Category
Government
Spending, transfers, debt, public-service employment, and the lobbying and donation flows that shape policy. Where federal and provincial money goes and who decides.
Canada's foreign aid by country: Ukraine got 14 times more than anyone else, almost all of it as loans
Canada sent aid to 135 countries in 2024, but Ukraine took 1.83 billion US dollars, more than the next 34 recipients combined. Strip out loans and Ukraine drops to sixth, behind Haiti, Ethiopia, Mali, the West Bank and Gaza, and Bangladesh. Less than half of all Canadian aid can be traced to a single country at all.
Federal public service fell by 12,683 in Carney's first full fiscal year
That's 54% larger in magnitude than the combined increase during Martin, Harper and Trudeau's first full fiscal years.
Canadians reprice America every time the White House changes hands
The three largest shifts Pew has recorded in Canadian opinion of the United States in 24 years are not wars or trade fights. They are the three most recent changes of president.
Canadians rate China above the U.S. again, and by the widest margin yet
Pew finds 44% of Canadians view China favourably against 33% for the United States, the lowest U.S. reading in Canada since 2002. It is the second time Canadians have rated China the higher of the two, after a narrower crossover in 2017 and 2018.
One shipment on the record in six years: Canada's forced-labour import ban now carries a US tariff
The United States has stopped 42,807 shipment lines under its forced-labour import ban. Canada, bound by the same CUSMA obligation, has one shipment on its public record, later released. Washington has charged a 10 per cent tariff over it since July 24. Ottawa's fix has been consulted on but is not law.
Canada spent 14 billion Canadian dollars on foreign aid in 2025: here's where it actually went
While the United States slashed foreign aid by 57 percent and the rich-country average fell by nearly a quarter, Canada trimmed just over 2 percent. Yet a look at where the money went shows more than half of it now goes to Ukraine or is spent inside Canada on refugees, leaving the smallest share for the developing world in years.
The outsized power of the supply lobby
Tariff-protected dairy, poultry and eggs earn about 16 percent of Canadian farm revenue. Measured against that revenue, they lobby Ottawa harder than any other part of agriculture, and the pace is climbing ahead of a 2026 trade review.
Carney talks like an economist. Trudeau talked like an advocate.
Two Liberal prime ministers, the same job, sharply different vocabularies. We counted every word in their House of Commons speeches. Mark Carney governs in the language of budgets and the economy; Justin Trudeau spoke in the language of care and climate. It shows in the words each man reaches for most.
A 4.2 billion dollar fix for a problem that's two-thirds not the system
Canada is rushing a new payroll system in to replace Phoenix. But its own Auditor General told a committee that most of the remaining pay errors aren't the software's fault at all — which raises an awkward question about what the 4.2 billion dollars is actually buying.
Canada's military recruitment hit a 30-year high. Female officer intake nearly doubled.
466 women enrolled as Canadian Armed Forces officers in fiscal year 2025/26 — a 94 percent year-over-year jump and the largest single-year shift for any subgroup in 28 years of DND open data. The composition of the 2025 cohort doesn't match the working-class enlistment story most coverage told.
Coming next
Three federal-government charts in active development.
- Top 20 federal contractors, 2004–2024. Cumulative contract value by vendor across 1.26 million federal contracts. Drawing from open.canada.ca proactive disclosure.
- Federal political donations by party, year-by-year. Every recorded contribution to federal parties and candidates, 2004–2023, from Elections Canada open data.
- Most-lobbied departments and offices. 360,000 lobbying communications by department and DPOH, from the Office of the Commissioner of Lobbying.
All three datasets are loaded and indexed. The longform pieces will land alongside the chart in the same publication week. To be notified when these ship, subscribe to the weekly.