Canada is going to officially challenge an American decision to increase duties on softwood lumber exported to the United States.
In a statement issued Wednesday, International Trade Minister Mary Ng said Canada will file notices under the North American free trade pact.
“Rulings on this issue have consistently found Canada to be a fair trading partner, and Canada is confident that rulings will continue to find Canada to be one,” Ms. Ng said in the statement.
“Filing these notices is another step that Canada is taking to defend the forestry sector and Canada’s national interests.”
At issue, said the Minister, is the United States, on Nov. 24, nearly doubled the duty rate for most Canadian softwood lumber producers to 17.9 per cent.
The Minister noted Canada’s softwood lumber industry is key to the forestry sector, which employed nearly 185,000 workers in 2020 and contributed more than $25-billion to the GDP in the same year.
Susan Yurkovich, president of the BC Lumber Trade Council, said they applaud the Canadian move.
“We remain steadfast in our position that these unfair duties are harmful to not only B.C. businesses and workers, but also U.S. consumers looking to renovate and build new homes,” Ms. Yurkovich said in a statement.
“We will continue to vigorously defend our industry against these baseless claims and thank the Government of Canada for standing with forest product workers and their families.”
The trade council noted that B.C. is the largest Canadian exporter of softwood lumber to the U.S, with the forest industry in the province linked to approximately 100,000 direct and indirect jobs in the province.
Ms. Ng said Canada is hoping for a negotiated solution with the United States on the issue.
Earlier this month, Globe and Mail business reporter Brent Jang wrote on the impact of the higher U.S. duties. His story is here.
Also, Michael Kelly-Gagnon and Anthony B. Kim offer analysis here on the impact of increased U.S. duties on Canadian softwood.
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TODAY’S HEADLINES
BARTON MET MONTHS AGO WITH RIO TINTO – Dominic Barton, Canada’s outgoing ambassador to Beijing, met with Rio Tinto executives in October, two months before it was announced he would take over as chair of the Australian mining giant that does half its business with China. Story here.
MORE CITIES JOINING CHALLENGE TO BILL 21 – Calgary is joining a growing list of Canadian cities supporting the legal challenge to Quebec’s controversial religious symbols law, part of a tide of outrage released by a school board’s recent decision to remove a hijab-wearing teacher from her classroom in the province. Toronto has backed the effort, while Winnipeg’s mayor hopes his city will follow suit. Story here.
TORY MP SAYS HE WAS “BLINDSIDED” ON PARTY CONVERSION STAND – A Tory MP from Manitoba said he missed his chance to halt the fast-tracked ban on anti-gay conversion therapy, arguing his Conservative party “blindsided” him instead of hearing out concerns about the bill. “Before I could process what was happening, the motion had been passed,” wrote MP Ted Falk, who represents the Provencher riding of southeastern Manitoba. “I am deeply disappointed and troubled.” Story here from The Winnipeg Free Press.
JOLY HAS COVID-19 – Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly has tested positive for COVID-19 after taking a rapid test, and is in isolation awaiting the result of a PCR test.
LAWYER WHO CHALLENGED BILL 21 MADE JUDGE – The federal government has named a Montreal lawyer as a judge to Quebec Superior Court about a year after he made headlines during a legal challenge to Quebec’s controversial Bill 21 legislation, which bars public-sector workers from wearing religious symbols in the name of protecting secularism. Story from CBC is here.
NWT INTEGRITY COMMISSIONER WARNED MINISTER – Questions are being raised after the integrity commissioner in the Northwest Territories notified the territorial health minister that a journalist was asking questions about her family business. Story here from CBC.
THIS AND THAT
The House of Commons has adjourned until Monday, Jan. 31, 2022, at 11 a.m. ET.
RECORD TRANSFERS FOR PROVINCES – Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland says the government will provide a record $87.6-billion in major transfer funding for provinces and territories in 2022-23, up by $3.7-billion from 2021-22. A statement from Ms. Freeland’s department says the Canada Health Transfer – the key transfer to provinces and territories – will grow by 4.8 per cent this year. You can read the letter Ms. Freeland sent to your province or territory here.
FEDS CUTTING PARDONS COSTS – The federal government is cutting cost of pardons from $657.77 to $50. In a statement, Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino said the lower fee will improve access to record suspensions, especially for people with lower incomes, so they can access housing, employment, education and volunteer opportunities. Pardons, officially known as record suspensions, allow those convicted of a criminal offence, who have completed their sentence and not broken the law for a prescribed number of years to have their criminal record kept separate and apart from other criminal records.
THE DECIBEL – In the latest edition ofThe Globe and Mail podcast, Decibel producer Sherrill Sutherland talks to acclaimed novelist Esi Edugyan about her new book, which is a non-fiction work. Out of the Sun: On Race and Storytelling is a collection of essays devoted to bringing a richer context to Black histories and other stories about race that often go untold. The latest Decibel is here.
PRIME MINISTER’S DAY
Private meetings in Ottawa. The Prime Minister receives a COVID-19 briefing from Chief Public Health Officer of Canada Dr. Theresa Tam.
DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER
No schedule released Deputy Prime Minister.
LEADERS
No schedules released for the party leaders.
OPINION
Andrew Coyne (The Globe and Mail)on how Canada’s constitutional order can be restored after the notwithstanding clause has destabilized it: “The federal government could declare, ideally in the form of legislation, not only that it would never use the notwithstanding clause itself, but that it would use the power of disallowance to veto any law, passed by any provincial legislature, that invoked the notwithstanding clause. It’s too late to apply that remedy to Bill 21 – the Constitution requires that it be invoked within a year of a bill’s passage. But it could be used to prevent future Bill 21s.”
John Ibbitson (The Globe and Mail)on how Canadians are converging towards the political centre as Americans become more polarized:“It is reasonable to assume that there was a backlash against Trump in Canada,” says Andrew Parkin, executive director of the Environics Institute. “Not only did Canadians not go down that path, the whole experience might have pushed us in the opposite direction.” Canadians consistently expressed higher levels of contentment than Americans with their political system and its institutions. They also had greater trust in the fairness of elections and were more likely to believe that their rights were being protected.”
Konrad Yakabuski (The Globe and Mail)on whether Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will complete his father’s work on the notwithstanding clause: “In a year-end interview with The Canadian Press, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said that his father’s hopes that the political costs of invoking the notwithstanding clause would discourage any government from using it have not materialized. Quebec’s actions, and those of Ontario Premier Doug Ford, whose government invoked the clause to impose restrictions on third-party election advertising, have him considering asking the Supreme Court to weigh in on the pre-emptive use of the notwithstanding clause. Short of abolishing Section 33 – a political impossibility, for now – this would advance the work his father set out to do.”
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WINNIPEG – The federal New Democrats have kept a longtime stronghold in the Elmwood-Transcona riding in Winnipeg.
The NDP’s Leila Dance won a close battle over Conservative candidate Colin Reynolds, and says the community has spoken in favour of priorities such as health care and the cost of living.
Elmwood-Transcona has elected a New Democrat in every election except one since the riding was formed in 1988.
The seat became open after three-term member of Parliament Daniel Blaikie resigned in March to take a job with the Manitoba government.
A political analyst the NDP is likely relieved to have kept the seat in what has been one of their strongest urban areas.
Christopher Adams, an adjunct professor of political studies at the University of Manitoba, says NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh worked hard to keep the seat in a tight race.
“He made a number of visits to Winnipeg, so if they had lost this riding it would have been disastrous for the NDP,” Adams said.
The strong Conservative showing should put wind in that party’s sails, Adams added, as their percentage of the popular vote in Elmwood-Transcona jumped sharply from the 2021 election.
“Even though the Conservatives lost this (byelection), they should walk away from it feeling pretty good.”
Dance told reporters Monday night she wants to focus on issues such as the cost of living while working in Ottawa.
“We used to be able to buy a cart of groceries for a hundred dollars and now it’s two small bags. That is something that will affect everyone in this riding,” Dance said.
Liberal candidate Ian MacIntyre placed a distant third,
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024
OTTAWA – Prime Minister Justin Trudeau say the Liberals have “all sorts of reflections” to make after losing a second stronghold in a byelection in Montreal Monday night.
His comments come as the Liberal cabinet gathers for its first regularly scheduled meeting of the fall sitting of Parliament, which began Monday.
Trudeau’s Liberals were hopeful they could retain the Montreal riding of LaSalle—Émard—Verdun, but those hopes were dashed after the Bloc Québécois won it in an extremely tight three-way race with the NDP.
Louis-Philippe Sauvé, an administrator at the Institute for Research in Contemporary Economics, beat Liberal candidate Laura Palestini by less than 250 votes. The NDP finished about 600 votes back of the winner.
It is the second time in three months that Trudeau’s party lost a stronghold in a byelection. In June, the Conservatives defeated the Liberals narrowly in Toronto-St. Paul’s.
The Liberals won every seat in Toronto and almost every seat on the Island of Montreal in the last election, and losing a seat in both places has laid bare just how low the party has fallen in the polls.
“Obviously, it would have been nicer to be able to win and hold (the Montreal riding), but there’s more work to do and we’re going to stay focused on doing it,” Trudeau told reporters ahead of this morning’s cabinet meeting.
When asked what went wrong for his party, Trudeau responded “I think there’s all sorts of reflections to take on that.”
In French, he would not say if this result puts his leadership in question, instead saying his team has lots of work to do.
Bloc leader Yves-François Blanchet will hold a press conference this morning, but has already said the results are significant for his party.
“The victory is historic and all of Quebec will speak with a stronger voice in Ottawa,” Blanchet wrote on X, shortly after the winner was declared.
NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh and his party had hoped to ride to a win in Montreal on the popularity of their candidate, city councillor Craig Sauvé, and use it to further their goal of replacing the Liberals as the chief alternative to the Conservatives.
The NDP did hold on to a seat in Winnipeg in a tight race with the Conservatives, but the results in Elmwood-Transcona Monday were far tighter than in the last several elections. NDP candidate Leila Dance defeated Conservative Colin Reynolds by about 1,200 votes.
Singh called it a “big victory.”
“Our movement is growing — and we’re going to keep working for Canadians and building that movement to stop Conservative cuts before they start,” he said on social media.
“Big corporations have had their governments. It’s the people’s time.”
New Democrats recently pulled out of their political pact with the government in a bid to distance themselves from the Liberals, making the prospects of a snap election far more likely.
Trudeau attempted to calm his caucus at their fall retreat in Nanaimo, B.C, last week, and brought former Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney on as an economic adviser in a bid to shore up some credibility with voters.
The latest byelection loss will put more pressure on him as leader, with many polls suggesting voter anger is more directed at Trudeau himself than at Liberal policies.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 17, 2024.
The New Democrats have declared a federal byelection victory in their Winnipeg stronghold riding of Elmwood—Transcona.
The NDP candidate Leila Dance told supporters in a tearful speech that even though the final results weren’t in, she expected she would see them in Ottawa.
With several polls still to be counted, Conservative candidate Colin Reynolds conceded defeat and told his volunteers that they should be proud of what the Conservatives accomplished in the campaign.
Political watchers had a keen eye on the results to see if the Tories could sway traditionally NDP voters on issues related to labour and affordability.
Meanwhile in the byelection race in the Montreal riding of LaSalle—Émard—Verdun the NDP, Liberals and Bloc Québécois remained locked in an extremely tight three-way race as the results trickled in slowly.
The Liberal stronghold riding had a record 91 names on the ballot, and the results aren’t expected until the early hours of the morning.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.
