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Haiti interim prime minister Joseph set to step down this week

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Claude Joseph, who has nominally led Haiti as acting prime minister since the July 7 assassination of President Jovenel Moise, will hand power to a challenger backed by the international community possibly as soon as Tuesday, a Haitian official said.

The announcement appears to end a power struggle in the Caribbean nation between Joseph and Ariel Henry, the 71-year old neurosurgeon who was appointed prime minister by Moise two days before the killing but had yet to be sworn in.

Haiti foreign ministry senior official Israel Jacky Cantave said that Joseph took charge following Moise’s assassination to help ensure continuity of state but would hand over power to Henry now that there is a consensus on the future of the country and protests have calmed.

Cantave said that Haiti’s Council of Ministers would meet on Monday and that if all goes well, Joseph could hand over power to Henry in a ceremony on Tuesday.

Reuters was unable to immediately reach Joseph by phone for comment.

Moise was shot dead when attackers armed with assault rifles stormed his private residence in the hills above Port-au-Prince. The assassination has pitched the poorest country in the Americas into political uncertainty at a time of surging gang violence that has displaced thousands of people and hampered economic activity.

Joseph told the Washington Post in an interview published Monday that he and Henry had met privately over the past week, and that he had agreed on Sunday to step down “for the good of the nation” and was willing to transfer power “as quickly as possible.”

Haiti, a country of about 11 million people, has struggled to achieve stability since the fall of the Duvalier dynastic dictatorship in 1986, and has grappled with a series of coups and foreign interventions.

On Saturday, the ‘Core Group’ of international ambassadors and representatives urged https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/martine-moise-widow-assassinated-president-returns-haiti-2021-07-18 “the formation of a consensual and inclusive government.”

“To this end, we strongly encourage the designated Prime Minister Ariel Henry to continue the mission entrusted to him to form such a government,” the group said.

The Core Group is made up of ambassadors from Germany, Brazil, Canada, Spain, the United States, France, and the European Union and special representatives from the United Nations and the Organization of American States.

The group also called for the organization of “free, fair, transparent and credible legislative and presidential elections as quickly as possible.”

The U.S. State Department and the White House National Security Council did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Monday.

Henry told Reuters on July 9 that he considered Joseph to be not interim prime minister but a foreign minister who had taken on the office.

“My installation should be done as soon as possible. I’m working on the formation of a government, I am consulting, and I should speed up my consultations,” he said in the interview.

A Colombian police chief said on Friday https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/haiti-justice-min-ex-official-could-have-ordered-moise-killing-colombia-police-2021-07-16 the assassination may have been ordered by a former Haitian justice ministry official, citing a preliminary investigation that has implicated Haitian Americans and former Colombian soldiers.

Martine Moise, the assassinated president’s widow, returned to Haiti on Saturday for his funeral after she was treated in a Miami hospital for injuries sustained during the attack.

(Reporting by Andre Paultre in Port-au-Prince and Daphne Psaledakis, Matt Spetalnick and Jan Wolfe in Washington; writing by Daphne Psaledakis; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Rosalba O’Brien)

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NDP caving to Poilievre on carbon price, has no idea how to fight climate change: PM

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OTTAWA – Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says the NDP is caving to political pressure from Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre when it comes to their stance on the consumer carbon price.

Trudeau says he believes Jagmeet Singh and the NDP care about the environment, but it’s “increasingly obvious” that they have “no idea” what to do about climate change.

On Thursday, Singh said the NDP is working on a plan that wouldn’t put the burden of fighting climate change on the backs of workers, but wouldn’t say if that plan would include a consumer carbon price.

Singh’s noncommittal position comes as the NDP tries to frame itself as a credible alternative to the Conservatives in the next federal election.

Poilievre responded to that by releasing a video, pointing out that the NDP has voted time and again in favour of the Liberals’ carbon price.

British Columbia Premier David Eby also changed his tune on Thursday, promising that a re-elected NDP government would scrap the long-standing carbon tax and shift the burden to “big polluters,” if the federal government dropped its requirements.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

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Quebec consumer rights bill to regulate how merchants can ask for tips

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Quebec wants to curb excessive tipping.

Simon Jolin-Barrette, minister responsible for consumer protection, has tabled a bill to force merchants to calculate tips based on the price before tax.

That means on a restaurant bill of $100, suggested tips would be calculated based on $100, not on $114.98 after provincial and federal sales taxes are added.

The bill would also increase the rebate offered to consumers when the price of an item at the cash register is higher than the shelf price, to $15 from $10.

And it would force grocery stores offering a discounted price for several items to clearly list the unit price as well.

Businesses would also have to indicate whether taxes will be added to the price of food products.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

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Youri Chassin quits CAQ to sit as Independent, second member to leave this month

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Quebec legislature member Youri Chassin has announced he’s leaving the Coalition Avenir Québec government to sit as an Independent.

He announced the decision shortly after writing an open letter criticizing Premier François Legault’s government for abandoning its principles of smaller government.

In the letter published in Le Journal de Montréal and Le Journal de Québec, Chassin accused the party of falling back on what he called the old formula of throwing money at problems instead of looking to do things differently.

Chassin says public services are more fragile than ever, despite rising spending that pushed the province to a record $11-billion deficit projected in the last budget.

He is the second CAQ member to leave the party in a little more than one week, after economy and energy minister Pierre Fitzgibbon announced Sept. 4 he would leave because he lost motivation to do his job.

Chassin says he has no intention of joining another party and will instead sit as an Independent until the end of his term.

He has represented the Saint-Jérôme riding since the CAQ rose to power in 2018, but has not served in cabinet.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

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