In the news today: Canada Post workers go on strike Friday

OTTAWA – Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is in Peru, kicking off five days of meetings with leaders from around the globe as the world braces for the looming return of U.S. president-elect Donald Trump.

The meetings come as emerging powers like China vie for influence in South America, and as Canada clings to global trade blocs and multilateral systems under pressure from populist leaders.

In Lima, Trudeau is attending an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, or APEC. The group focuses on resolving trade barriers and forming better links across the Pacific Rim. He’ll then head to Brazil for the G20 leaders’ summit of the world’s biggest economies.

Vina Nadjibulla, research vice-president for the Asia Pacific Foundation, said there’s lot to criticize about both summits, from who gets to attend to how productive they tend to be. But she stressed they are crucial for Canada navigating its place in a shifting world.

“Our prosperity depends on this,” she said.

“As things are shifting, there’s a lot of anxiety and we need to be at the table in reshaping the international trade order and reshaping the international economic order.”

Trudeau is set to take part in meetings Friday with guest countries invited by the Peruvian hosts, and the prime minister will give a lunchtime speech to delegates. The afternoon will involve meetings with various national and business leaders, including at an event focused inclusive growth and environmental sustainability.

APEC played a role in the creation of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, or CPTPP, a trade deal representing a massive area of countries along the Pacific Rim, from New Zealand to Chile. Canada ratified the agreement in 2018.

The U.S. was part of forming the trade pact, but Trump withdrew Washington from it on his first day in office in 2017. His successor, current U.S. President Joe Biden, never rejoined the pact, in a sign of cross-partisan weariness among Americans toward globalization.

Nadjibulla said the looming Trump presidency likely means a reduced role for the U.S. in multilateral institutions and fighting climate change, as well as greater tension with China over trade, tariffs and technology.

Canada is currently chairing the CPTPP trade bloc, and next year will be hosting the G7 summit of advanced economies, culminating in a leader’s summit in Alberta. This means Trudeau will be pushing to preserve rules-based trade “that is critical to our prosperity” over the coming days, Nadjibulla said.

“APEC is meeting in the context of rising protectionism, intense geopolitical competition, uncertain economic growth and the Trump election,” she said.

“It’s really quite different from the founding vision of APEC, which is all about trade liberalization (and) deeper economic integration. APEC was essentially a product of an era of hyperglobalization, which is definitely coming to an end.”

APEC meetings also give leaders a chance to meet when they are unlikely to visit each other’s countries, such as in San Francisco last year when Chinese President Xi Jinping and Biden smoothed out diplomatic tensions caused by surveillance balloons and restrictions on microchip usage.

Canadian officials have been mum on the prospect of Trudeau meeting with Xi, either in a formal sit-down or an informal hallway chat.

Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly went to Beijing in July, which could set the stage for Trudeau to do so on this trip, but Nadjibulla said the Chinese leader is likely more focused on other leaders at both summits.

“The tone and the rhetoric, I think, will escalate in the coming months, partly because of the actions that the U.S. is likely to take, and Canada will have to stay aligned with that,” Nadjibulla said.

Media in India are also speculating as to whether Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will meet with Trudeau, though Nadjibulla said that’s unlikely given Modi’s government blaming the Trudeau government and not Canada as a whole for heightened tensions.

Nadjibulla stressed that Canada is a respected nation in the region, including in Peru.

“We’re not a small player, because of our historic engagement particularly in the mining sector. And we can play an important role in shoring up the Western presence at the meetings.”

More than a dozen Canadian business leaders are attending the summit, as industry looks to expand commerce in the region involving critical minerals and clean technology.

On Sunday, the prime minister will leave for Brazil for the G20 summit, for discussions ranging from the war in Ukraine to artificial intelligence and ending hunger.

The Group of 20 includes leaders ranging from long-standing allies such as French President Emmanuel Macron, to populist firebrands like Argentine President Javier Milei, who just withdrew his negotiators from the annual UN climate talks underway in Azerbaijan.

John Kirton, head of the G20 Research Group, expects Trudeau and many leaders to have informal talks on the sidelines to make sense of how to navigate another Trump presidency.

“Trudeau will be in a relatively privileged position, because he’s been with Donald Trump at (several) summits, and we’re the next-door neighbours; we’re a front-line state,” he said.

His team, based out of the University of Toronto, will be closely watching for what the ending communiqué has to say about global trade, with Trump promising protectionist policies.

Trump has vowed to implement high tariffs that have been panned by economists. The London School of Economics warned last month these policies would likely hurt the economies of the U.S., China and the European Union.

Nadjibulla said it’s crucial that governments like Canada avoid fatalism, and remember that Trump’s promised policies might look different when they’re actually implemented.

“There is room and opportunity for economies and countries to co-ordinate and try to shape common responses to what they perceive to be a threat,” she said.

“These multilateral gatherings are still the best that we have. And we have to do everything we can to make them more relevant and better fit to address today’s challenges.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 15, 2024.

OTTAWA – A stolen portrait of Winston Churchill that was swapped with a dodgy forgery during the pandemic returns to its rightful place today, after two Ottawa police detectives travelled to Rome to retrieve it.

The original artwork will be returned to its spot on the reading-room wall in the posh Fairmont Château Laurier hotel at a homecoming ceremony this morning.

The most famous depiction of Churchill, known as “The Roaring Lion,” appears on the U.K.’s five-pound note and shows a glowering wartime prime minister staring into the camera.

Ottawa police launched an investigation after the heist was reported in 2022, and eventually tracked down the painting overseas in Genoa, Italy.

Police charged a man from the town of Powassan, Ont., just outside North Bay, with forgery, theft and trafficking and his case is before the courts.

Renowned photographer Yousuf Karsh snapped the iconic portrait in 1941 in the Speaker’s Office on Parliament Hill, just after Churchill delivered a rousing wartime address to Canadian lawmakers.

Toward the end of his life, Karsh signed and gifted the portrait to the hotel, where he had lived and worked.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 15, 2024.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

Canada Post workers are on strike after failing to reach a negotiated agreement with their employer.

Canadian Union of Postal Workers says approximately 55,000 workers are striking, claiming little progress has been made in the bargaining process.

The Canadian Union of Postal Workers issued a 72-hour strike notice earlier in the week, saying it’s been asking for fair wages, safer working conditions and other improvements over nearly a year of bargaining.

“We still believe we can achieve negotiated collective agreements, but Canada Post must be willing to resolve our new and outstanding issues,” the union said in a statement.

Canada Post served the union with the lockout notice not long after but had said it didn’t intend to lock workers out.

The Crown corporation released a statement early Friday morning confirming that customers will experience delays as a result of the strike.

The statement says mail and parcels will not be delivered for the duration of the strike, and some post offices will be closed.

Canada Post said shutting down facilities will affect its national network, with processing and delivery of mail possibly needing time to return to normal once the strike is over.

Ahead of the strike deadline, federal Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon said he formally appointed the director general of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Services as a special mediator to help in the talks.

“Our top federal mediators have been working with the parties tirelessly, and we are now sending additional resources to the bargaining table,” MacKinnon said in a post on X.

“We are making sure that these two groups have everything they need to reach a deal.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 15, 2024.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.