By Lisa Van Dusen

September 2, 2025

As federal politicians prepare for the return of the House of Commons on September 15th, Canadians can expect a number of key themes in the mix of drama unfolding in Ottawa.

But first, a recap.

Prime Minister Mark Carney’s minority government was elected on April 28th, with the 45th Canadian Parliament now reflecting a 343-seat House comprised of: the governing Liberal Party at 169 seats (three short a majority); the Conservatives at 144 seats as of party leader Pierre Poilievre’s recuperative August 19th byelection win in the Alberta riding of Battle-River Crowfoot; the Bloc Québécois at 22; the New Democratic Party at seven; and the Green Party at one, longtime leader (and Policy contributor) Elizabeth May.

Except for Poilievre’s absence after losing his longtime Ottawa seat of Carleton in April, that political composition was in place when the House adjourned for the summer on June 20th, less than a month after King Charles pointedly opened the new Parliament on May 27th as Canada’s head of state amid a nationwide backlash against a predatory American president.

The two elements above — Poilievre’s return to the House of Commons in general and to question period in particular, and Canada’s status and fate as a country — will likely, barring the possibility of another war, impeachment, or pandemic, define the tone and tenor of federal politics through the fall sitting.

The first element presents less of an X factor than it might had Canadians not already watched Carney — the only central banker in history to have served two different governments but a freshman in the realm of elected politics — perform in the House for at least a few weeks.

The fact that Carney more than held his own in QP before the summer break means that no-one, presumably including Poilievre, is assuming that he’ll be eaten alive.

In Carney’s effort to fulfill his promise of thwarting Trump’s tariff trolling and trade coercion, the October budget will carry disproportionate weight as a showcase for the economic policy expertise that got him elected.

At the same time, any expectation that Poilievre’s recent electoral humbling had tempered his rhetorical style into something less Fight Club and more Oxford Union has been doused since his Alberta victory by a series of characteristically pugnacious public outings.

“There is every reason to think that Poilievre’s combative style will continue,” per Policy Columnist Lori Turnbull in her recent piece, Poilievre is Back…With More of the Same, “not only because it helps to raise money, but because it’s a way of trying to break down public trust in Carney.”

And, because public trust in Carney hinges largely on his handling of Donald Trump, per the immemorial “stranger comes to town” hero trope — in this case, Carney coming to town to save it from a rampaging, scenery-chewing Godzilla — the second dramatic political element of Canada’s status as a country will likely dominate the Ottawa narrative by (Canadian) Thanksgiving, after the novelty of the Carney-Poilievre chalk-and-cheese dynamic has worn off.

In Carney’s effort to fulfill his promise of thwarting Trump’s tariff trolling and trade coercion, the October budget will carry disproportionate weight as a showcase for the economic policy expertise that got him elected.

But between the entirely avoidable business uncertainty and supply chain chaos unleashed by Trump’s tortuous and torturous tariff war, and the unprecedented defence expenditures he has demanded as the tacit price of keeping NATO alive, the optics of a budget so disproportionately dictated by an American autocrat may be hard to finesse.

In other words, in his effort to cut down to size a prime minister elected to be an economic hero, Poilievre will be assisted in no small measure by Donald Trump, the same villain who created the existential threat in the first place.

Policy Editor and Publisher Lisa Van Dusen has served as Washington bureau chief for Sun Media, international writer for Peter Jennings at ABC News, senior writer for Maclean’s and as an editor at AP National in New York and UPI in Washington.