Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says there are no current plans to deploy the military to deal with protests besieging downtown Ottawa and that no one has officially requested the option.
“One has to be very, very cautious before deploying the military in situations engaging Canadians. It is not something that anyone should enter in lightly,” said Mr. Trudeau, when asked Thursday about the protests during a virtual news conference on child care in Manitoba.
“As of now, there have been no requests and that is not in cards right now.”
That said, the Prime Minister added he sympathizes with Ottawa residents who are looking for an end to the chaos, which has seen the harassment of pedestrians, truck horns blaring, and the shutdown of the downtown Rideau Centre mall – one of the largest in Canada.
“The people of Ottawa deserve to have their lives back, their neighbourhoods back,” Mr. Trudeau said.
He said the federal government is prepared to assist local authorities with the services of the RCMP and intelligence services.
On Wednesday, Ottawa police Chief Peter Sloly said all options are on the table for dealing with the protests, including calling in the military to end the continuing demonstration that some councillors have described as an “occupation.”
OTTAWA MAYOR DENOUNCES MPS – Ottawa’s mayor is calling on several Conservative MPs and a senator from Saskatchewan to apologize for praising the anti-vaccine mandate protest that has brought the capital’s downtown to a standstill for close to a week. Story here.
WORRIES IN QUEBEC ABOUT TRUCKER CONVOY – With tensions mounting in Quebec City over the prospect of a disruptive trucker convoy, the political class and police have teamed up to make a pitch for order despite the uncertainty in the air. Story here from The Montreal Gazette.
QUEBEC MP DENOUNCES CONFEDERATE FLAGS IN PROTEST – The chair of the Parliamentary Black Caucus is denouncing the display of Confederate flags during the protests in Ottawa. “Let’s not mince words. The Confederate flag is a symbol for slavery. Whips deformed Black bodies, forced labour, mangled limbs, torture almost always preceded lynchings,” Greg Fergus, the Liberal MP for Hull-Aylmer told Parliament. Story here from CTV.
This is the daily Politics Briefing newsletter, written by Ian Bailey. It is available exclusively to our digital subscribers. If you’re reading this on the web, subscribers can sign up for the Politics newsletter and more than 20 others on our newsletter sign-up page. Have any feedback? Let us know what you think.
TODAY’S HEADLINES
O’TOOLE OUT; BERGEN IN AS INTERIM TORY LEADER – Candice Bergen is now the interim leader of the Conservative Party of Canada after the party caucus ousted Erin O’Toole as leader, delivering a stunning rebuke of his brief tenure and triggering the party’s third leadership race in seven years. Story here. CP has an overview here of some possible contenders for the full-time leadership.
BOOSTER DRIVE SLOWING – Canada’s COVID-19 booster drive is slowing despite mounting evidence that an additional vaccine dose is needed to maintain strong protection from severe illness caused by SARS-CoV-2, according to a Globe and Mail analysis of uptake across the country. Story here.
CONSUMERS DICTATING RATE HIKES: MACKLEM – Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem said the pace of interest rate increases this year will depend to a significant extent on how quickly consumers run down excess savings they have built up over the course of the pandemic. Story here.
CARTER OUT AS MAYORAL ADVISER – Stephen Carter, a veteran Alberta political operative who has worked with former premier Alison Redford and former Calgary mayor Naheed Nenshi, is out as chief of staff to Calgary Mayor Jyoti Gondek’s after a little over three months on the job. Story here from The Calgary Herald.
THIS AND THAT
The projected order of business at the House of Commons, Feb. 3 is here.
PREMIERS NEWSER – Canada’s premiers will be holding a virtual news conference on Friday, with British Columbia Premier John Horgan, chair of the Council of the Federation of premiers and territorial leaders, chairing the proceedings. Health care is likely to be the key topic. Parliamentary Reporter Kristy Kirkup wrote here on the premiers stepping up their campaign to increase the Canada Health Transfer.
THE DECIBEL –On Thursday’s edition of The Globe and Mail podcast, political columnist and writer-at-large John Ibbitson argues that the infighting in the Conservative Party of Canada that led to a vote that this week ousted Erin O’Toole as party leader is not just bad for their supporters, but bad for Canada as a whole.
Here’s an excerpt:
Menaka Raman-Wilms, host: How would you describe the current state that the Conservative Party of Canada finds itself in?
John Ibbitson: “I think the Conservative Party of Canada is in a very vulnerable, fragile state. It is in danger of turning into the kind of schism that we saw in the 1990s when you had the Reform Party representing the western part of the Conservative movement and the Progressive Conservatives representing the centre in the east. Before it, Stephen Harper was able to unite the two parties in some ways. It’s also like the 1930s and ‘40s where the Conservatives lost one election after another, changed leaders after every election and the Liberals were able to govern for decades as a result. That doesn’t have to be the Conservative Party’s future. But it’s a risk now.”
Private meetings. The Prime Minister made an early learning and child care announcement virtually with Manitoba Premier Heather Stefanson, then held a media availability. The Prime Minister also participated in a round table with Winnipeg teachers about their experience as educators during the pandemic, and was also scheduled to virtually visit Country Corner Donuts, a local shop in Regina.
LEADERS
NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh held a virtual news conference on the opioid crisis.
PUBLIC OPINION
HOW CANADIANS FEEL ABOUT OTTAWA PROTESTERS – Two out of three interviewed for an Abacus Data nationwide poll feel they have “very little in common with how the protesters in Ottawa see things,” while 32 per cent say they “have a lot in common.” Details here.
OPINION
The Globe and Mail Editorial Boardon why Canada needs a progressive Conservative party: “The Conservatives who defenestrated Mr. O’Toole are misunderstanding Canada, Canadians and even Canadian conservatism. Canada is not America. Its people aren’t, its problems aren’t, its answers aren’t and its conservatism isn’t. Our politics simply aren’t as polarized, though Conservatives and Liberals alike have of late been trying to change that. Our parties have traditionally won by appealing to the middle and the reasonable. And by – however a dirty word this has become – compromising. This is coalition country. Big, broad tents. It is not a land of extreme political faiths. Please hang up and try your call again, you have the wrong number.”
Campbell Clark (The Globe and Mail)on former federal Conservative leader Erin O’Toole: “Mr. O’Toole’s sudden ouster was rough, but not unique. Ask Tom Mulcair, who was dumped hard by the NDP after he failed to win the 2015 election. Both leaders lacked a deep connection to the grassroots of their party that might have saved their leadership after a losing campaign. Mr. O’Toole’s own party hardly knew him. He won the leadership on the third ballot as a lesser-known candidate in a pandemic campaign that was mostly virtual, and therefore lacked a lot of face time. Then he changed political persona. He didn’t have a big constituency of Conservatives who felt that they’d walked the long road with him.”
Lawrence Martin (The Globe and Mail)on the powder-keg party having blown itself up again: “Don’t rule out a Peter MacKay bid, a close colleague of his tells me. The former leader feels he has considerable support in caucus and that he is a candidate who can bridge the party divide. Before he was sacked, Mr. O’Toole issued a final appeal on said divide, saying there were two possible roads forward. One is “angry, negative, and extreme. It is a dead end.” “The other road is to better reflect the Canada of 2022. To recognize that conservatism is organic, not static, and that a winning message is one of inclusion, optimism, ideas and hope.” Sounds right. But the powder-keg party probably has other ideas.”
Konrad Yakabuski (The Globe and Mail)on how the vaccination-tax flip-flop caps a bad month for Quebec Premier François Legault: “The year has not started off well for François Legault. The Quebec Premier seems to have lost the magic touch that allowed him to sail through the first 18 months of the COVID-19 pandemic with an approval rating that was the envy of his peers across Canada. His once uncanny political judgment has failed him in recent weeks – first, when he reintroduced a hated nighttime curfew, and then with his vindictive vow to tax unvaccinated Quebeckers. Both measures flopped spectacularly because they were transparent attempts to divert public attention away from uncomfortable truths.”
Omer Aziz (Contributed to The Globe and Mail) on why what’s happening in Ottawa is an assault on democracy: “The truckers’ movement is no longer a demonstration for freedom or vaccine mandates, but a well-fundedassault on democracy. As one organizer put it, their mission was to “compel the government to dissolve government.” We must be clear about what took place in Canada last weekend: an attempt to alter government policy by force – while masquerading as a rally for freedom. More dangerously, it was a movement insidiously co-opted by white nationalists and their far-right allies.”
Got a news tip that you’d like us to look into? E-mail us at tips@globeandmail.com. Need to share documents securely? Reach out via SecureDrop.
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.
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.
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.
