Good morning,
A former Canadian diplomat has been detained in China. Michael Kovrig used to work in the embassy in Beijing and now works for the International Crisis Group. It’s not clear yet if his detention is related to Canada’s recent arrest of a Chinese businesswoman.
Back in Vancouver, Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of Chinese telecom giant Huawei, has offered to wear a GPS tracking device as part of her bail conditions. Ms. Meng was arrested more than a week ago and may be extradited to the United States for allegedly breaking trade sanctions with Iran. Ms. Meng denies the charges.
This is the daily Politics Briefing newsletter, written by Chris Hannay in Ottawa. It is exclusively available only to our digital subscribers. Have any feedback? Let us know what you think.
TODAY’S HEADLINES
Equalization, a policy that is ever a source of dispute in federal-provincial relations, came up again during this week’s meeting of finance ministers when it was revealed that Quebec would receive two-thirds of the program’s $19.8-billion. Oil-producing provinces that are experiencing a bit of a rough patch and who are rarely recipients of the equalization program say they could use the money more than Quebec. And it is extra salt in the wound for those provinces, after Quebec Premier François Legault dismissed the oil they produce as “dirty energy.”
The Ontario Human Rights Commission says black people are far more likely to be shot by police in Toronto than those who are not black. The police force says it accepts the commission’s recommendation to improve its collection of race-based data, but denies any charge of systemic racism. Advocates say the numbers back up their own experiences. “This very much corroborates so much of what we’ve been saying for the last four years, but also of what black people have been saying in this city across generations,” said Pascale Diverlus, a co-founder of Black Lives Matter Toronto.
Omar Khadr is requesting a Canadian passport so he can make the pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia.
The Liberal Party planned to hold a fundraiser featuring Justin Trudeau on a Canadian Forces bases in Kingston, but moved the event to another site when The Globe and Mail asked them about it.
The Senate has approved the Liberal government’s election bill, giving Elections Canada just enough time to implement it before next year’s vote. The legislation reverses many of the changes made by the previous Conservative government, as well as instituting limits on spending before an election and giving expat Canadians the vote.
Speaking of the election, how are the parties doing right now? According to the most recent Nanos Research polls, the Conservatives are a hair above the Liberals this week (though, for statistical purposes, it’s essentially a tie). The governing Liberals have generally been in the high 30s of support over the past year and the Conservatives in the low 30s, though there has been some variation. The New Democrats, meanwhile, have generally been steady at a little under 20 per cent of support among respondents.
And yet another New Democrat says they will not seek re-election next year. B.C. MP Fin Donnelly has joined the growing group from his caucus that are calling it a day before the 2019 election.
Campbell Clark (The Globe and Mail) on Huawei, Canada and China-U.S. relations: “If it weren’t so serious, you’d have to laugh at how China’s government still misreads the way Western politics works, and how its reaction to the arrest of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou works against Beijing’s own interests. But don’t laugh, because Canada is stuck in the middle of a superpower squeeze.”
Alok Mukherjee, former chair of the Toronto Police Services Board, in The Globe and Mail on anti-black racism and the Toronto police: “Despite efforts by the Toronto Police Service and its board to institute new policies, procedures, training and accountability mechanisms, it would appear that police culture – that hardened, toxic thing – has triumphed. A key ingredient of that culture is lax accountability. All too often, punishment amounts to a slap on the wrist.”
Christie Blatchford (National Post) on the numbers: “[From 2013 to 2017], black people made up about 8.8 per cent of the population in Toronto. Yet, shockingly, they also made up 70 per cent of police shootings that resulted in death, 61 per cent of other sorts of lethal force encounters, almost 29 per cent of all Toronto police use of force cases and fully one quarter of all SIU TPS investigations.”
Licia Corbella (Calgary Herald) on Alberta’s view of equalization: “Alberta, which has the highest unemployment rate in the country and is running an $8-billion deficit, just keeps getting kicked when it’s down. And those kicks hurt even more since they are consistently delivered right after Alberta picked up the others’ tabs for champagne and filet mignon, while it sipped on a Diet Coke and nibbled on the free bread.”
Lorraine Mitchelmore (The Globe and Mail) on balancing ecology and the economy: “Given the world’s growing demand for more resources that are produced more responsibly, the greatest contribution Canada can make to meeting global demand and achieving a lower carbon economy is not to move away from resource development. Instead, it’s to produce the cleanest mining, forestry and energy products, including hydrocarbons, to displace less responsible alternatives around the world, the way LNG Canada will lower global carbon emission by displacing coal in China.”
John Ibbitson (The Globe and Mail) on the opposition to a United Nations agreement on migrants: “The truth is that, over the past six months or so, the government has managed to greatly reduce the flow of asylum claimants entering Canada from the United States. And, as I and wiser minds read it, the migration compact surrenders not a jot or tittle of Canadian sovereignty to the UN.”
David Butt (The Globe and Mail) on language proficiency in Canada’s top court: “Supreme Court judges must come from the highest echelons of the legal profession, where the requirements of entry are massive talent and massively hard work. However in many legal communities across the country, mastering French is not required to excel. So by excluding those legal luminaries, the government is draining the talent pool.”
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Chris Hannay