POLITICO Nightly: How Canada’s election will be won

By Calder McHugh and Catherine Kim Liberal Party of Canada leader Mark Carney waves to supporters outside a Georgetown pub as he leaves a campaign stop on March 31, 2025 in Halton Hills, Ontario, Canada. | Cole Burston/Getty Images CANADIAN COUNTDOWN — On Monday, Canadians will head to the polls to vote in the most consequential national election in decades. Their ballots will dictate who gets to lead the government during a time of unprecedented attacks coming from the president of their closest ally — Donald Trump. For years, it looked like the Liberals would be dead in the water in the next federal election, with Canadians tiring of Trudeau’s leadership and frustrated with rising costs. But now, the party is on the verge of a stunning comeback, not to mention bucking the recent global trend of incumbent parties losing elections. Liberal Party leader and new Prime Minister Mark Carney is also poised to become a painful thorn in Trump’s side, as he has built his entire campaign around being a tough negotiator against the U.S. president — a promise that voters will expect him to deliver. “Once Carney is elected, if that happens, Trump will not have a more seasoned enemy in the West,” Canadian psychologist and anti-woke media star Jordan Peterson said on Joe Rogan’s podcast on Tuesday. Over the course of the five-week federal election, Trump’s provocations have helped Carney reverse the Liberals’ fortune: Trump has slapped a 25 percent tariff on steel and autos, publicly mused about making Canada a “51st state” and mocked the country by saying it would “cease to exist ” without the U.S. Among the 60 percent of Canadians who say that the cost of living and inflation is a top issue, Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre has a narrow lead. But Carney dominates the 39 percent of Canadians who consider Canada-U.S. relations a top issue. The Trump threat has managed to unite Canada’s center and left in particular; the further left NDP has seen a huge dropoff in support, to the point where they may lose official party status in the next Parliament, with many of their voters coalescing around the Liberals. Trump isn’t the only animating force in the election, though. Carney has also successfully managed to distance himself from former Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, according to a poll shared exclusively with POLITICO’s Ottawa Playbook . A plurality of voters, 46 percent, say that Carney “mostly represents something different from Justin Trudeau’s leadership.” But recent polls also provide an inkling of hope for Conservatives: Liberals’ national lead against them has shrunk from an early April average high of 7 percentage points to 4 percentage points among decided voters . Still, Canada’s Conservatives have an inefficient distribution of supporters — the party’s support is highest and most concentrated in some of the least populous areas of the country. It would very likely take more than a four-point polling error to see Poilievre become prime minister. The Conservatives have seen their fortunes slightly improve as Trump has cooled on his attacks against the country and is no longer regularly floating the possibility of new tariffs that could further threaten the economy. As Trump fades more into the background, Conservatives have stuck to their bullet points on housing affordability, cost of living and Liberal failures. The party is counting on the potential of a record turnout, which could work in their favor if the youth vote shows up en masse. Although young people have been loyal to the party — which has made affordability the bedrock of its campaign — they are also historically the least likely to vote. In the 2021 federal election, just 47 percent of voters under 24 voted, a lackluster turnout compared to the 75 percent of voters over 65. David Coletto of the Canadian polling firm Abacus data suggested on X that total turnout on Monday could reach 71 percent , which would be the highest number in a Canadian federal election since 1988. So far, there’s been at least a 25 percent increase in early voting compared to 2021, but experts caution that could also just be a sign that advanced voting is becoming the norm in Canada. Canadian elections are generally decided in the more populous suburbs of major cities close to the American border. Poilievre himself represents one such riding — or electoral district — which makes it worth watching: He won a riding in the Ottawa suburbs called Carleton by three points in 2015 and over 15 in 2021. But while he’s been traversing the vast nation, Poilievre’s Liberal opponent Bruce Fanjoy has hit the pavement in his district. Liberals insist that the party’s internal polling puts him within striking distance of unseating Poilievre altogether. And Carleton saw the highest turnout in all of Canada in early voting ; it will be unclear until Monday who that benefits. Conservatives dismiss the idea that Poilievre has anything to worry about there. But on Sunday, he will take his show back home, closing his campaign with one final rally in Carleton . Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out with news, tips and ideas at nightly@politico.com . Or contact tonight’s authors at cmchugh@politico.com and ckim@politico.com or on X (formerly known as Twitter) at @calder_mchugh and @ck_525 .   POLITICO IS BACK AT THE 2025 MILKEN GLOBAL CONFERENCE: From May 4–7, California Playbook will deliver exclusive, on-the-ground coverage from the 28th Annual Milken Institute Global Conference. Get behind-the-scenes buzz, standout moments, and insights from leaders in AI, finance, health, philanthropy, geopolitics, and more. Subscribe now for your front-row seat to the conversations shaping our world.     What'd I Miss? ***PUTTING INCOMPETENT CLOWNS IN CHARGE DOES NOT SERVE THE NATION! MARCO RUBIO HAS ALWAYS BEEN A BOOB! DON'T EXPECT A METAMORPHOSIS!  — Trump administration reverses abrupt terminations of foreign students’ US visa registrations: The Trump administration has restored the student visa registrations of thousands of foreign students studying in the United States who had minor — and often dismissed — legal infractions. The Justice Department announced the wholesale reversal in federal court today after weeks of intense scrutiny by courts and dozens of restraining orders issued by judges who deemed the mass termination of students from a federal database — used by universities and the federal government to track foreign students in the U.S. — as flagrantly illegal. excerpt:  The terminations caused concern and even panic for thousands of students who feared the possibility they had lost their legal immigration status and could be quickly deported. Many who sued over the move said their schools had also blocked their ability to continue taking classes or conducting research, sometimes just weeks before graduation. Judges also expressed frustration with the seemingly arbitrary moves and the unwillingness of government lawyers to say whether the students could continue to attend classes or needed to leave the country immediately. The terminations from the federal database earlier this month sparked more than 100 lawsuits, with judges in more than 50 of the cases — spanning at least 23 states — ordering the administration to temporarily undo the actions. Dozens more judges seemed prepared to follow suit before Friday’s reversal. DOJ said that Immigration and Customs Enforcement is working on a new policy regarding foreign students studying in the United States on so-called F-1 visas. Until that policy is issued, no students will have their online student-visa records, known as SEVIS records, terminated “solely based on” criminal history checks that had flagged misdemeanor charges and dismissed cases. It was not immediately clear whether the State Department is reversing a wave of outright cancellation of the visas of many of the same students. A federal official told a judge last week that the agency was performing “quality control” on those decisions. Earlier this year, Secretary of State Marco Rubio canceled the student visas of dozens of foreigners he contends were disrupting U.S. foreign policy through pro-Palestinian activism. However, a more recent, larger wave of visa cancellations appeared to target students who had minor brushes with the law and were also impacted by the termination of their profiles in the SEVIS database. WHACK-A-DING KASH PATEL deleted post:  Dugan was arrested on charges of obstructing or impeding a proceeding before a department or agency of the United States and concealing an individual to prevent his discovery and arrest, according to a criminal complaint filed Thursday. It was not immediately clear why Patel deleted his initial post. Democratic Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers criticized the Trump administration’s ongoing attacks on judges — without directly defending Dugan — in a public statement released on Friday about the arrest. “I will continue to put my faith in our justice system as this situation plays out in the court of law,” he said. And Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) called the Trump administration’s arrest of Dugan a “gravely serious and drastic move” that “threatens to breach” the government’s separations of power on Friday. “Make no mistake, we do not have kings in this country and we are a democracy governed by laws that everyone must abide by,” Baldwin said in a statement posted to X. “By relentlessly attacking the judicial system, flouting court orders and arresting a sitting judge, this president is putting those basic democratic values that Wisconsinites hold dear on the line.” — Patel says FBI arrests Milwaukee-area judge for obstruction in immigration case: The FBI arrested a Milwaukee County judge today for allegedly helping an undocumented immigrant evade arrest, a remarkable escalation of the administration’s battle with the judiciary. “Just NOW, the FBI arrested Judge Hannah Dugan out of Milwaukee, Wisconsin on charges of obstruction — after evidence of Judge Dugan obstructing an immigration arrest operation last week,” Patel announced on X on this morning before deleting the post. He later reposted an identical version of it. Eduardo Flores Ruiz WAS NOT CONVICTED OF ANY CRIMINAL CHARGE! ****AFGHAN REFUGEES! TRUMP'S FLIP-FLOP INCOMPETENCY SHOWS!***** — Trump administration discussed possible exemptions for some Afghan refugees facing deportation: Trump administration officials have discussed allowing some Afghan refugees to remain in the United States , days after a group of potentially vulnerable migrants from the war-torn country received emails from Customs and Border Protection revoking their humanitarian parole status, according to two administration officials familiar with the conversations. The policy discussions come as prominent Christian leaders and nonprofit organizations have pressed the White House to protect what they say is a group of hundreds of at-risk Christian Afghan refugees — still a fraction of the thousands potentially facing deportation in the months ahead. The leaders argued they could face persecution if returned to Afghanistan, which has reverted to Taliban control after the U.S. withdrawal in 2021 — agreed to by President Donald Trump in his first term and executed by President Joe Biden. ***TRUMP GENUFLECTING TO PUTIN NEEDS TO IMPOSE SANCTIONS ON BFF PUTIN & ARM UKRAINE!**** — Putin is ‘playing America as a patsy,’ Grassley warns Trump: Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) warned President Donald Trump that Russia was “playing America” today, asking him to punish the country for attacking Ukraine amid ceasefire negotiations . Russian President Vladimir Putin earned rare criticism from Trump after launching a deadly attack in Kyiv on Thursday, as Trump amps up pressure on Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to agree to U.S.-led proposals for a peace deal. Grassley, an ardent supporter of Ukraine, has been one of the loudest voices on the Republican side coming down on Russian aggression against Ukraine. ****TRUMP RECESSION!***** — Consumer expectations crater to three-decade low amid Trump tariff chaos: Just three months into President Donald Trump’s second term, Americans’ confidence in the economy’s prospects is plunging. The University of Michigan’s closely watched index for consumer expectations has dropped by 32 percent since January, the sharpest three-month decline since the U.S. was rocked by a recession in 1990.   Cut through policy complexity and turn intelligence into action with POLITICO’s Policy Intelligence Assistant—a new suite of tools designed to save you time and demonstrate your impact more easily than ever—available only to Pro subscribers. Save hours, uncover critical insights instantly, and stay ahead of the next big shift. Power your strategy today— learn more .     AROUND THE WORLD Investigators work the scene where Lt. Gen. Yaroslav Moskalik, deputy head of the Main Operations Directorate in the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, was killed by an explosive device placed in his car in Balashikha, Russia on April 25, 2025. | AP CAR BOMB KILLING — A senior Russian military officer was killed in a car explosion today in the Moscow region, Russian authorities confirmed. The victim was identified as Yaroslav Moskalik, 59, deputy head of the Main Operations Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces. “According to available information, the explosion was caused by the detonation of an improvised explosive device containing destructive elements,” Russia’s Investigative Committee said in a statement, adding that it had launched a criminal investigation into the killing. According to the authorities, the explosion occurred at approximately 10:40 a.m. local time in Balashikha, a city just outside Moscow, as Moskalik was passing by a parked Volkswagen Golf near his residence. FIVE MORE YEARS — The Netherlands is rolling back its nitrogen reduction targets, setting the stage for a showdown with its own judges and Brussels over one of Europe’s most contentious environmental issues. The Dutch government confirmed today it will push back its deadline to halve nitrogen emissions from 2030 to 2035 , defying a recent court order and putting its green commitments at risk. The move, spearheaded by Agriculture Minister Femke Wiersma of the Farmer-Citizen Movement (BBB), is meant to give farmers more time to adapt, but could instead entrench a years-long standoff over how to cut pollution from intensive livestock farming. The decision comes despite a Dutch court ruling in January that ordered the government to meet its existing 2030 deadline to protect sensitive nature areas from nitrogen pollution, most of it from manure, with fertilizer use also contributing. Brussels may also weigh in, as the delay risks breaching the EU’s Habitats Directive, which obliges member states to prevent the deterioration of protected ecosystems and to restore them “within a short period.” BUYING THEM BACK — The U.K. government is in talks with its French counterparts about purchasing back three nuclear sites from state-owned energy giant EDF, as Whitehall looks to take control of the upcoming expansion of nuclear power. U.K. ministers are discussing buying up Bradwell B, Heysham and Hartlepool, a French government official confirmed to POLITICO. “There have been discussions. For the moment, no decision has been taken and discussions are continuing,” the official said. Two senior industry figures based in the U.K., familiar with government planning and granted anonymity to discuss sensitive plans, also said negotiations over the purchase of the three sites were ongoing. Energy Secretary Ed Miliband and French Minister for Industry and Energy Marc Ferracci discussed the negotiations on the margins of the International Energy Agency Summit in London earlier this week, the official added. The account was disputed by the British government, with a post-publication statement from the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero saying: “We categorically do not recognise these claims.” Nightly Number 87 The number of months that former New York Rep. George Santos has been sentenced to prison on fraud and identity theft charges. THE DISEASE AND THE CURE — When the drug Buprenorphine was introduced in France during the country’s opioid epidemic in the 1980s and 90s, overdose deaths fell 79 percent. Addiction specialists raved about the drug’s effectiveness. Yet, 80,000 people still die in the U.S. every year from opioid use. Why? “America’s fractured approach to recovery makes buprenorphine hard to live with, and impossible to live without,” writes Ethan Brooks for The Atlantic. Buprenorphine is an opioid and using it to fight opioid addiction in the states doesn’t pair well with widely-accepted abstinence-based approaches. And the drug is weak at fighting against new synthetic opioids overwhelming the market like fentanyl, which stays in the body longer and triggers a brutal withdrawal when in contact with Buprenorphine. Parting Image On this date in 1989: Students stand with a banner on the roof of the administration building at the City College of New York in Manhattan. Students barricaded themselves inside the building and vowed not to leave until Gov. Mario Cuomo, state legislators and school officials agreed to negotiate with them over planned budget cuts and tuition increases. | Reggie Lewis/AP Did someone forward this email to you?  Sign up here .   Follow us on X Charlie Mahtesian @PoliticoCharlie Calder McHugh @calder_mchugh   Follow us

POLITICO 1000 Wilson Blvd Arlington, VA, 22209, USA

A tale of two consumers Next time you see a consumer survey, watch your wallet ROBERT REICH JUN 3 Friends, The government measures all sorts of consumer behavior: consumer spending, consumer confidence, consumer sentiment. The business pages are filled with analyses about whether consumers are buying or holding back, flush or poor. But there’s not one American consumer. There are really two — and increasingly they live in different worlds. Lower-income consumers are paid in hourly wages, which have stagnated for years when adjusted for inflation. The pay of lower-income consumers is now rising a bit faster than inflation, but for most of the last three years it had not — which meant their paychecks bought less and less. Lower-income consumers have blown through their pandemic savings. They’re now racking up credit card and other loan debt and are being squeezed by high interest rates on that debt. The average American household now owes $7,951 in credit card debt. That average includes a large number of higher-income consumers with little or no debt. While there’s no reliable data on the credit card debt of lower-income consumers, you can assume it’s much higher than the average. Also note that the average interest rate on credit card debt is now 20.66 percent. There’s also been a surge in “buy now, pay later” programs that could be masking an even bigger lower-income consumer debt problem. Not surprisingly, parts of the economy most dependent on purchases by lower-income consumers are under stress. Mass-market brands — such as the fast-food companies McDonald’s, KFC, and Starbucks — are reporting that consumers are pulling back on spending. Ramon Laguarta, PepsiCo’s CEO, says, “The lower-income consumer in the U.S. is stretched,” adding that this type of customer “is strategizing a lot to make their budgets get to the end of the month.” (Ironically, PepsiCo has so much monopoly power it’s been able to raise prices, blame inflation, shaft consumers, and score record profits.) Higher-income consumers are in a different world. Mostly college educated with jobs in the knowledge economy, they’re the richest 10 percent. High interest rates don’t affect them because they tend to have comparatively little mortgage, car, student loan, or credit card debt. These higher-income consumers also own more than half of all shares of stock owned by Americans. So as corporations pump up the stock market with stock buybacks, these higher-income consumers are scoring healthy gains. Which is why the parts of the economy that cater to higher-income consumers are soaring. Airlines and hospitality are doing well. Higher-income consumers are busily booking flights, hotel rooms, and tables at pricier restaurants. And they’re buying big-ticket items. Even Walmart is shifting to higher-income consumers. Over the past three years, households earning over $100,000 have provided the biggest gains in Walmart’s market share. Its merchandise now includes AirPods, MacBook Air, and other items that “appeal to a high-income demographic,” according to John David Rainey, Walmart’s chief financial officer. “The more we move into that space … the more we’re going to retain this cohort.” Given that lower-income consumers constitute the majority of Americans, the stark differences between them and higher-income consumers help explain why voters continue to give President Biden poor marks on the economy. This is “an economy of the haves and have-nots,” Michael Reid, an economist for RBC Capital Markets, told the New York Times’s DealBook. “The haves just have so much more spending power.” Even as convicted felon Trump promises huge tax breaks to America’s haves — including the biggest corporations and richest people in America — he’s channeling the anger, anxiety, and frustrations of the have-nots.

Public Citizen: shrinkflation

 
SUPPORT SENATOR BOB CASEY, WORKING FOR ALL AMERICANS!

Public Citizen


During the pandemic, Corporate America jacked up prices on all kinds of consumer goods.

• From fresh fruits and vegetables to corn chips and breakfast cereal, from soup and soda pop to aluminum foil and toilet paper, prices seemed to go up with every trip to the grocery store.

• These price hikes were due in part to supply chain disruptions. But Big Business imposed price increases of their own on top of that.

• Meanwhile — not content just to raise prices — companies have also been reducing how much of their product we actually get in the package. This is known as “shrinkflation,” and it’s a trend we’ve been seeing for years.

• President Biden called out corporations for their sneaky and greedy shrinkflation tactics in his State of the Union Address last week.

• This all adds up: Federal Reserve data shows that from 2020 to 2022, corporate profits increased by 75%.

Big Business has been using supply chain issues that were temporary — and which have been resolved — as an excuse to charge us more and give us less. This is just straight-up price gouging.

And corporations inflating their profits at our expense isn’t even the end of the story here. There’s a dangerous political component as well. The understandable frustration with everyday prices has a lot of Americans doubting the strength of our economy — despite historically good news on an array of economic metrics. Right-wing politicians and propaganda outlets like Fox “News” are feeding and exploiting that doubt to promote their regressive policies.

A bill just introduced in Congress would give the Federal Trade Commission and each state’s attorney general the power to crack down on shrinkflation.

Tell Congress:

Corporate price gouging and shrinkflation are hurting American families every day and masking real progress with our nation’s economy. Pass the Shrinkflation Prevention Act of 2024, introduced by Senator Bob Casey, without delay.

Click to add your name now.

Thanks for taking action.

For progress,

- Robert Weissman, President of Public Citizen
 
 

Public Citizen | 1600 20th Street NW | Washington DC 20009 

'The Supreme Court ruled in favor of scam artists,' FTC chief says after justices gut agency's powers

 THIS DESERVES SPECIAL ATTENTION!

FROM POLITICO NIGHTLY:

NIGHTLY NUMBER 9-0 The Supreme Court decision today ruling the FTC can’t force companies that engage in wrongdoing to pay back consumers or give up ill-gotten profit, dealing a huge blow to the agency that could hamper its antitrust and privacy cases.

'The Supreme Court ruled in favor of scam artists,' FTC chief says after justices gut agency's powers

In a 9-0 ruling, the justices said the Federal Trade Commission cannot force companies that engage in wrongdoing to pay restitution to consumers.

The Supreme Court case was a key topic at an FTC oversight hearing in the Senate this week. | Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

By LEAH NYLEN

04/22/2021

The Federal Trade Commission can’t force companies that engage in wrongdoing to pay back consumers or give up ill-gotten profit, the Supreme Court held Thursday, dealing a huge blow to the agency that could hamper its antitrust and privacy cases.

The FTC’s authority under a provision known as Section 13(b) is limited to seeking an injunction to stop illegal actions and doesn’t authorize it to seek monetary remedies like restitution, Justice Stephen Breyer wrote for the unanimous court.

Section “13(b) as currently written does not grant the Commission authority to obtain equitable monetary relief,” Breyer wrote, noting that the FTC can seek restitution under other provisions of the law. “If the Commission believes that authority too cumbersome or otherwise inadequate, it is, of course, free to ask Congress to grant it further remedial authority.”

Acting FTC Chair Rebecca Kelly Slaughter slammed the ruling, saying it deprived the FTC of its strongest tool to help consumers.

"The Supreme Court ruled in favor of scam artists and dishonest corporations, leaving average Americans to pay for illegal behavior,” she said. "We urge Congress to act swiftly to restore and strengthen the powers of the agency so we can make wronged consumers whole.”

Congressional response: FTC leaders had already warned that consumers would be the ones to suffer if the Supreme Court rolled back the agency’s ability to seek monetary penalties.

“Enforcement actions will slow and redress for consumers will dry up if Congress does not act quickly to affirm our full authority under 13(b),” Slaughter said at a Senate hearing Tuesday.

Congress is already considering legislation to remedy the Supreme Court decision. The House Energy and Commerce Committee has scheduled a hearing for next week on whether the FTC needs new authority to seek consumer redress. The Supreme Court case was also a key topic at an FTC oversight hearing in the Senate this week.

“We have to do everything we can to protect this authority and if necessary pass new legislation to do so,” Senate Commerce Chair Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) said at the same Tuesday hearing.

The case: The agency has used 13(b) for decades to force companies to pay back harmed consumers, but appeals courts have recently raised questions about that authority.

In the case before the Supreme Court, the FTC sued AMG Capital Management, a payday lender run by former race car driver Scott Tucker, for allegedly misleading consumers about the terms of short-term, high-interest loans. A trial court ordered AMG and Tucker to pay back $1.3 billion in restitution to consumers, an order upheld on appeal. AMG then asked the Supreme Court justices to weigh in on the FTC’s authority.

LINK