Mark Carney, Doug Ford and Canada's shifting politics: Your questions answered

Deputy Ottawa bureau chief Alex Ballingall and Star columnist Martin Regg Cohn shared their insights on the year ahead in Canadian politics — covering everything from Pierre Poilievre’s future with the Conservative party to media availability at the upcoming PC convention. Here’s what they said:

Q: The Canada Health Act provides the tools to squash efforts to privatize our Public Healthcare System. What is your opinions as to why the Federal Liberals are doing nothing to stop the privatization efforts in Alberta and Ontario? — Carl

A: Not as easy as it looks for a couple of reasons. The only real tool is holding back money, dollar for dollar, which defunds and destabilizes the system. So the threshold for invoking those penalties is high. Privatization is also an inexact term. Medicare is itself a universal, single-payer system that hires tens of thousands of private contractors — doctors — do deliver the services. So it’s not a truly “public” system because docs aren’t civil servants. Hospitals are also stand-alone entities, not part of the public system. So when we talk about new private clinics, let’s not forget the old private clinics that still exist. — Martin Regg Cohn

Q: Does Mr. Poilievre even have a riding to run in the next election? We know that he lost his Ottawa seat and had to rely on a honourable MP in Alberta to give up his seat. Word on the street is that that Alberta seat is going back to that MP who clearly worked to win it; and not give it away to a Conservative leader who is aimlessly wandering. — Roger

A: That’s not just the word on the street. That’s the word in the newssheets! (We reported it, along with other media). Damien Kurek is going to reclaim Battle River—Crowfoot, one of the safest Conservative ridings in Canada. Where will Poilievre run instead? That’s still an open question. Lots of speculation, but we haven’t nailed down an answer yet. It’s possible they haven’t decided. Obviously their focus right now is posting a result in this weekend’s leadership vote at the Conservative convention that is strong enough to convince the Poilievre doubters in the party to cool down. My colleague Raisa Patel is out there in Calgary and wrote about the voting threshold question today. — Alex Ballingall

Q: Doesn’t everyone remember NORTEL? — John

A: I don’t think so. — Alex Ballingall

Q: Whenever I see a long multiyear public project mentioned, and being totally ignorant of the processes and constraints involved, I wonder to what extent our timescales for these projects might exceed those of other countries that we could compare with in terms of physical setting, technology, workforce, resources, etc. Is anyone independently doing such comparisons, and if/where substantially different, are we learning from any applicable examples? — Mireille

A: In terms of time scales, the Ring of Fire is in a league all its own. The big critical mineral play in the far north, has been trumpeted by Ontario governments for 15 years and it will be many more years before there’s movement. There are challenges in terms of gaining agreement from local Indigenous groups about the land, and also challenges with the land itself in difficult terrain. If you layer onto that the complexity of procurement and project delivery in remote territory, the Ring of Fire may be unique, hence few if any obvious comparisons. — Martin Regg Cohn.

Scroll down to the comments section to read their full answers, and find lots more insight.