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Lawmakers returned from their summer break on Monday, with the main focus on the economy and trade partnerships after the trade war with the United States escalated dramatically over the summer months.
Premier Mark Carney said his Liberal government would introduce some of the most important legislation in decades.
House Leader Steven MacKinnon has promised that “significant” economic legislation will be “the centerpiece” of Parliament in the autumn.
Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne is set to introduce a new bill to extend fuel excise tax breaks and is also working on budget cuts.
The Liberal Party is ahead in opinion polls and holds a majority in the House of Commons.
This comes after a series of general elections and by-elections over the past year that pushed the Liberal Party out of a weak minority to a narrow majority of 173 seats. This has left opposition parties frustrated with reduced control over the parliamentary agenda and a slump in opinion polls.
There are six vacant seats that will require by-elections in the coming months.
Conservative stalwart Larry Brock resigned his Brantford-Brant seat last week to return to his former career as a prosecutor.
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Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre also held a campaign-style rally in Brantford, Ont., west of Hamilton on Sunday. Poilievre announced Brantford Mayor Kevin Davis will be his party’s candidate in the general election, which has not yet been announced.
The number of new Democratic Party members decreased significantly in the last election and party leader Avi Lewis still has not won a seat in the House of Representatives. They returned to Ottawa without longtime MP Alexandre Boulerice, who resigned to run for a provincial seat in the Quebec election.
This leaves the NDP with only five MPs in the House of Representatives.
The Liberal Party has also resigned several times, especially Steven Guilbeault. He resigned in August citing frustration with the Liberal party’s pivot under Carney’s leadership on energy and environmental policy.
Ottawa took more steps over the summer to make construction of a new pipeline on the West Coast a reality. Carney and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith announced in July that they were drawing up an agreement to support a future pipeline to B.C.’s south coast under a private-public partnership.
Meanwhile, the White House under the leadership of US President Donald Trump has increased trade pressure on Canada and continues to threaten its sovereignty. Trump has threatened to escalate his deepening trade war later this year by imposing additional tariffs on steel and autos if the two sides cannot reach a deal.
That came after Canada’s negotiating team walked away from a potential deal with the White House in August, saying what was on the negotiating table was a bad deal for Canada.
The trade conflict escalated, with Trump reimposing tariffs and threatening even more, while Canada implemented its own retaliatory tariffs. Trump also responded by trying to change the name of Lake Ontario to Lake America and stopping certain imports from Canada to the United States.
Meanwhile, Carney has crisscrossed the globe aggressively as he sought to rapidly deepen ties and attract investment from countries outside the United States.
In the past week alone, Carney attended the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France, where he delivered a key speech after the president of the European Commission said he would like to see Canada become an “associate member” of the EU. He made a brief trip to the UK during that trip for a bilateral visit with Prime Minister Andy Burnham. Carney also hosted a major investment summit in Toronto, where he won an award from former prime minister Stephen Harper.
Carney was nodding to the intense pace he was working at while addressing his caucus on Friday, when he realized he had misspoken during his speech, saying “seven weeks” instead of “days.”
“It feels like seven weeks, but it’s actually seven days. But this is the speed we need,” said Carney.
Carney will be in New York for UN meetings this week, although he is not scheduled to address the General Assembly.
He is expected to make more trips in the fall months, with several summits in the offing.
© 2026 Canadian Press
