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.
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 in six years: Canada's forced-labour import ban exists mostly on paper
The United States has stopped 42,807 shipments under its forced-labour import ban. Canada, bound by the same trade commitment, has stopped one, and later let it go. A June committee hearing put the reasons on the record.
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.