The Conservative Party of Canada chose Pierre Poilievre as its new leader, and he is now leader of the opposition in parliament. His campaign slogan is to “make Canada the freest country in the world,” and that is a welcome message for a country that has been shocked during the pandemic by the illiberal government of Justin Trudeau. From spending taxpayer money recklessly to mishandling the peaceful trucker protests in Ottawa to imposing harsh Covid-19 lockdowns and vaccine mandates, the Trudeau government is long overdue for a comeuppance.
What makes Poilievre special is he is the first Canadian political leader to eloquently and effectively promote a free-market policy agenda evocative of Ronald Reagan while drawing crowds at campaign events similar to those of Donald Trump (in Canada, politicians don’t normally get crowds). Poilievre has been drawing in new younger members to the Conservative Party, and many people who were previously uninterested in supporting Conservatives are now giving them a second look in response to Trudeau’s ineptitude.
Alden Abbott of the Mercatus Center writes about potential problems for the Federal Trade Commission:
The FTC recently lost two merger challenges brought before its internal administrative court — and, even more significantly, faces a Supreme Court challenge to its administrative-enforcement authority.
This November, in Axon Enterprise, Inc. v. FTC, the Supreme Court will consider whether a company facing an FTC administrative complaint may bring a constitutional challenge, in a federal court, to the FTC’s structure, procedures, and even its existence. The case involves the merger of two manufacturers of body-worn camera equipment and related data-management software for law-enforcement agencies. The parties went to federal court arguing that the FTC had no right to challenge their deal.
The Axon matter comes at a time of renewed Supreme Court interest in the Constitution’s separation of powers — under which the right to enforce the law and the right to render judgments are assigned to separate government branches, the executive and the judiciary. Such concerns are particularly acute in the case of administrative-law enforcement at “independent agencies” (which enjoy some statutory freedom from presidential control) such as the FTC.
David Bahnsen is joined by John Catsimatidis on the latest episode of the Capital Record. Listen here or wherever you get your podcasts.