvantage, having to pay this and compete on the world stage,” he continued.

“We’ve got a carbon tax on power — and that’s going to be gone now — and propane and natural gas and we use them more and more every year, with grain drying and different things in our farming operations,” he explained.

“I know most producers that have grain drying systems have three-phase power. If they haven’t got natural gas, they have propane to fire those dryers. And that cost goes on and on at a high level, and it’s made us more noncompetitive on a world stage,” Huber decalred.

The carbon tax is wildly unpopular and blamed for the rising cost of living throughout Canada. Currently, Canadians living in provinces under the federal carbon pricing scheme pay $80 per tonne.

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Mark Carney refuses to clarify 2022 remarks accusing the Freedom Convoy of ‘sedition’

Published on April 1, 2025

Todayville

From LifeSiteNews

By Anthony Murdoch

Mark Carney described the Freedom Convoy as an act of ‘sedition’ and advocated for the government to use its power to crush the non-violent protest movement.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney refused to elaborate on comments he made in 2022 referring to the anti-mandate Freedom Convoy protest as an act of “sedition” and advocating for the government to put an end to the movement.

“Well, look, I haven’t been a politician,” Carney said when a reporter in Windsor, Ontario, where a Freedom Convoy-linked border blockade took place in 2022, asked, “What do you say to Canadians who lost trust in the Liberal government back then and do not have trust in you now?”

“I became a politician a little more than two months ago, two and a half months ago,” he said. “I came in because I thought this country needed big change. We needed big change in the economy.”

Carney’s lack of an answer seems to be in stark contrast to the strong opinion he voiced in a February 7, 2022, column published in the Globe & Mail at the time of the convoy titled, “It’s Time To End The Sedition In Ottawa.”

In that piece, Carney wrote that the Freedom Convoy was a movement of “sedition,” adding, “That’s a word I never thought I’d use in Canada. It means incitement of resistance to or insurrection against lawful authority.”

Carney went on to claim in the piece that if “left unchecked” by government authorities, the Freedom Convoy would “achieve” its “goal of undermining our democracy.”

Carney even targeted “[a]nyone sending money to the Convoy,” accusing them of “funding sedition.”

Internal emails from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) eventually showed that his definition of sedition were not in conformity with the definition under Canada’s Criminal Code, which explicitly lists the “use of force” as a necessary aspect of sedition.

“The key bit is ‘use of force,’” one RCMP officer noted in the emails. “I’m all about a resolution to this and a forceful one with us victorious but, from the facts on the ground, I don’t know we’re there except in a small number of cases.”

The reality is that the Freedom Convoy was a peaceful event of public protest against COVID mandates, and not one protestor was charged with sedition. However, the Liberal government, then under Justin Trudeau, did take an approach similar to the one advocated for by Carney, invoking the Emergencies Act to clear-out protesters. Since then, a federal judge has ruled that such action was “not justified.”

Despite this, the two most prominent leaders of the Freedom Convoy, Tamara Lich and Chris Barber, still face a possible 10-year prison sentence for their role in the non-violent assembly. LifeSiteNews has reported extensively on their trial.