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In The News for Dec. 1: Canada gains on U.S. in permanent resident race

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Last year, the number of new permanent residents in the U.S. barely budged to 738,199, up slightly from 707,362 in 2020, the year the pandemic began.

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But in Canada, the number soared to more than 405,000 — more than twice the number who arrived in 2020, and still nearly 20 per cent more than in 2019.

It’s a record that will likely be beaten more than once in the coming years, as a Canadian federal immigration plan released earlier this month aims to admit 465,000 new permanent residents in 2023 and 500,000 a year by 2025, with a particular focus on bringing in people with needed skills and experience.

Business leaders say the government should be even more focused on attracting skilled migrants than it already is, and do more to ensure their credentials and qualifications are recognized.

Housing is a problem too, with association CEO Jack Jedwab saying Toronto beat out the New York area last year as the most popular destination for new permanent residents.

Also this …

HIV activists are marking World AIDS Day by urging Ottawa to help stop a global backslide in stopping infections and combating stigma.

The World Health Organization has reported a slowing in the decline of new HIV cases, ever since countries focused their limited health care systems on COVID-19.

There is a rising proportion of cases among women and people who inject drugs in Canada, and Indigenous people accounted for nearly one-fifth of new infections in 2020.

Advocates point out that Canada still criminalizes people for not telling sexual partners that they have HIV, even when prescription drugs make it impossible to transmit the virus.

They argue that the risk of prosecution prevents people from accessing testing and treatment.

AIDS has killed roughly 40 million people, including 650,000 in 2021

What we are watching in the U.S. …

WASHINGTON _ Presidents Joe Biden and Emmanuel Macron are celebrating the long-standing U.S.-French relationship _ but these are friends with differences. The French president is using his visit to Washington to sharply criticize aspects of the U.S. president’s signature climate law as a bad deal for Europe.

Biden is set to honour Macron with the first state dinner of his presidency on Thursday evening. First, the two leaders will sit down in the Oval Office for morning talks that officials from both sides said were expected to largely centre on the leaders’ efforts to stay united in their response to Russia’s war in Ukraine and to co-ordinate their approach to an increasingly assertive China.

But ahead of Thursday’s meeting, Macron made clear that he and other European leaders remain deeply concerned about the incentives in a sweeping new climate-related law that favour American-made climate technology, including electric vehicles.

Macron on Wednesday criticized the legislation, known as the Inflation Reduction Act, during a luncheon with U.S. lawmakers and again during a speech at the French embassy. The French president said that while the Biden administration’s efforts to curb climate change should be applauded, the subsidies would be an enormous setback for European companies.

“The choices that have been made … are choices that will fragment the West,” Macron said at the French embassy. He added that the legislation “creates such differences between the United States of America and Europe that all those who work in many companies (in the U.S.), they will just think, `We don’t make investments any more on the other side of the Atlantic.”’

Separately, at the luncheon with members of Congress from both parties, along with business leaders and diplomats, Macron said that major industrial nations need to do more to address climate change and promote biodiversity.

He criticized a deal reached at a recent climate summit in Egypt in which the United States and other wealthy nations agreed to help pay for the damage that an overheating world is inflicting on poor countries. The deal includes few details on how it will be paid for, and Macron said a more comprehensive approach is needed _ “not just a new fund we decided which will not be funded and even if it is funded, it will not be rightly allocated.”

Speaking after his prepared remarks and without cameras present, Macron took aim at the Inflation Reduction Act, calling the subsidies harmful to French companies and others in Europe, according to a person in the closed-door meeting. The European Union has expressed concern that tax credits in the climate law, including those aimed at encouraging Americans to buy electric vehicles, would discriminate against European producers and break World Trade Organization rules.

What we are watching in the rest of the world …

BENGALURU, India _ India officially takes up its role as chair of the Group of 20 leading economies for the coming year Thursday and it’s putting climate at the top of the group’s priorities.

Programs to encourage sustainable living and money for countries to transition to clean energy and deal with the effects of a warming world are some of the key areas that India will focus on during its presidency, experts say. Some say India will also use its new position to boost its climate credentials and act as a bridge between the interests of industrialized nations and developing ones.

The country has made considerable moves toward its climate goals in recent years but is currently one of the world’s top emitters of planet-warming gases.

The G-20, made up of the world’s largest economies, has a rolling presidency with a different member state in charge of the group’s agenda and priorities each year. Experts believe India will use the “big stage” of the G-20 presidency to drive forward its climate and development plans.

The country “will focus heavily on responding to the current and future challenges posed by climate change,” said Samir Sarin, president of the Observer Research Foundation, a New Delhi-based think tank. The ORF will be anchoring the T-20 _ a group of think tanks from the 20 member countries whose participants meet alongside the G-20.

Sarin said that India will work to ensure that money is flowing from rich industrialized nations to emerging economies to help them combat global warming, such as a promise of $100 billion a year for clean energy and adapting to climate change for poorer nations that has not yet been fulfilled and a recent pledge to vulnerable countries that there will be a fund for the loss and damage caused by extreme weather.

He added that India will also use the presidency to push its flagship “Mission Life” program that encourages more sustainable lifestyles in the country, which is set to soon become most populous in the world.

When outgoing chair Indonesia formally handed the presidency to India in Bali last month, Prime Minister Narendra Modi took the opportunity to promote the program, saying it could make “a big contribution” by turning sustainable living into “a mass movement.”

India has been beefing up its climate credentials, with its recent domestic targets to transition to renewable energy more ambitious than the goals it submitted to the U.N. as part of the Paris Agreement, which requires countries to show how they plan to limit warming to temperature targets set in 2015.

On this day in 201 …

Canada acted on an American request and arrested a top Chinese tech executive in Vancouver. Meng Wanzhou is the CFO of Huawei Technologies and daughter of the company’s founder. The U.S. wanted her to face allegations of fraud as it says Huawei used unofficial subsidiary Skycom to do business with Iranian telecommunications companies between 2009 and 2014 in violation of sanctions. (Wanzhou was released in September 2021 after reaching an agreement with the US Justice Department.)

In entertainment …

LONDON _ They want money _ that’s what they want, that’s what they want. Well, now the Rolling Stones can say they’re also ON money, the face of a new collectible coin issued by Britain’s Royal Mint to celebrate the band’s 60th anniversary.

The new five-pound coin features a silhouette image of the iconic band performing _ frontman Mick Jagger, guitarists Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood, and the late drummer Charlie Watts _ as well as the band’s name in what is described as their classic 1973 font. The mint said it was one of the last coins of the year to be released bearing the image of Queen Elizabeth, who died in September at age 96.

The Rolling Stones were back on the road this year with their 2022 European “Sixty” tour, ending in Berlin in August.

“We are delighted to be honoured by way of an official U.K. coin,” the band said in a statement included in the Royal Mint’s announcement. “Even more significant that the release coincides with our 60th anniversary.”

The new coin is the fifth in the mint’s “Music Legends”’ series, which celebrates legendary British artists. Others so honoured have been Queen, Elton John, David Bowie, and The Who.

While the best things in life are free, as the Stones sang in their cover of the Motown hit “Money (That’s What I Want),” the coins will cost something. Similar coins on the mint’s website from the Music Legends series range from 15 pounds to 465 pounds.

Did you see this?

WINNIPEG _ A 101-year-old message has been discovered by workers removing the base of a former statue in front of the Manitoba legislature.

Workers have been removing, piece by piece, the large base that held a statue of Queen Victoria. The statue was toppled last year by protesters. Its head was removed and thrown in the nearby Assiniboine River. The base is being removed to make way for a replacement.

When crews recently removed one section of the base, they found a broken bottle and a note that had been placed inside. The note was an apology of sorts, dated July 30, 1921, _ an era when alcohol was outlawed.

‘It says, on account of the Prohibition, we are unable to adhere to the custom of depositing a bottle of brandy under the stone, for which we are extremely sorry, I believe is what it says,” Reg Helwer, minister responsible for government services, said Wednesday as he tried to make out the wording on the worn dispatch.

The note is signed by a stonecutter, other workers and a bureaucrat _ the province’s deputy minister of public works at the time.

The government is now working out how to best preserve the document and what should be done with it.

Helwer said it’s not the first time an item from Manitoba’s early days as a province has been discovered unexpectedly.

“Apparently there are things of that nature around the legislature. As we move stones, we do discover things like this,” he said.

“To me, it’s a very neat story, especially with the age of the building, just recently celebrating a hundred years not long ago.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 1, 2022.

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Ukraine news: Canadian commander of volunteer group dies

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A Canadian-born commander of the so-called Norman Brigade – a volunteer fighting group in Ukraine – has died.

The news was first circulated through online chatrooms and social media posts and later shared by Russian state-owned outlet Sputnik.

Jean-Francois Ratelle, 36, was also known by the call sign “Hrulf.”

Global Affairs Canada said it is aware that a Canadian has died in Ukraine, but would not provide his name, nor the cause of death.

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“Our hearts go out to his family and loved ones at this very difficult time,” wrote spokesperson Grantly Franklin. “Consular officials are in contact with local authorities for further information and are providing consular assistance to the family.”

 

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Brian Mulroney's sons thank Canadians, politicians for outpouring of support – CBC.ca

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Former prime minister Brian Mulroney’s three sons thanked Canadians and federal political leaders for the outpouring of support they’ve received since their father’s death late last month.

Ben, Mark and Nicholas Mulroney spoke briefly to reporters after the House of Commons officially commemorated the life and legacy of the late Conservative stalwart. Their sister Caroline and mother Mila joined them in the gallery for the speeches that paid tribute to the man Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called “one of the lions of Canadian politics” 

Mark said listening in reminded them of what their father loved about politics.

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“And for us sitting up in the gallery, hearing everybody speak so positively — probably not what he was used to — but he would have loved it and we did as well,” he said with a laugh.

“He enjoyed every minute of the back and forth parliamentary process, the debate. And seeing it today, seeing how it was, we obviously understand what drew him here, but what also he loved about it.”

WATCH | Brian Mulroney’s sons react to MPs’ tributes to their father 

Brian Mulroney’s sons react to MPs’ tributes to their father

2 hours ago

Duration 1:34

Ben, Mark and Nicolas Mulroney say they are thankful for the tributes to their father in the House of Commons. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh, Green Party Leader Elizabeth May and Bloc Québécois MP Louis Plamondon all honoured former prime minister Brian Mulroney with speeches on Monday.

Nicholas Mulroney, who was born during his father’s time at 24 Sussex, said it was “incredibly humbling” to hear from friends and former foes.

“Being the youngest member of the family, this is certainly not something I grew up used to and especially for the grandkids, they get to see and experience something so special,” he said.

“We’re truly honoured from people across the country and internationally that have taken the time to reach out to say nice things and words of support. I just want to thank everybody on behalf of the family.”

The family was in Ottawa for the start of a week of remembrance, culminating in the state funeral in Montreal on Saturday. 

When Mulroney died on Feb. 29 at the age of 84, the House of Commons suspended operations before going on a pre-planned two-week break.

MPs returned Monday on a sombre note as leaders and MPs rose to pay tribute to Canada’s 18th prime minister.

Trudeau reminisced about one of his last encounters with Mulroney at his alma mater, St. Francis Xavier University, when they toured Mulroney Hall last year.

WATCH | Party leaders pay tribute to Brian Mulroney 

Party leaders pay tribute to Brian Mulroney

2 hours ago

Duration 3:49

Federal party leaders stood in the House of Commons Monday to honour the legacy of former prime minister Brian Mulroney ahead of the state funeral, to be held on Saturday.

Trudeau said that as they walked together through a replica of the prime minister’s Centre Block office, they reflected on the “wisdom that he and my dad both shared, that leadership, fundamentally, is about getting the big things right, no matter what your political stripe or your style.”

“He wouldn’t let himself succumb to temporary pressure. He was motivated by service. And those things, those big things, have stood the test of history four decades and counting,” he said.

Mulroney’s Progressive Conservatives governed Canada from 1984 to 1993. He won two majority governments and steered Canada through several consequential policy decision points, including free trade with the United States, the end of the Cold War and the introduction of the GST.

“He had the wisdom to understand that the best way to fight back was to embrace our friends,” said Trudeau, who leaned on Mulroney when free trade negotiations were reopened with the Donald Trump administration.

“Brian Mulroney’s principles helped shape this nation, and the world, for the better, and we will all continue that work.”

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre opened his remarks by describing Mulroney’s humble origin as the son of a paper mill electrician in the forestry town of Baie-Comeau, Que.

“I was just becoming aware there was such a thing as prime minister when he had that job. And like millions of young people from similar backgrounds, we looked to him and said — if the Irish son of a working-class electrician from a mill town can rise to become prime minister, then in this country, anyone from anywhere can do anything,” Poilievre said to general applause.

Mulroney family members take part in a moment of silence prior to tributes to the late prime minister Brian Mulroney in the House of Commons on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Monday, March 18, 2024.
Mulroney family members take part in a moment of silence prior to tributes to the late prime minister Brian Mulroney in the House of Commons on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Monday, March 18, 2024. (Sean Kilpatrick/Canadian Press)

He also spoke of Mulroney’s famous personal touch, telling a story about meeting a mechanic in Ottawa whose father was a miner with the Iron Ore Company of Canada, when Mulroney served as its president.

Poilievre said that decades later, when the mechanic’s father died, Mulroney called the family, 

“That is kindness. That is humility,” he said

Poilievre said Mulroney elevated phone conversations to “an art form.”

“Using the telephone the way Michelangelo may have used a chisel or a brush, he would do it to make business deals, charm foreign leaders, and more importantly to comfort grieving or suffering friends,” said Poilievre.

“He would console, joke, or even throw in the odd curse about the unfairness of it all and his friends’ turmoil melted into the astonishment that one of the country’s greatest prime ministers had offered love and laughter.”

‘He can charm the birds out of the trees’: May

One of the people who received one of those phone calls was Elizabeth May, who worked as a policy adviser to Mulroney’s environment minister before becoming leader of the federal Green Party.

“I’d love to tell you what he said … he’s so darn funny, but I really can’t repeat it,” she told the House.

“There’s no real way to explain how he can charm the birds out of the trees. He sure as heck could.”

She praised the former prime minister for ushering in one of the world’s most successful environmental treaties, the Montreal Protocol.

“Brian Mulroney quite literally saved all life on earth when Canada stood up and launched the Montreal Protocol and saved the ozone layer,” she said.

“Let us continue to try to meet that example of a good-hearted, kind-spirited, generous and brilliant Canadian.”

NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh also applauded the former Progressive Conservative leader’s environmental record, his campaign against racial apartheid in South Africa and his respect for the role of journalists.

“Prime Minister Mulroney will be remembered as someone who took big chances while he was in office,” he said. “While there are great many issues, of course, he and I would not agree on, I want to acknowledge the legacy he leaves behind after a long career of dedicated public service.

“At a time of more heightened divisions, where some political leaders try to score points by pitting one group of people against another, Mr. Mulroney will be remembered as someone who tried to build unity.”

Bloc Quebecois MP Louis Plamondon, who was elected as an MP in Mulroney’s party the year he became prime minister, said he will be remembered as a great Canadian and a great Quebecer.

“He loved Mila, his wife and lifelong companion. He was so proud of his children and he cherished his role as a grandfather,” he said in French.

State funeral this Saturday 

Mulroney will lie in state on Tuesday and Wednesday in Ottawa near Parliament Hill. Gov. Gen. Mary Simon and Trudeau are set to offer condolences to the Mulroney family Tuesday morning.

His casket will then travel to Montreal ahead of the state funeral at St. Patrick’s Basilica on Saturday. 

His daughter Caroline, longtime friend and colleague Jean Charest and hockey star Wayne Gretzky will deliver the eulogies.

The funeral ceremony will begin at 11 a.m. ET and is expected to last two hours.

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An NDP motion puts a big question to the test: Will Canada recognize Palestinian statehood?

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An opposition day motion brought forward by the NDP’s foreign affairs critic Monday could set the cat among the pigeons in the federal Liberal caucus.

The non-binding motion calls on the government to take a number of actions in response to the war in the Middle East, including that it should “officially recognize the State of Palestine.”

The motion was sponsored by NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh with the party’s foreign affairs critic, Heather McPherson, acting as the point person.

“We wrote this in a way that it’s not supposed to be a ‘gotcha’ motion,” she said.

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“This was supposed to be a motion that aligned with international law, aligns with Canadian policy. So we’re hopeful that we will have some support from the Liberals and we’re certainly seeing more movement from them over the last few days.”

‘I expect there will be a split:’ Liberal MP

But the motion is also expected to divide the government caucus.

“It’s not the perfect motion by any means, and no motion is. But when you look at the broad strokes of it, this is a push to support human rights,” said Liberal MP Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, who told CBC News that he will back it despite reservations.

“And I think it emphasizes Canada’s role in this, which is to focus on and preserve human rights and peace.”

A politician holding a piece of paper.
NDP Member of Parliament for Edmonton—Strathcona Heather McPherson is shown in the House of Commons on April 27, 2022. She is acting as point person on the opposition day motion. (Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press)

Erskine-Smith, MP for the Toronto riding of Beaches—East York, says he has heard a wide range of views from his constituents on the topic, but “my inbox is full of people saying, ‘We want the violence to end, we want civilians to be protected, we don’t want to see more casualties. We don’t want to see more kids die. And Canada has to do more to end the violence.'”

Erskine-Smith also knows that his view is not shared by everyone in his party.

“I expect there will be a split,” he said. “I think the government position will obviously matter a great deal to my colleagues.”

‘A huge slap in the face:’ Housefather

One Liberal who definitely intends to oppose the motion is Montreal’s Anthony Housefather.

“It’s incredibly meaningful in the sense that this would be a huge slap in the face to the vast majority of Canada’s Jewish community,” he told CBC News.

Housefather, MP for Mount Royal, says he objects to clauses in the motion that call for an immediate ceasefire, and for the suspension of all sales of military equipment to Israel.

He called it an “anti-Israel motion.”

“Because it’s a motion that essentially rewards Hamas for attacking Israel,” Housefather said.

“It changes 50 years of consecutive Liberal and Conservative governments positions on the recognition of a Palestinian state to move away from the fact that it’s something that would have to be negotiated by the parties where they agree on a territory and normally do recognize the state.”

A man wearing a suit speaks in front of microphones.
Liberal Member of Parliament Anthony Housefather talks to reporters as he arrives to a caucus meeting in Ottawa on Nov. 8. He has hinted that he may leave the Liberal caucus if cabinet members back Palestinian statehood. (Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press)

Housefather pointed out that no G7 country has yet recognized Palestinian statehood; Canada would be the first.

Indeed, a map of the world shows a stark North-South and East-West split on recognition. Of the UN’s 193 member states, 139 have recognized Palestine, including almost every country in South and Central America, Africa, Asia and Eastern Europe (mostly from their time in the Soviet Bloc).

Trudeau’s eight years in office have produced a more uniformly anti-Palestinian UN voting record than even his famously pro-Israel predecessor Stephen Harper, but there have been some recent adjustments.

Starting in 2019, the Trudeau government began to vote in favour of an annual motion supporting Palestinian self-determination, although the prime minister has played down the significance of the change in comments to the Jewish community.

The Trudeau government has also sought to prevent Palestine from advancing its case for statehood through the courts.

Three different Liberal foreign ministers have written to the International Court of Justice or the International Criminal Court asking it to refuse to hear Palestinian cases, partly on the grounds that Israel does not recognize the court.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has personally written to Trudeau to ask for those Canadian interventions on behalf of Israel.

When the International Court of Justice met last month to consider the “legal consequences arising from the policies and practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem,” the Trudeau government’s submission again asked it to refuse to hear the case on the grounds that Israel did not recognize the court’s jurisdiction, and that those matters were best left to negotiations between the parties.

The argument is not if, but when

McPherson says that Canada’s official position that there should not be movement toward recognition until after final-status talks between the two parties is “an excuse.”

“This is a moment in time where we need to come up with a better solution for peace in the Middle East,” she said.

Housefather says he agrees that “the two-state solution is absolutely necessary.”

But “this is not the time to recognize a Palestinian state suddenly in contradiction to what our policy has been for decades. Because what this would do is say the policy has changed,” he said.

“Why has the policy changed? Because Hamas started a war. And so I would be aghast, aghast if Canada changed its position as a result.”

McPherson disagrees.

“I don’t believe that stopping killing children, the end of the bloodshed, the end of starvation, getting humanitarian aid to innocent people, getting the conflict to stop so that we are, we are able to move toward something that’s more peaceful and just for Israelis and Palestinians, I don’t think that’s rewarding Hamas,” she said.

US, UK, France all inch toward recognition

Canada is not the only country where the idea of unilateral recognition of Palestine, without waiting for Israel, has gained ground since the war in Gaza began.

The Biden administration, U.K. Foreign Secretary David Cameron and French President Emmanuel Macron have all sent signals that they are moving in that direction.

Last month the Biden official leaked the news that it was not just thinking about recognition, but actively drawing up plans for recognition to go into effect once the war in Gaza ends.

That came just days after Cameron, a former prime minister, said British recognition of Palestine “can’t come at the start of the process, but it doesn’t have to be the very end of the process.”

Last month France’s Emmanuel Macron said his country had come to the same conclusion.

“Recognizing a Palestinian state is not a taboo for France,” Macron said after meeting in Paris with Jordan’s King Abdullah.

“We owe it to Palestinians, whose aspirations have been trampled on for too long. We owe it to Israelis, who lived through the worst antisemitic massacre of our time.”

Warnings of red lines

Some of the measures the motion calls for have already happened. For example, it calls on the government to “immediately reinstate funding and ensure long-term continued funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), and support the independent investigation.”

Canada restored funding to UNRWA on March 8, and has said it will support the investigations by both the UN’s investigative office and by former French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna.

The motion also calls on the government to “support the work of the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court,” which the government has said it will do.

Housefather says he knows some of his caucus colleagues will support Monday’s motion, but he’s less concerned with how backbenchers vote than members of cabinet.

“I will be actively watching what the government position is on Monday, how the vote goes. And I will obviously, as I continue to do, speak out in terms of what I believe is right,” he said.

Housefather hinted that he might not remain in caucus if cabinet members backed recognition.

McPherson says she is hoping for a win but knows the vote faces an uphill climb.

“We’re working as hard as we can to convince folks that this is the right path forward, that this is a fundamental shift in our foreign policy in the right direction,” she said.

It’s not clear which way the Bloc Québécois will go, although the party has sent signals of openness to the motion

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