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Canada’s trade minister, U.S. ambassador vow closer trade ties, despite differences

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WASHINGTON — In the grand scheme of a volatile and unpredictable world, the Canada-U.S. trade relationship is healthy and only growing stronger, its two senior curators insisted Thursday during a rare joint appearance in Ottawa.

U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai was in the national capital for a two-day visit, her first to Canada since President Joe Biden appointed her as his principal international trade emissary last March.

Appearing alongside Trade Minister Mary Ng, Tai acknowledged the various and long-standing irritants that exist between the two countries, but said they pale in comparison to the global challenges looming over the continent.

“If you zoom out, and you look at the fact that the United States and Canada exist in the larger world, then you start to see the real strength and durability of this relationship,” Tai said.

She cited their united front in helping Ukraine in its war with Russia and the U.S.-Canada-Mexico Agreement as “foundational pillars” of their collective effort to work together for each other’s mutual benefit.

“In the context of North America, it is very clear that the success of your economy, your workers, means success for our economy and our workers, and vice versa,” Tai said.

“Policies that erode your industries are the same policies that erode our industries.”

Tai also mentioned the specific issue of solar panels — a dispute resolution panel ruled in February that Trump-era tariffs on Canadian-made solar products were a violation of the USMCA, known in Canada as CUSMA.

The Biden administration has been maintaining the previous president’s tariffs on imports of certain solar components, albeit at lower levels, in an effort to help U.S. manufacturers catch up to competitors like China.

The panel’s final report found that by keeping Canadian exports — a relatively tiny segment of the total — subject to its so-called “safeguard measures,” the U.S. was in violation of its obligations under the deal.

“That is another example where if you zoom in close, you see that as a dispute between the two of us,” Tai said.

“Zoom out, and you realize that we are in this together in terms of competing within a world where we’ve got competitors that are really fierce and we need to work together to meet those challenges.”

She turned taciturn on the subject of Buy American and Buy America, a longtime protectionist doctrine in the U.S. that Biden has embraced enthusiastically when it comes to financing federal infrastructure projects.

Business leaders in Canada fear the chilling effect that Biden’s protectionist rhetoric is having on the ability of contractors and suppliers north of the border to win contracts in the U.S., both in the private sector as well as at lower levels of government.

“Let’s just be very, very clear: those are federal procurement policies, and Canada has federal procurement policies as well,” Tai said.

“I wouldn’t characterize that championship by President Biden as a barrier that the administration is throwing into the U.S.-Canadian trade relationship.”

Dennis Darby, chief executive of Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters, happened to be testifying Thursday before the House of Commons transport committee on the subject of supply chain vulnerabilities.

“We know our government and our diplomatic corps are hard at work mitigating the protectionist tendencies of the current administration in the U.S., (but) we have to keep up the pressure,” Darby told the committee.

“We need to approach this as Buy North America, not Buy America — it’s one way for us to continue to be part of their supply chain, and to shorten their supply chain.”

Ng said she’s looking forward to showing her counterpart a GM facility Friday in Markham, Ont., where they expect to see integrated Canada-U.S. supply chains in action.

With the industry shifting rapidly and dramatically towards electric vehicles, the Canada and U.S. auto sectors are about to become even more closely intertwined, she predicted.

“We’ve been building autos for over 100 years — and for the last 50 years, very deliberately so, through deliberate policies that have integrated our auto supply chains, and the future is electric,” Ng said.

“We are going to invest in, of course, critical minerals, which is the beginning of that value chain, but from critical minerals to electric batteries that will go into those electric vehicles … we’re going to be working with the United States on this.”

The pair were scheduled to meet with union leaders later Thursday, as well as the owners of small and medium-sized businesses Friday in Toronto.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 5, 2022.

 

James McCarten, The Canadian Press

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Two youths arrested after emergency alert issued in New Brunswick

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MONCTON, N.B. – New Brunswick RCMP say two youths have been arrested after an emergency alert was issued Monday evening about someone carrying a gun in the province’s southeast.

Caledonia Region Mounties say they were first called out to Main Street in the community of Salisbury around 7 p.m. on reports of a shooting.

A 48-year-old man was found at the scene suffering from gunshot wounds and he was rushed to hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.

Police say in the interest of public safety, they issued an Alert Ready message at 8:15 p.m. for someone driving a silver Ford F-150 pickup truck and reportedly carrying a firearm with dangerous intent in the Salisbury and Moncton area.

Two youths were arrested without incident later in the evening in Salisbury, and the alert was cancelled just after midnight Tuesday.

Police are still looking for the silver pickup truck, covered in mud, with possible Nova Scotia licence plate HDC 958. They now confirm the truck was stolen from Central Blissville.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

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World Junior Girls Golf Championship coming to Toronto-area golf course

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MISSISSAUGA, Ont. – Golf Canada has set an impressive stretch goal of having 30 professional golfers at the highest levels of the sport by 2032.

The World Junior Girls Golf Championship is a huge part of that target.

Credit Valley Golf and Country Club will host the international tournament from Sept. 30 to Oct. 5, with 24 teams representing 23 nations — Canada gets two squads — competing. Lindsay McGrath, a 17-year-old golfer from Oakville, Ont., said she’s excited to be representing Canada and continue to develop her game.

“I’m really grateful to be here,” said McGrath on Monday after a news conference in Credit Valley’s clubhouse in Mississauga, Ont. “It’s just such an awesome feeling being here and representing our country, wearing all the logos and being on Team Canada.

“I’ve always wanted to play in this tournament, so it’s really special to me.”

McGrath will be joined by Nobelle Park of Oakville, Ont., and Eileen Park of Red Deer, Alta., on Team Canada 2. All three earned their places through a qualifying tournament last month.

“I love my teammates so much,” said McGrath. “I know Nobelle and Eileen very well. I’m just so excited to be with them. We have such a great relationship.”

Shauna Liu of Maple, Ont., Calgary’s Aphrodite Deng and Clairey Lin make up Team Canada 2. Liu earned her exemption following her win at the 2024 Canadian Junior Girls Championship while Deng earned her exemption as being the low eligible Canadian on the world amateur golf ranking as of Aug. 7.

Deng was No. 175 at the time, she has since improved to No. 171 and is Canada’s lowest-ranked player.

“I think it’s a really great opportunity,” said Liu. “We don’t really get that many opportunities to play with people from across the world, so it’s really great to meet new people and play with them.

“It’s great to see maybe how they play and take parts from their game that we might also implement our own games.”

Golf Canada founded the World Junior Girls Golf Championship in 2014 to fill a void in women’s international competition and help grow its own homegrown talent. The hosts won for the first time last year when Vancouver’s Anna Huang, Toronto’s Vanessa Borovilos and Vancouver’s Vanessa Zhang won team gold and Huang earned individual silver.

Medallists who have gone on to win on the LPGA Tour include Brooke Henderson of Smiths Falls, Ont., who was fourth in the individual competition at the inaugural tournament. She was on Canada’s bronze-medal team in 2014 with Selena Costabile of Thornhill, Ont., and Calgary’s Jaclyn Lee.

Other notable competitors who went on to become LPGA Tour winners include Angel Yin and Megan Khang of the United States, as well as Yuka Saso of the Philippines, Sweden’s Linn Grant and Atthaya Thitikul of Thailand.

“It’s not if, it’s when they’re going to be on the LPGA Tour,” said Garrett Ball, Golf Canada’s chief operating officer, of how Canada’s golfers in the World Junior Girls Championship can be part of the organization’s goal to have 30 pros in the LPGA and PGA Tours by 2032.

“Events like this, like the She Plays Golf festival that we launched two years ago, and then the CPKC Women’s Open exemptions that we utilize to bring in our national team athletes and get the experience has been important in that pathway.”

The individual winner of the World Junior Girls Golf Championship will earn a berth in next year’s CPKC Women’s Open at nearby Mississaugua Golf and Country Club.

Both clubs, as well as former RBC Canadian Open host site Glen Abbey Golf Club, were devastated by heavy rains through June and July as the Greater Toronto Area had its wettest summer in recorded history.

Jason Hanna, the chief operating officer of Credit Valley Golf and Country Club, said that he has seen the Credit River flood so badly that it affected the course’s playability a handful of times over his nearly two decades with the club.

Staff and members alike came together to clean up the course after the flooding was over, with hundreds of people coming together to make the club playable again.

“You had to show up, bring your own rake, bring your own shovel, bring your own gloves, and then we’d take them down to the golf course, assign them to areas where they would work, and then we would do a big barbecue down at the halfway house,” said Hanna. “We got guys, like, 80 years old, putting in eight-hour days down there, working away.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.

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Purple place: Mets unveil the new Grimace seat at Citi Field

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NEW YORK (AP) — Fenway Park has the Ted Williams seat. And now Citi Field has the Grimace seat.

The kid-friendly McDonald’s character made another appearance at the ballpark Monday, when the New York Mets unveiled a commemorative purple seat in section 302 to honor “his special connection to Mets fans.”

Wearing his pear-shaped purple costume and a baseball glove on backwards, Grimace threw out a funny-looking first pitch — as best he could with those furry fingers and short arms — before New York beat the Miami Marlins at Citi Field on June 12.

That victory began a seven-game winning streak, and Grimace the Mets’ good-luck charm soon went viral, taking on a life of its own online.

New York is 53-31 since June 12, the best record in the majors during that span. The Mets were tied with rival Atlanta for the last National League playoff spot as they opened their final homestand of the season Monday night against Washington.

The new Grimace seat in the second deck in right field — located in row 6, seat 12 to signify 6/12 on the calendar — was brought into the Shannon Forde press conference room Monday afternoon. The character posed next to the chair and with fans who strolled into the room.

The seat is available for purchase for each of the Mets’ remaining home games.

“It’s been great to see how our fanbase created the Grimace phenomenon following his first pitch in June and in the months since,” Mets senior vice president of partnerships Brenden Mallette said in a news release. “As we explored how to further capture the magic of this moment and celebrate our new celebrity fan, installing a commemorative seat ahead of fan appreciation weekend felt like the perfect way to give something back to the fans in a fun and unique way.”

Up in Boston, the famous Ted Williams seat is painted bright red among rows of green chairs deep in the right-field stands at Fenway Park to mark where a reported 502-foot homer hit by the Hall of Fame slugger landed in June 1946.

So, does this catapult Grimace into Splendid Splinter territory?

“I don’t know if we put him on the same level,” Mets executive vice president and chief marketing officer Andy Goldberg said with a grin.

“It’s just been a fun year, and at the same time, we’ve been playing great ball. Ever since the end of May, we have been crushing it,” he explained. “So I think that added to the mystique.”

___

AP MLB:

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