Prime Minister Justin Trudeau remained tight-lipped about the uncertainty clouding the U.S. election today, saying his government will watch the results “carefully”.
“As everyone knows, there is an electoral process underway in the United States,” Trudeau told reporters gathered outside West Block Wednesday.
“We, of course, are following it carefully and we’ll continue to as the day and the days unfold.”
“Are you worried?” one reporter asked in French — but by that point Trudeau was already headed inside.
Later in question period, Trudeau said the Liberal government is focused on a possible presidential transition if former U.S. vice-president Biden topples U.S. President Donald Trump. For weeks, Trudeau and Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland have said Ottawa is prepared for all eventualities.
“As always, we will seek to make sure we’re able to defend Canadian interests and Canadians as the Americans make an important decision about the next steps forward,” Trudeau said.
While Trudeau has stayed neutral in this race, the Liberal government had a close working relationship with Biden on foreign affairs and climate change policy in 2015-16.
Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole offered a similarly cautious message heading into a caucus meeting Wednesday, telling reporters in French, “We will wait to see the result.”
Tuesday’s U.S. presidential election count has spilled into Wednesday without a call for either President Trump or his Democratic opponent, Biden.
A number of key states, including Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, North Carolina and Pennsylvania, are too close to call and millions of ballots may remain uncounted at this point.
As of 4:42 p.m. ET today, Trump has secured 213 of the electoral college votes needed to win, while Biden sits at 253.
Trump outperformed some of the polling averages that were published before election day and easily cruised to victory in Florida and Texas early in the night, despite some surveys suggesting the races there would be much closer.
In the industrial midwest states of Wisconsin and Michigan, Biden improved on past Democratic results. CBC News called both states for the Democratic candidate by midday — key Biden pick-ups that narrowed Trump’s possible path to victory.
In the wee hours of the morning, Trump said he would take the election to the U.S. Supreme Court to launch an unspecified legal challenge even as thousands of outstanding votes in several swing states had not yet been tallied.
“We want all voting to stop. We don’t want them to find any ballots at four o’clock in the morning and add them to the list. Okay? It’s a very sad moment,” he said.
“This is a fraud on the American public,” Trump told supporters in the East Room of the White House. “This is an embarrassment to our country. Frankly, we did win this election.”
In a series of tweets Wednesday, Trump questioned changing vote counts as some state tallies shifted dramatically with the addition of mail-in and early in-person votes which skewed Democratic. State officials have said there is nothing untoward about the results and all ballots received before election day will be counted.
“Last night I was leading, often solidly, in many key States, in almost all instances Democrat run & controlled,” Trump said “They started to magically disappear as surprise ballot dumps were counted. VERY STRANGE, and the ‘pollsters’ got it completely & historically wrong!”
WATCH | Trudeau speaks briefly on U.S. election results:
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau spoke very briefly with reporters as he arrived at the West Block on Parliament Hill Wednesday morning. 0:31
Biden’s campaign responded to Trump’s claims, calling them “outrageous, unprecedented and incorrect.”
You can find full results from CBC here (note: CBC’s electoral college tally also shows states where candidates are leading).
NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh, who urged Americans to back Biden ahead of Tuesday’s vote, said many Canadians woke up this morning “worried and afraid” with the results hanging in the balance.
Rather than disparage those who lined up behind Trump, Singh said politicians need to be more sensitive to the “desperation” and “frustration” that so many working people feel in North America.
“I think, more than ever, we have to get really serious about why this has happened. Despite all the obvious glaring problems — massive problems — and the abject failure of leadership of President Trump, people still voted for him,” Singh said.
WATCH: Singh reacts to the U.S. presidential election
NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh says the strong support for President Trump in the American election shows people are desperate, frustrated and angry because of inequalities in society. 1:00
While Trump might not actually win this race when all the votes are counted, the president racked up one of the highest popular vote counts in U.S. history. Despite that impressive showing, Biden is on track to best him in the popular vote by millions of ballots.
Singh suggested income and economic stratification in the U.S. — with the richest Americans holding an ever greater share of the country’s wealth — is a source of the anxiety among some Trump voters.
“I think we have an opportunity now to say there are legitimate frustrations. People are angry and upset for good reason, but the reason is because the system is designed this way. It’s designed to allow the wealthiest to have tax loopholes, to get away with not paying their fair share,” he said.
Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet said there will be time in the coming hours — or days — for Trudeau to react, but he agreed it was prudent to reserve judgment until there’s a clear result.
“Whatever our preferences might be, we have the obligation to respect and to stay away from internal American affairs, even if we have the opportunity to provide opinions, which I can do quite freely because I do not think I will be prime minister of Canada in the coming years, and I might think that it will take a little more than four years before Quebec becomes independent,” Blanchet said.
Before the election, Trudeau and O’Toole both said they were prepared to work with whoever was elected.
Trudeau said Canada is “well-positioned and ready” to work with the American people and the U.S. government, regardless of the outcome.
WATCH | Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole comments on U.S. election results:
O’Toole spoke to reporters briefly in French, saying he would watch the results, as he arrived for his weekly caucus meeting in Ottawa. 0:20
Trudeau said Canada has been able to work with Trump over the last four years, despite ongoing trade and tariff hostilities, and he’s prepared to do so again if the U.S. president is re-elected.
O’Toole said he’d also work to find common ground with whoever Americans choose to be their president on issues that are important to Canada.
“If I was an American, I would be a Democrat, and if I were a Democrat, I would be asking myself, what did we do wrong?” Blanchet said today.
WATCH | Blanchet on the U.S. election
Bloc Quebecois Leader Yves-Francois Blanchet lets the Ottawa Press Corps in on how he hopes the American election turns out. 0:48
“How come the American people support so much a man who openly lies, avoids paying his taxes, carries and shares prejudices against so many people? Why do the American people still support so strongly that man is a question that he does not have to ask himself — he’s faring pretty well. But the Democrats, the media, the institutions should ask themselves this troubling question.”
Derek Burney, who served as Canada’s ambassador to the U.S. from 1989 to 1993, said that if Biden is able to secure the 270 electoral votes needed to win the White House, there will be a period of uncertainty that could prove disruptive to Canada-U.S. relations.
“I think they have prepared for either outcome,” Burney said.
While Biden appears to have the edge in the electoral college, American voters didn’t return enough Democratic senators to the U.S. Senate to flip the balance of power from the Republicans. The executive-legislative split will make it difficult for Biden to advance his agenda through Congress.
And while Biden likely would be friendlier to Canada than Trump ever was, Burney said his tenure could still be a “mixed bag” for Canada.
Biden supports Canada’s climate change policy push and multilateral institutions like NATO and the UN that are important to middle power countries, he said — but the Democrat also would be hostile to Western Canadian interests. Trump has been a strong defender of the oil and gas industry and has backed TC Energy’s long-delayed Keystone XL pipeline, which would move oil from Alberta to refineries in the U.S.
Biden has vowed to cancel Trump’s presidential permit allowing cross-border construction, a decision that would imperil a project that has the financial backing of the Alberta government.
“It will not be good news for Western Canada,” Burney said of a Biden victory.
He also said Canada benefited from the strong pre-COVID-19 economy in the U.S. under Trump, something that could be derailed by Biden’s proposed tax and regulatory changes.
OTTAWA – Members of Parliament studying the federal government’s decision to buy a $9-million luxury condo in Manhattan are preparing to recall Canada’s consul general in New York to answer more questions about his involvement in the purchase.
The Conservatives put forward a motion on Tuesday to have Tom Clark return to the House operations committee. The move was supported by other opposition parties after new information emerged that contradicted his previous testimony.
Clark told the committee in September he had no role whatsoever in the purchase of the new condo, or the sale of the previous residence.
But reporting from Politico on Tuesday indicated Clark raised concerns about the old unit two months after he was appointed to his role as Canada’s representative in New York.
Politico cited documents obtained through access-to-information, which were then shared with other media by the Conservative party.
A May 2023 report from Global Affairs Canada indicates Clark informed government officials the residence needed to be replaced.
“The current (consul general in New York, head of mission) expressed concerns regarding the completion of the … kitchen and refurbishment project and indicated the unit was not suitable to be the (consul general’s) accommodations,” the report reads.
“It does not have an ideal floor plan for (consul general in New York) representational activities.”
The final call on whether Clark will face further questions has not been made, however, because the committee adjourned before the motion went to a vote. The committee’s next meeting is next week.
Tuesday’s meeting featured Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly as a witness, and she faced questions about Clark’s involvement in the purchase.
“This was not a political decision because this was an operational decision,” Joly told the committee in a testy exchange with Conservative MP Michael Barrett.
“(The committee) had numerous people, officials of mine, that came to see you and said that. So, these are the facts.”
Joly later told the committee she only learned of the decision to purchase a new residence through media reports, even though her chief of staff was notified weeks earlier.
“The department informed my chief of staff once the decision was taken. Because, of course, it was not a political decision,” Joly said.
Shortly before Joly was excused, Conservative MP Stephanie Kusie put forward the motion to recall Clark for two more hours to answer more questions.
Bloc MP Julie Vignola proposed instead to have him testify for only one hour — indicating she would support the motion with that change.
“One hour is more than enough to know whether he lied to us,” Vignola told her colleagues in French.
NDP MP Taylor Bachrach also said he would support the move, given the contrast between the new report and Clark’s testimony about whether he spoke to anyone about a desire to move into a new residence.
“What really irks me is the consul general was so clear in response to repeated questioning at committee,” Bachrach said.
“Mr. Clark said, ‘Never.’ One-word answer, ‘Never.’ You can’t get more unequivocal than that.”
The Liberal government has argued that buying the new residence will save Canadians taxpayers millions of dollars and reduce ongoing maintenance costs and property taxes while supporting future program needs for the consul general.
The former official residence is listed for sale at $13 million, but has yet to be sold.
In her remarks Tuesday, Joly told the committee other like-minded countries have paid more for their Manhattan residences than Canada has — including $11 million for the U.K., and France’s $19 million purchase in 2015.
Joly said among the countries that have residences in New York, only Afghanistan and Bangladesh were not located in Manhattan.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 5, 2024.
TORONTO – An Ontario judge says any outstanding issues regarding a proposed $32.5 billion settlement between three major tobacco companies and their creditors should be solvable in the coming months.
Ontario Superior Court Chief Justice Geoffrey Morawetz has released his reasons for approving a motion last week to have representatives for creditors review and vote on the proposal in December.
One of the companies, JTI-Macdonald Corp., said last week it objects to the plan in its current form and asked the court to postpone scheduling the vote until several issues were resolved.
The other two companies, Rothmans, Benson & Hedges and Imperial Tobacco Canada Ltd., didn’t oppose the motion but said they retained the right to contest the proposed plan down the line.
The proposal announced last month includes $24 billion for provinces and territories seeking to recover smoking-related health-care costs and about $6 billion for smokers across Canada and their loved ones.
If the proposed deal is accepted by a majority of creditors, it will then move on to the next step: a hearing to obtain the approval of the court, tentatively scheduled for early next year.
In a written decision released Monday, Morawetz said it was clear that not all issues had been resolved at this stage of the proceedings.
He pointed to “outstanding issues” between the companies regarding their respective shares of the total payout, as well as debate over the creditor status of one of JTI-Macdonald’s affiliate companies.
In order to have creditors vote on a proposal, the court must be satisfied the plan isn’t “doomed to fail” either at the creditors or court approval stages, court heard last week.
Lawyers representing plaintiffs in two Quebec class actions, those representing smokers in the rest of Canada, and 10 out of 13 provinces and territories have expressed their support for the proposal, the judge wrote in his ruling.
While JTI-Macdonald said its concerns have not been addressed, the company’s lawyer “acknowledged that the issues were solvable,” Morawetz wrote.
“At this stage, I am unable to conclude that the plans are doomed to fail,” he said.
“There are a number of outstanding issues as between the parties, but there are no issues that, in my view, cannot be solved,” he said.
The proposed settlement is the culmination of more than five years of negotiations in what Morawetz has called one of “the most complex insolvency proceedings in Canadian history.”
The companies sought creditor protection in Ontario in 2019 after Quebec’s top court upheld a landmark ruling ordering them to pay about $15 billion to plaintiffs in two class-action lawsuits.
All legal proceedings against the companies, including lawsuits filed by provincial governments, have been paused during the negotiations. That order has now been extended until the end of January 2025.
In total, the companies faced claims of more than $1 trillion, court documents show.
In October of last year, the court instructed the mediator in the case, former Chief Justice of Ontario Warren Winkler, and the monitors appointed to each company to develop a proposed plan for a global settlement, with input from the companies and creditors.
A year later, they proposed a plan that would involve upfront payments as well as annual ones based on the companies’ net after-tax income and any tax refunds, court documents show.
The monitors estimate it would take the companies about 20 years to pay the entire amount, the documents show.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 5, 2024.
OTTAWA – The Federal Court of Appeal has dismissed a bid by the Prince Edward Island Potato Board to overturn a 2021 decision by the federal agriculture minister to declare the entire province as “a place infested with potato wart.”
That order prohibited the export of seed potatoes from the Island to prevent the spread of the soil-borne fungus, which deforms potatoes and makes them impossible to sell.
The board had argued in Federal Court that the decision was unreasonable because there was insufficient evidence to establish that P.E.I. was infested with the fungus.
In April 2023, the Federal Court dismissed the board’s application for a judicial review, saying the order was reasonable because the Canadian Food Inspection Agency said regulatory measures had failed to prevent the transmission of potato wart to unregulated fields.
On Tuesday, the Appeal Court dismissed the board’s appeal, saying the lower court had selected the correct reasonableness standard to review the minister’s order.
As well, it found the lower court was correct in accepting the minister’s view that the province was “infested” because the department had detected potato wart on 35 occasions in P.E.I.’s three counties since 2000.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 5, 2024.
