A new Canadian portal (of sorts) appeared this week even as another faces an uncertain future.

CanWest relaunched the canada.com site it acquired from Hollinger last year by changing the Tory blue tones to an almost-Liberal red and adding the Global TV sites.

While the initial changes seem superficial (much of the heavy lifting was done behind the scenes), it is the first move in the Asper’s much publicized convergence scheme. Despite CanWest’s desires to make canada.com the company’s Internet hub, the site is stuck in third place in the domestic portal war (with CANOE and Sympatico in either first or second).

That could change, however, if it can leverage the National Post’s traffic.

In a distant fourth is Rogers’ Excite Canada. And with Excite@Home facing bankruptcy, Rogers could lose its portal altogether — a fate it could have avoided had the company decided to use its own content as opposed to importing the U.S. package.