Sarah Ritchie, The Canadian Press

The Conservative caucus has tapped former leader Andrew Scheer to lead the party in the House of Commons when Parliament resumes on May 26 — a role that's needed because Pierre Poilievre lost his seat in last week's election.

"I'll be taking over the parliamentary leadership duties of the caucus until Mr. Poilievre rejoins us in the House," Scheer told reporters after emerging from an all-day caucus meeting on Parliament Hill Tuesday.

Newly elected Conservatives and returning MPs are set to meet in Ottawa this morning as the party charts its path forward after last week's election loss to the Liberals.

Leader Pierre Poilievre, who lost his bid to continue representing the riding of Carleton after 20 years as the area's MP, will not be in the House of Commons when it opens later this month.

In a video posted on social media Monday afternoon, Poilievre says he has a lot to be thankful for after the election, including an expanded coalition of Conservative voters.

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is promising that a government led by him would use the notwithstanding clause to override Charter rights to implement his tough-on-crime agenda — something no prime minister has ever done.

Poilievre was campaigning in Montreal on Monday, where he announced he would pass a law to allow judges to impose consecutive life sentences in cases of multiple murders. The Supreme Court of Canada ruled in 2022 that imposing consecutive life sentences violates an offender's Charter rights.

With polls suggesting U.S. President Donald Trump and his administration's use of punishing tariffs are a top-of-mind issue for Canadians ahead of the upcoming federal election, Trump has now offered his thoughts on which political party he would rather work with.

"I'd rather deal with a Liberal than a Conservative," Trump said in an interview with Fox News host Laura Ingraham Tuesday.

During the interview he reiterated his call for Canada to become a U.S. state and his false claim that the U.S. subsidizes Canada by $200 billion a year.

Prime Minister Mark Carney's first move after taking office on Friday was to eliminate the consumer carbon price, undoing Justin Trudeau's signature climate policy.

Carney addressed members of the media after the Friday afternoon cabinet meeting, saying the government is "focused on action."

"We will be eliminating the Canada fuel charge, the consumer fuel charge, immediately, immediately," he said.

The order-in-council Carney signed in front of cabinet ministers and the press actually stipulates that the "the fuel charge be removed as of April 1, 2025."

Mark Carney will be sworn in as prime minister this morning at Rideau Hall, where he will also reveal his new cabinet.

Carney won the Liberal leadership race last weekend with an overwhelming 86 per cent of the votes from Liberal members.

He officially takes over from Justin Trudeau as prime minister in today's ceremony.

His first cabinet is expected to be smaller than Trudeau's 37-member team, and some ministers are set to lose their positions.

The Liberals will choose a new leader Sunday, marking the end of Justin Trudeau's decade as prime minister.

He will step down officially in the days to come. On Tuesday, Trudeau said he will have a conversation with the incoming leader to determine exactly when that will happen.

"It should happen reasonably quickly, but there's a lot of things to do in a transition like this, particularly in this complicated time in the world," Trudeau said.

Here's a look at what comes next.

Manitoba became the first province to officially join Ottawa's pharmacare program on Thursday, giving it access to federal funding to cover the cost of birth control and diabetes medications as well as hormone replacement therapy for menopause.

"This is the beginning of a journey that cannot end," Health Minister Mark Holland said at the announcement in Winnipeg.

"There's no room for politics in this. It's just logic. It's the thing we must do for this country."

Multiple polls now suggest the next federal election will be a tight race, and at least one major pollster has the Liberals leading the Conservatives for the first time in nearly four years.

A survey from Ipsos released this week suggests that if an election were held today, 38 per cent of Canadians would support the Liberals and 36 per cent would back the Conservatives.

That's a major shift from just six weeks ago, when the Conservatives held a 26-point lead in Ipsos polls.

The federal Conservatives and New Democrats say the government needs to recall Parliament within the next month to act on U.S. President Donald Trump's tariff threat.

On Monday, Trump agreed not to impose punishing tariffs on Canadian imports until March 4 after striking a deal with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau over two phone calls.

Trudeau says he presented Trump with the federal government's plan to secure the border and tackle fentanyl production and trafficking.