The Trudeau government will be sending more armoured vehicles to Haiti and imposing new sanctions on individuals, says Canada’s ambassador to the UN Bob Rae, who recently returned from a fact-finding mission to the island nation.
Canada is also planning to send three experts to work with the Haitian National Police and make a needs assessment.
Rae’s recent visit to Haiti was his second this year. It followed an earlier fact-finding mission by public servants in response to a U.S. request for Canada to take charge of efforts to save Haiti from anarchy.
The key to Canada’s approach, Rae told CBC News, is to boost and equip the Haitian National Police.
“Now we’re figuring out a way to improve the product that’s going down,” he said. “We are set, there will be more going down. There’s a need for other equipment and there’s a need for more training, and I think for a lot more discussion between us and the National Police about how we deal with the broader issues of the rest of the blockades.”
A blockade of Haiti’s main fuel terminal by the G9 alliance of gangs ended two weeks after Canada and the U.S. sent armoured vehicles to the Haitian police on October 15. That blockade had paralyzed transportation and industry in a country that lacks a reliable power grid and depends heavily on diesel generators.
But the gangs retain control of other territories they’ve seized, including the country’s main courthouse.
Canadian Ambassador to the United Nations Bob Rae makes his way to speak to media at the United Nations in New York on Tuesday, Sept. 20, 2022. (Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press)
“Things are now a bit calmer, but it’s an almost eerie kind of calm, because people are terrified to go out,” said Rae. “The kidnappings are up. They’ve more than doubled over the same time last year.
“And the gangs control easily 70 per cent of Port-au-Prince and significant parts of the rest of the country, and they blockade the main National Highway, which goes from the north to the south. People are living very, very precariously. There’s still a serious food crisis and huge numbers of people living in total poverty.
“So from that perspective, it’s not getting better at all.”
And yet, expectations that Canada will somehow make it better remain high.
‘A leading role’
“We recognize that we will play a leading role in this,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said this week, discussing Haiti with La Presse Canadienne.
“This is a challenge that is close to our hearts and there is a level of trust between the Haitian people and the Canadian government that they have less of with other allies elsewhere.”
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and OIF Deputy Secretary General Geoffrey Montpetit discuss the situation in Haiti on the sidelines of the Francophonie Summit in Djerba, Tunisia on Sunday, Nov. 20, 2022. (Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press)
It’s not just Canada’s long history of involvement in Haiti and its large Haitian diaspora population that have landed the ball in Canada’s court. It’s also pressure from the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden — which has made it clear that it would like to see Canada take charge on Haiti while the U.S. deals with other fires in other parts of the world.
Henry, Haiti’s de facto prime minister, has asked for a foreign military force to enter his country and take on the gangs. Trudeau made it clear that the cavalry is not on the way.
“We have not taken anything off the table, but with 30 years of experience in Haiti, we know very well that there are enormous challenges when it comes to interventions,” he said in French. “It is clear that our approach has to change this time.”
But while the Trudeau government has said a lot about what it doesn’t want to do in Haiti, it’s less clear about what it will do, beyond providing police equipment and sanctions.
Sanctions may be reaching their limit
Canada has significantly stepped up its sanctions over the past month, targeting individuals at the top echelons of power in Haiti.
Those sanctioned include former president Michel Martelly, former prime ministers Laurent Lamothe and Jean Henry Ceant, Haiti’s richest man and only billionaire Gilbert Bigio, and fellow oligarchs Sherif Abdallah and Reynold Deeb.
Canada accuses all six men of seeking to profit from chaos and impunity in Haiti, and of arming and directing gangs to pursue their political and business goals.
The oligarchs are members of Haiti’s famed “fifteen families.” They control much of the economy and, in some cases, own private ports that have been conduits for the smuggling of arms and ammunition onto the island in recent years.
It’s a country where people are afraid to go out, where women are being raped, where kids are being trafficked, where arms are being bandied about and drugs are being sold, used as a smuggling route to the U.S. and beyond. No country can survive like this.– Bob Rae
Once supporters of the dictatorship of the Duvaliers, many of those oligarchs later backed the Parti Haitien Tet Kale (PHTK or “Bald-Headed Party”) of Martelly, in power continually since 2011.
Some also have links to foreign governments. Bigio’s son Reuven acts as consul for the government of Israel in Haiti, while Abdallah represents Italy.
Having extended its sanctions to the top rungs of Haitian society, it’s not clear how much of an effect additional Canadian sanctions could have. Rae said Canada would like to see its allies — including the United States — back Canada up with sanctions of their own.
“We’d like them to join us in doing more, and to figure out a way to develop a stronger common approach that’s not based on supplanting what the national police does,” he told CBC News.
Rae said he’d also like to see allies do more to help the Haitian police combat gangs that seem to have no problem obtaining weapons — “arms, by the way, that are coming in from Miami.”
Haitian opinion split
Not all Haitians are convinced their police force can defeat the gangs, and the country is divided over the prospect of once again having armed foreigners land on its shores.
Violence and desperation have driven many Haitians to put their reservations about foreign domination aside — as the crew of the USS Comfort discovered this week when America’s hospital flagship docked off the port of Jeremie, triggering demonstrations by local people who want the U.S. military to defeat the gangs that are shooting them, rather than just treat their wounds.
People protest against the arrival of the USNS Comfort hospital ship in Jeremie, Haiti on Dec. 13, 2022. The USNS Comfort was on a humanitarian mission to provide dental and medical services. (Odelyn Joseph/The Associated Press)
But the country also has seen demonstrations against foreign intervention. Pride in Haiti’s hard-won independence is compounded in many cases by suspicion that the foreigners would serve to prop up Henry’s unpopular and unelected government.
If police can’t do the job, and foreigners don’t want to, one option that is already moving forward is the resurrection of Haiti’s long-defunct army.
The army revives
Haiti’s army was once the most powerful institution in the country. It rudely turfed President Jean-Bertrand Aristide from power in a coup in 1991, and its commander Gen. Raoul Cedras ruled as dictator for three years until he was ousted by U.S. pressure.
Aristide returned to power and abolished Haiti’s army in 1995.
But in 2017, the Army was officially relaunched, and in recent months small groups of Haitian soldiers have been training in Mexico.
Rae supports the idea.
“Name me a country around the world that doesn’t have an army,” he told CBC News. “The main thing to recognize right now is that Haiti has a profound security problem.
“It’s a country where people are afraid to go out, where women are being raped, where kids are being trafficked, where arms are being bandied about and drugs are being sold, used as a smuggling route to the U.S. and beyond. No country can survive like this.
“For many years, the Haitian government said they didn’t want to have an army. But now if they want to have an army, fine, let’s talk about what Canada can do, what other countries can do to be of assistance in making those institutions work.”
Soldiers of the Haitian Armed Forces stands guard during a ceremony to mark the anniversary of the Battle of Vertieres, the last major battle of Haitian independence from France, at Army headquarters in Port-au-Prince, Haiti on Nov. 18, 2022. (Odelyn Joseph/Associated Press)
Rae said a Haitian army could be compatible with Haitian democracy.
“The reason it has a bad reputation is because the Duvaliers used the army as their means of suppressing the population,” he said. “The Dominicans have a very strong army. They also have a thriving democracy. There’s no reason why the country next door can’t have the same thing.”
Haiti’s tiny and poorly-equipped army has so far had little role in fighting the gangs, even after one its officers wept publicly at an event in front of PM Henry as he described his “shame” at being unable to protect the Haitian people.
But so far there has been no Canadian effort to revive the Haitian Army. Instead, the Mexican Army is doing the training.
Restoring democracy
Haiti has delayed elections to the point where it now has almost no elected officials with a real mandate. Of the handful of senators whose terms have yet to expire, two were recently sanctioned by Canada for corruption or links to gangs.
Haiti’s opposition sees Henry as part of the security problem, and foreign governments, the United Nations and NGOs have all agreed that the PHTK has used gangs to try to enforce its rule.
Several opposition groups have united in a coalition known as the Montana Group (after the famous Port-au-Prince hotel where their alliance was formed). Rae met with members of that group while in Haiti.
Haiti’s Prime Minister Ariel Henry speaks at a ceremony to appoint members of his cabinet in Port-au-Prince, Haiti on Nov. 24, 2021. (Odelyn Joseph/The Associated Press)
While the Montana Group sees Henry as determined to cling to power, Rae disagrees.
“I don’t have any sense Mr. Henry wants anything more than to be a transitional leader who will allow the country to have a full and free election in which he will not participate,” he said. “I could prove to be completely wrong, but I don’t sense any burning ambition on his part to run a country.”
Rae said Canada is not encouraging Henry to believe he has unconditional backing. “I think the sanctions are a pretty clear message from Canada and a number of other countries that the day is over when people would turn a blind eye to the rampant corruption of the country because we felt it was really their problem to fix,” he said.
“We all have an obligation to deal with the lack of transparency and the amount of corruption in the country and to name the people who are the bad actors. And the list is not over yet. Believe me, it’s still coming …
“This is a different attitude and different mindset from a number of countries that are really trying to push back on the Haitian elite and say, ‘It’s time for you to get your act together.'”
Little hope in the short term
And so, for Haiti’s long-suffering people, there seems to be little prospect of immediate change.
Trudeau seemed to acknowledge that in his year-end French-language interview with La Presse Canadienne.
“We have a long history in Haiti and 30 years later, we still find ourselves in a crisis just as serious, if not worse, than the others,” he said.
“We know how much making a mistake or doing the wrong thing could make the situation worse and put many people at risk.”
But while Trudeau insisted he doesn’t want to repeat past mistakes, exactly what Canada does plan to do remains unclear — even after those fact-finding missions.
WINNIPEG – Some 250 coloured tacks pepper a large-scale world map among bookshelves at Whodunit Mystery Bookstore.
Estonia, Finland, Japan and even Fenwick, Ont., have pins representing places outside Winnipeg where someone has ordered a page-turner from the independent bookstore that specializes in mystery and crime fiction novels.
For 30 years, the store has been offering fans of Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot or Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes a place to get lost in whodunits both old and new.
Jack and Wendy Bumsted bought the shop in the Crescentwood neighbourhood in 2007 from another pair of mystery lovers.
The married couple had been longtime customers of the store. Wendy Bumsted grew up reading Perry Mason novels while her husband was a historian with vast knowledge of the crime fiction genre.
At the time, Jack Bumsted was retiring from teaching at the University of Manitoba when he was looking for his next venture.
“The bookstore came up and we bought it, I think, within a week,” Wendy Bumsted said in an interview.
“It never didn’t seem like a good idea.”
In the years since the Bumsteds took ownership, the family has witnessed the decline in mail-order books, the introduction of online retailers, a relocation to a new space next to the original, a pandemic and the death of beloved co-owner Jack Bumsted in 2020.
But with all the changes that come with owning a small business, customers continue to trust their next mystery fix will come from one of the shelves at Whodunit.
Many still request to be called about books from specific authors, or want to be notified if a new book follows their favourite format. Some arrive at the shop like clockwork each week hoping to get suggestions from Wendy Bumsted or her son on the next big hit.
“She has really excellent instincts on what we should be getting and what we should be promoting,” Micheal Bumsted said of his mother.
Wendy Bumsted suggested the store stock “Thursday Murder Club,” the debut novel from British television host Richard Osman, before it became a bestseller. They ordered more copies than other bookstores in Canada knowing it had the potential to be a hit, said Michael Bumsted.
The store houses more than 18,000 new and used novels. That’s not including the boxes of books that sit in Wendy Bumsted’s tiny office, or the packages that take up space on some of the only available seating there, waiting to be added to the inventory.
Just as the genre has evolved, so has the Bumsteds’ willingness to welcome other subjects on their shelves — despite some pushback from loyal customers and initially the Bumsted patriarch.
For years, Jack Bumsted refused to sell anything outside the crime fiction genre, including his own published books. Instead, he would send potential buyers to another store, but would offer to sign the books if they came back with them.
Wendy Bumsted said that eventually changed in his later years.
Now, about 15 per cent of the store’s stock is of other genres, such as romance or children’s books.
The COVID-19 pandemic forced them to look at expanding their selection, as some customers turned to buying books through the store’s website, which is set up to allow purchasers to get anything from the publishers the Bumsteds have contracts with.
In 2019, the store sold fewer than 100 books online. That number jumped to more than 3,000 in 2020, as retailers had to deal with pandemic lockdowns.
After years of running a successful mail-order business, the store was able to quickly adapt when it had to temporarily shut its doors, said Michael Bumsted.
“We were not a store…that had to figure out how to get books to people when they weren’t here.”
He added being a community bookstore with a niche has helped the family stay in business when other retailers have struggled. Part of that has included building lasting relationships.
“Some people have put it in their wills that their books will come to us,” said Wendy Bumsted.
Some of those collections have included tips on traveling through Asia in the early 2000s or the history of Australian cricket.
Micheal Bumsted said they’ve had to learn to be patient with selling some of these more obscure titles, but eventually the time comes for them to find a new home.
“One of the great things about physical books is that they can be there for you when you are ready for them.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published on Sept. 15, 2024.
MONTREAL – Canada’s labour minister is praising both Air Canada and the union representing about 5,200 of its pilots for averting a work stoppage that would have disrupted travel for hundreds of thousands of passengers.
Steven MacKinnon’s comments came in a statement shared to social media shortly after Canada’s largest air carrier announced it had reached a tentative labour deal with the Air Line Pilots Association.
MacKinnon thanked both sides and federal mediators, saying the airline and its pilots approached negotiations with “seriousness and a resolve to get a deal.”
The tentative agreement averts a strike or lockout that could have begun as early as Wednesday for Air Canada and Air Canada Rouge, with flight cancellations expected before then.
The airline now says flights will continue as normal while union members vote on the tentative four-year contract.
Air Canada had called on the federal government to intervene in the dispute, but Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Friday that would only happen if it became clear no negotiated agreement was possible.
This report from The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 15, 2024.
When it comes to plant-based alternatives, Canadians have never had so many options — and nowhere is that choice more abundantly clear than in the milk section of the dairy aisle.
To meet growing demand, companies are investing in new products and technology to keep up with consumer tastes and differentiate themselves from all the other players on the shelf.
“The product mix has just expanded so fast,” said Liza Amlani, co-founder of the Retail Strategy Group.
She said younger generations in particular are driving growth in the plant-based market as they are consuming less dairy and meat.
Commercial sales of dairy milk have been weakening for years, according to research firm Mintel, likely in part because of the rise of plant-based alternatives — even though many Canadians still drink dairy.
The No. 1 reason people opt for plant-based milk is because they see it as healthier than dairy, said Joel Gregoire, Mintel’s associate director for food and drink.
“Plant-based milk, the one thing about it — it’s not new. It’s been around for quite some time. It’s pretty established,” said Gregoire.
Because of that, it serves as an “entry point” for many consumers interested in plant-based alternatives to animal products, he said.
Plant-based milk consumption is expected to continue growing in the coming years, according to Mintel research, with more options available than ever and more consumers opting for a diet that includes both dairy and non-dairy milk.
A 2023 report by Ernst & Young for Protein Industries Canada projected that the plant-based dairy market will reach US$51.3 billion in 2035, at a compound annual growth rate of 9.5 per cent.
Because of this growth opportunity, even well-established dairy or plant-based companies are stepping up their game.
It’s been more than three decades since Saint-Hyacinthe, Que.-based Natura first launched a line of soy beverages. Over the years, the company has rolled out new products to meet rising demand, and earlier this year launched a line of oat beverages that it says are the only ones with a stamp of approval from Celiac Canada.
Competition is tough, said owner and founder Nick Feldman — especially from large American brands, which have the money to ensure their products hit shelves across the country.
Natura has kept growing, though, with a focus on using organic ingredients and localized production from raw materials.
“We’re maybe not appealing to the mass market, but we’re appealing to the natural consumer, to the organic consumer,” Feldman said.
Amlani said brands are increasingly advertising the simplicity of their ingredient lists. She’s also noticing more companies offering different kinds of products, such as coffee creamers.
Companies are also looking to stand out through eye-catching packaging and marketing, added Amlani, and by competing on price.
Besides all the companies competing for shelf space, there are many different kinds of plant-based milk consumers can choose from, such as almond, soy, oat, rice, hazelnut, macadamia, pea, coconut and hemp.
However, one alternative in particular has enjoyed a recent, rapid ascendance in popularity.
“I would say oat is the big up-and-coming product,” said Feldman.
Mintel’s report found the share of Canadians who say they buy oat milk has quadrupled between 2019 and 2023 (though almond is still the most popular).
“There seems to be a very nice marriage of coffee and oat milk,” said Feldman. “The flavour combination is excellent, better than any other non-dairy alternative.”
The beverage’s surge in popularity in cafés is a big part of why it’s ascending so quickly, said Gregoire — its texture and ability to froth makes it a good alternative for lattes and cappuccinos.
It’s also a good example of companies making a strong “use case” for yet another new entrant in a competitive market, he said.
Amid the long-standing brands and new entrants, there’s another — perhaps unexpected — group of players that has been increasingly investing in plant-based milk alternatives: dairy companies.
For example, Danone has owned the Silk and So Delicious brands since an acquisition in 2014, and long-standing U.S. dairy company HP Hood LLC launched Planet Oat in 2018.
Lactalis Canada also recently converted its facility in Sudbury, Ont., to manufacture its new plant-based Enjoy! brand, with beverages made from oats, almonds and hazelnuts.
“As an organization, we obviously follow consumer trends, and have seen the amount of interest in plant-based products, particularly fluid beverages,” said Mark Taylor, president and CEO of Lactalis Canada, whose parent company Lactalis is the largest dairy products company in the world.
The facility was a milk processing plant for six decades, until Lactalis Canada began renovating it in 2022. It now manufactures not only the new brand, but also the company’s existing Sensational Soy brand, and is the company’s first dedicated plant-based facility.
“We’re predominantly a dairy company, and we’ll always predominantly be a dairy company, but we see these products as complementary,” said Taylor.
It makes sense that major dairy companies want to get in on plant-based milk, said Gregoire. The dairy business is large — a “cash cow,” if you will — but not really growing, while plant-based products are seeing a boom.
“If I’m looking for avenues of growth, I don’t want to be left behind,” he said.
Gregoire said there’s a potential for consumers to get confused with so many options, which is why it’s so important for brands to find a way to differentiate themselves, whether it’s with taste, health, or how well the drink froths for a latte.
Competition in a more crowded market is challenging, but Taylor believes it results in better products for consumers.
“It keeps you sharp, and it forces you to be really good at what you’re doing. It drives innovation,” he said.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 15, 2024.
