Addressing assembled media in Ottawa, Trudeau said Canada has intelligence that indicates the plane was shot down by an Iranian missile.
“We have intelligence from multiple sources including our allies and our own intelligence, the intelligence indicates that the plane was shot down by an Iranian surface-to-air missile. This may well have been unintentional,” he said.
When Trudeau was asked whether he was “not ruling out that this was intentional,” the prime minister said, ‘It is really too early to draw any conclusions.”
Asked if the downing could be seen as an act of war, Trudeau said: “It is too early to draw definitive conclusions like that one, that is why we need a complete and credible investigation.”
Then came a blast near the plane, one source said, before the jet rapidly fell and exploded into the ground. Evidence indicates the crash was not due to mechanical faults or pilot error, sources told Bloomberg. Separately, two U.S. officials told the Associated Press it was “highly likely” that an Iranian anti-aircraft missile was to blame.
Trudeau said, “there have been important developments on potential causes of the crash — developments of which Canadians should be made aware.”
“The families of the victims and all Canadians want answers,” he said. “I want answers. That means closure, accountability and justice. We will not rest until we get that.”
Trudeau was asked how he could trust an Iranian investigation into the crash, and replied:
“We recognize that this is a situation where we are going to need to get more clarity, more answers, that’s why we are calling for a complete and credible investigation. We recognize that this may have been done accidentally,” he added. “But that makes it even more important to clarify what happened.”
Trudeau was asked several times what Canada’s response would be in the light of the new information. However, the prime minister refused to be drawn on details, reiterating that what was needed first was a complete understanding of what happened.
Canada severed diplomatic ties with Iran in 2012, when it labelled the country a state sponsor of terrorism.
Debris from the wreckage of a Boeing Co. 737-800 aircraft, operated by Ukraine International Airlines, which crashed shortly after takeoff covers the site near Shahedshahr, Iran, on Wednesday, Jan. 8, 2020.
Ali Mohammadi/Bloomberg
Asked about strained Iran-Canada relations and how they might hamper Canadian efforts to find answers to the disaster, he said Canadian consular officials were en-route to Ankara, Turkey, and that Iranian authorities indicate they are open to providing visas, so that consular assistance can be provided on the ground.
“The majority of victims on that plane were Iranians,” Trudeau said. “That is something that binds us together in our grief.”
Asked whether Canada could apply the Magnitsky Act — which financially targets officials implicated in human rights abuses — against Iran, the prime minister said, “I think it is too early to say what tools could eventually be used depending on the final assessment, the final conclusion.”
“Our focus right now is giving immediate support to the families, working with them to ensure the remains of their loved ones are brought home to Canada, if that is their wishes.”
He said Canada would then, “move forward on the full and complete investigation so that we can then look at next steps in the healing, accountability and justice process.”
Speaking on Wednesday, Trudeau had told a press conference on Parliament Hill that the government couldn’t rule out that the plane had been shot down, but he also cautioned it was too early to speculate.
U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday suggested he believes Iran was responsible, without laying direct blame.
“Somebody could have made a mistake on the other side,” Trump said in a Washington news conference, noting the plane was flying in a “pretty rough neighbourhood.”
“Some people say it was mechanical,” Trump added. “I personally don’t think that’s even a question.”
Iran’s civil aviation authority is in charge of the investigation, under international rules for probes of such crashes. The organization said Thursday it had invited Canadian investigators from the Transportation Safety Board to join a growing team probing the crash.
“It was flying in a pretty rough neighbourhood”
US President Donald Trump says he “has his suspicions” about what happened to the Ukrainian plane that crashed near Tehran, after US officials say Iran may have mistakenly shot it downhttps://t.co/MNwEcG5C10pic.twitter.com/N6hKjLUK67
Rescue workers search the scene where an Ukrainian plane crashed in Shahedshahr, southwest of the capital Tehran, Iran, Wednesday, Jan. 8, 2020.
AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi
Trudeau had said Wednesday that Canada had pushed to be part of the Iranian-led investigation.
It wasn’t clear from the Iranian statement if the plane’s manufacturer, American-based Boeing, had been invited to take part in the investigation under International Civil Aviation Organization rules that are guiding the probe.
The announcement that Canadians will be involved in the examination came as Foreign Affairs Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne spoke to his Iranian counterpart about Wednesday’s crash.
A summary of the phone call released Thursday morning by Global Affairs Canada said Champagne stressed to Mohammad Javad Zarif the need for Canadian officials to be allowed into Iran to provide consular services, help with identification of the deceased and to take part in the investigation.
The summary said Champagne insisted that Canada and Canadians have “many questions which will need to be answered.”
Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau attends a news conference about flight PS752 from Tehran to Kiev that crashed shortly after takeoff, in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada January 8, 2020.
REUTERS/Blair Gable
The summary did not provide any details about Zarif’s reaction to Champagne’s demands and Champagne’s office declined to provide any further information. A brief summary on the Iranian foreign ministry website only said the two “conferred on the recent crash of a Ukrainian plane in Tehran as well as other issues of mutual interest.”
The crash came after a week of soaring tensions in the Middle East, occurring just hours after Iran launched missile attacks on bases in Iraq where American and allied troops are stationed. Iran said the attacks were retaliation for the American killing of a top general near Baghdad last week.
Champagne also told Zarif that Canada condemned Iran’s missile attacks against military bases in Iraq.
Canadian soldiers were present in one of those bases.
— With files from National Post staff, Bloomberg and the Associated Press
TORONTO – A group of hotel service workers in Toronto is set to hold a rally today outside the Fairmont Royal York to demand salary increases as hotel costs in the city skyrocket during Taylor Swift’s concerts.
Unite Here Local 75, the union representing 8,000 hospitality workers in the Greater Toronto Area, says Royal York employees have not seen a salary increase since 2021, and have been negotiating a new contract with the hotel since 2022.
The rally comes as the megastar begins her series of six sold-out concerts in Toronto, with the last show scheduled for Nov. 23.
During show weekends, some hotel rooms and short-term rentals in Toronto are priced up to 10 times more than other weekends, with some advertised for as much as $2,000 per night.
The union says hotel workers who will be serving Swifties during her Toronto stops are bargaining for raises to keep up with the rising cost of living.
The union represents hospitality workers including food service employees, room attendants and bell persons.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 14, 2024.
WASHINGTON – President-elect Donald Trump’s promise to slap an across-the-board tariff of at least 10 per cent on all imports including from Canada is unlikely to apply to Canadian oil, energy experts are predicting.
The threat of the tariff is causing a lot of concern north of the border, where the Canadian Chamber of Commerce said such a tariff could take a $30-billion bite out of the Canadian economy.
Rory Johnston, a Toronto-based oil market researcher and founder of Commodity Context, said he believes there’s a very small probability that Trump’s fees would apply to Canadian oil, but it is “quite a potentially damaging one.”
“Canada is uniquely vulnerable to market pressure posed by U.S. refineries given our lack of alternative egress,” Johnston said during a panel for the Canadian Global Affairs Institute Wednesday.
Michael Catanzaro, a former Trump energy adviser, told a forum in Washington, D.C. last week that he doesn’t expect Trump’s campaign vision of energy dominance and lower energy costs will exclude Canada.
“We should double down on the fact that the U.S. and Canada together can be this powerful force,” he said at the North American Energy Preeminence Forum hosted by the right-leaning Hudson Institute in Washington on Nov. 8.
More than 77 per cent of Canadian exports go to the U.S. and trade comprises 60 per cent of Canada’s gross domestic product. A significant proportion of that comes from oil and gas.
Canada is also the largest source of U.S. energy imports, and almost all Canadian crude oil exports went to its neighbour in 2023. Most of that makes its way through pipelines to the Midwest, where the key battleground states flipped for Trump on promises of making life more affordable.
Without exemptions for Canadian crude, many experts agree that the cost at American pumps is certain to increase. It’s unlikely the Republican leader would take action that’ll make gas cost more, Johnston said.
Johnston added there could be a situation where Canada sees a boon from Trump’s tariffs. If the Republican leader puts those fees on all oil imports except Canada “that is actually a net good thing for Canadian exports.”
But all of this comes with the caveat that there’s been a rocky relationship between Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Trump, and the Liberal government in Canada has been at odds with the Republican politically on a number of fronts including climate action and renewable energy.
Catanzaro recalled a meeting with Canadian officials after Trump pulled the U.S. out of the Paris Climate agreement, an international treaty to cut greenhouse gases, during his first administration — a move the president-elect has promised to repeat.
“They were very hostile to us and to the administration,” Catanzaro said.
The Canadian reaction set the bilateral relationship back for some time, Catanzaro said.
Fen Hampson, a professor of international affairs at Carleton University in Ottawa and co-chair of the Expert Group on Canada-U.S. Relations, said he’s not certain the Republican leader would be willing to give a tariff concession under Trudeau.
Hampson said Trump would know that giving Canada an immediate exemption would provide Trudeau a powerful argument about his ability to negotiate with the president-elect ahead of Canada’s looming election. The Republican leader would not be happy with that outcome, given their notably rocky relationship during Trump’s first administration, Hampson added.
Trump called Trudeau “weak” and “dishonest” after the prime minister criticized the president’s 2018 tariff actions at the G7 summit in Quebec. There was another blow-up when Trudeau and other NATO leaders appeared to be on video talking about a Trump press conference the following year. Trump called the prime minister “two-faced.”
Robert Lighthizer, Trump’s then-trade representative, recounted in his book that U.S.-Canada relations were “at their lowest ebb since the failed American invasion of Upper Canada during the War of 1812.”
The Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement, negotiated under the first Trump administration, will come under review in 2026. Hampson said Trump could use the tariffs, or a threat of them, to force Canada into concessions.
Wilbur Ross, the former U.S. commerce secretary who was involved in the negotiation of that trilateral agreement, recently told CBC that Trump is likely to carve out exemptions for sectors such as Canadian oil and gas.
Eric Miller, president of Rideau Potomac Strategy Group, said politicians run for office in poetry and govern in prose, agreeing that wide-reaching tariffs on Canadian energy were unlikely.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 14, 2024.
HALIFAX – The director of a democracy watchdog says that if Nova Scotia’s electoral officer had more power to levy fines, it would discourage situations such as campaign managers giving Tim Hortons gift cards to voters.
The Liberal party has complained to Elections Nova Scotia after a Progressive Conservative campaign manager in Lunenburg, N.S., handed out gift cards each good for a single cup of coffee at a drive-thru while candidate Susan Corkum-Greek greeted voters as they exited.
The campaign manager resigned earlier this week and issued a statement saying he’d handed out 25 of the $2.07 cards.
Duff Conacher, co-founder of Democracy Watch, says Nova Scotia needs law reform to permit its chief electoral officer to directly order a fine in such cases, rather than lengthy, costly and often ineffective court cases.
“We need to discourage violations of election laws, even small ones, as much as we discourage illegal parking,” he said.
He said there may be significant violations of the Elections Act where the public prosecution service should be called in, but often minor cases in provincial jurisdictions can drift on for months and end up being abandoned.
The Liberals have argued providing the gift cards violated Section 327 of the provincial Elections Act, which prohibits offering “a bribe” to influence a person’s vote.
The party has also filed a petition seeking a declaration by the Nova Scotia Supreme Court that the incident constitutes corrupt practices under the Elections Act. However, a spokesperson for the judiciary said the case won’t be heard until after the Nov. 26 election.
Conacher said law reforms in Nova Scotia could result in similar cases being dealt with summarily, as occurs with parking tickets, particularly if they are isolated and less severe.
Asked about such a potential reform, Tim Houston, leader of the Progressive Conservative Party, said it’s important to keep in mind the person involved in Lunenburg was a party volunteer.
“Let’s not lose sight of the fact these are people volunteering their time to help the process …. I think it’s a very slippery slope to kind of weaponize the legal system against a party volunteer who maybe made a mistake,” he said.
Conacher said he does not think his proposal would discourage people from volunteering for political parties.
“It’s more important to discourage violations of the law. I don’t think you discourage volunteers. It just makes them pay more attention to following the rules, and as a result you get fairer elections,” he said.
The NDP and Liberal leaders didn’t immediately provide comment on the proposed law reform.
Unlike the federal system, in Nova Scotia there is no commissioner appointed to levy administrative penalties under the Nova Scotia Elections Act. Conacher said it’s preferable to have separate roles, with chief electoral officers focusing on running elections while the election commissioner focuses on monitoring any violations of the legislation.
However, he said he recognizes this system is more costly, and that it’s possible for chief electoral officers to take on the function of levying administrative fines as well.
“The lack of penalties for many violations can just encourage more violations. You don’t want to tie up the courts with all these minor things,” said Conacher.
Naomi Shelton, a spokeswoman for Elections Nova Scotia, says the Tim Hortons case remains under investigation.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 14, 2024.
