The federal government is banning Huawei and ZTE from Canada’s 5G network, federal ministers announced Thursday.
The Liberal cabinet has been hinting for months that a decision was imminent.
Innovation Minister François-Philippe Champagne and Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino made the announcement Thursday at a late afternoon news conference.
“Today, ladies and gentlemen, we are announcing the intention to prohibit the inclusion of Huawei and ZTE products and services in Canada’s telecommunications systems. This follows a full review by our security agencies and in consultation with our closest allies,” said Mr. Champagne.
Asked why it took three years to reach the decision, Mr. Champagne said “This has never been a race. This about taking the right decision.”
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KENNEY NOT EXTREME ENOUGH: LIBERAL CABINET MINISTER – A Liberal cabinet minister from Alberta says Jason Kenney is the latest conservative leader to be pushed out by party supporters for not being “extreme enough.” Story here.
OTHER HEADLINES
SUPREME COURT HEARING APPEAL ON FORD GOVERNMENT MANDATE LETTERS – The marching orders that Progressive Conservative Leader Doug Ford first sent his newly elected cabinet ministers back in 2018 will remain secret past the next election, which is just two weeks away, now that the Supreme Court of Canada has agreed to hear the government’s appeal. Story here.
SASKATCHEWAN LEGISLATURE MEMBERS CITED FOR BAD LANGUAGE – Two members of the Saskatchewan legislature have been kicked out of the assembly over the language they used during Question Period and for refusing to apologize. Story here.
TWO ONTARIO PARTY LEADERS HAVE COVID-19 AMID ELECTION CAMPAIGN – Ontario NDP Leader Andrea Horwath and Mike Schreiner, the Leader of the Green Party of Ontario, have both tested positive for COVID-19, forcing changes in their plans to campaign during the Ontario provincial election. Story here.
LAST DAY OF ROYAL TOUR – Prince Charles and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, landed Thursday in Yellowknife, where they were to speak with First Nations chiefs on the final day of their royal visit that has focused on Indigenous issues and climate change. Story here.
INDEPENDENT BODY COMING FOR BORDER AGENCY COMPLAINTS – The federal Liberals are poised to rekindle a plan to allow travellers, immigration detainees and others who feel they have been mistreated by Canada’s border agency to complain to an independent body. Story here.
CONSERVATIVE LEADERSHIP RACE
CAMPAIGN TRAIL– Scott Aitchison is in the Greater Toronto Area on Thursday and through the rest of the week. Roman Baber has a virtual event. Jean Charest has meetings and virtual calls ahead of a visit to the Vancouver region, and the Vancouver Island communities of Nanaimo and Victoria. Leslyn Lewis is travelling, but has a virtual event. Pierre Poilievre has meet-and-greet events in Summerside and Charlottetown, PEI. There’s no word on Patrick Brown’s campaign plans.
ED FAST LEAVES HIS CRITICS ROLE – Ed Fast says party supporters of Conservative leadership prospect Pierre Poilievre made his position as the federal official opposition’s finance critic untenable, and that he wanted to leave the post to step up his efforts to help a rival to Mr. Poilievre’s leadership ambitions.
“There was an expectation from Pierre Poilievre’s supporters that the finance critic for our party not speak on any matters being raised by his campaign,” the Conservative MP from British Columbia, and co-chair of Jean Charest’s leadership bid, said in an interview on Thursday.
“And I felt that was irresponsible, and that I needed the freedom to speak freely when it comes to monetary policy.”
Mr. Fast has previously criticized Mr. Poilievre for promising to fire Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem. Mr. Poilievre has accused the central bank of failing to effectively manage inflation. On Wednesday, Mr. Fast repeated that criticism of his caucus colleague.
He repeated his concerns on Thursday. “I have a bone to pick with one of my colleagues who is a candidate who is promoting a monetary policy that I feel is very wrong-headed and sends a terrible message to the global investment community.”
Mr. Fast said he had approached Interim Conservative Leader Candice Bergen some weeks ago with concerns about the critic’s role, and they agreed it was best for him to relinquish those responsibilities.
On Wednesday night, Ms. Bergen said in a statement that Mr. Fast told herhe was leaving his post as finance critic, citing his desire to focus his efforts on supporting Mr. Charest’s leadership campaign.
Ms. Bergen said Mr. Fast remains a valued member of the team and caucus, and she would soon announce a replacement finance critic.
She appointed Mr. Fast as the party’s finance critic after Mr. Poilievre, previously the critic, decided to enter the leadership race.
Mr. Fast said his relationship with Ms. Bergen remains “top notch” and that he has great respect for her as she handles the difficult job of keeping the party together during a leadership race.
Mr. Fast said he is hopeful about Mr. Charest’s prospects despite massive crowds that have consistently showed up for Mr. Poilievre’s campaign rallies. “I would not be supporting Mr. Charest if I didn’t have full confidence that he has a clear pathway to victory and becoming the next leader of our country and the next prime minister,” he said.
Conservatives are in the midst of a leadership race prompted after caucus voted out Erin O’Toole earlier this year. The party is to announce the winner on Sept. 10.
There’s more here about Mr. Fast’s departure from the finance critics role.
TORIES INVESTIGATE RACIST E-MAIL – The Conservative Party of Canada says it’s investigating a complaint from the Patrick Brown campaign about a racist e-mail that expressed support for Adolf Hitler and Nazism. Story here from CBC.
THIS AND THAT
TODAY IN THE COMMONS – Projected Order of Business at the House of Commons, May19, accessible here.
SPENGEMANN DEPARTING – Sven Spengemann, the Liberal MP for Mississauga-Lakeshore, has announced he is leaving his role as MP to serve with the United Nations, effective May 28. “I will have more to say on my new role in due course,” the chair of the Foreign Affairs and International Development Committee said in a statement. Prior to his first election in 2015, Mr. Spengemann served as a senior official in Baghdad with the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq.
THE DECIBEL
Thursday’s edition of The Globe and Mail podcast deals with the May 11 death of Shireen Abu Akleh, a prominent Palestinian-American journalist who was shot and killed in the West Bank while reporting for Al-Jazeera. Josef Federman is the news director of the Associated Press for Israel, Palestinian territories and Jordan. He’s on the show to explain what has been going on in Jenin, the city where Ms. Abu Akleh was reporting from when she died, what we know so far about who is responsible for her death and how the investigation is playing into an already heated conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. The Decibel is here.
PRIME MINISTER’S DAY
The Prime Minister held private meetings, and spoke to Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson. He also chaired the cabinet meeting and was scheduled to chair a meeting of the Incident Response Group on the war in Ukraine.
LEADERS
NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh delivered remarks at the LiUNA! Local 3000 Leadership Seminar in Toronto.
No schedules for other leaders released.
OPINION – JASON KENNEY
Gary Mason (The Globe and Mail)on the spectacular fall of Alberta Premier Jason Kenney: “And so here we are, with the province’s governing party once again in search of a new leader and an election a year away. Who knows who will emerge victorious? Former Wildrose leaders Brian Jean and Danielle Smith will throw their names in. Others in Mr. Kenney’s cabinet will too. Former federal Conservative MPs Rona Ambrose and Michelle Rempel Garner, both from Alberta, will be wooed. Of the two, I could see Ms. Rempel Garner possibly putting her hand up. She would instantly become the front-runner. However, whoever wins will have the same problem Mr. Kenney had when he took over: the UCP is an amalgam of two political philosophies, two ideological forces. They are often at odds.”
Rick Bell (Calgary Sun) on how Alberta Premier Jason Kenney never listened and now he’s out: “One night it hit me. He really didn’t really know Alberta politics. He had not learned a valuable lesson from the 2015 election when the PCs were thrown out on their ear. Alberta didn’t want the cronyism, the old boys in the saddle, the insiders making a pretty penny. They didn’t want the moral failure I call Toryland. But Kenney never listened. I write this column with some sadness and no pleasure. If Kenney had listened, if he had looked in the mirror, admitted there were things he could improve, offered a plan of how this one-man band of a government could become something better … If, if, if. A mug’s game. But instead he stuck to his script. He spent so much time defending himself he had no time to even consider what the people of Alberta actually wanted.”
Don Braid (Calgary Herald)on how Alberta Premier Kenney will resign leadership eventually, but doesn’t intend to leave:“There will be a leadership race. Kenney said it’s necessary. What he did not say is whether or not he’ll be a candidate. Nothing in the [United Conservative Party] rules would prevent him from resigning, and then running. There will be a struggle over whether the UCP edges more to the centre, or veers sharply to the right. Many of the MLAs who opposed Kenney prefer the latter. New MLA Brian Jean will run. Danielle Smith will likely join in, too. They’re well-known voices from the party’s past, but many members will want to move beyond the old merger struggles. Jobs Minister Doug Schweitzer’s name often comes up. So does Finance Minister Travis Toews. Other campaigns will take shape very quickly. Whoever happens next, this remains a dangerous moment for the UCP.”
Sean Speer (The Hub)on how a spirited minority of conservative partisans have come to define their politics in solely oppositional terms: “Jason Kenney’s swift resignation as United Conservative Party leader is a lamentable outcome for Canadian conservatism. It reflects the rise of an oppositional mindset on the Right that is bad for Conservative politics and the country as a whole to the extent that it marginalizes centre-right ideas and policies and enables progressives to govern essentially unchecked. Alberta’s Kenney-led government wasn’t perfect – no government ever is – but it was the country’s most ambitious centre-right provincial government since the Harris government’s Common-Sense Revolution in Ontario more than a quarter-century ago.”
OPINION
Lawrence Martin (The Globe and Mail)on Justin Trudeau’s advantage: His house united, the other divided: “Recall the drawn-out dagger fest between Jean Chrétien and Paul Martin; Mr. Chrétien’s never-ending conflict with John Turner; the furor touched off by then-finance minister Mr. Turner’s flight from Pierre Trudeau’s cabinet in 1975. There were schisms in the party over paramount issues such as free trade and the Meech Lake accord. Later came despair and disunity under the anemic leaderships of Stéphane Dion and Michael Ignatieff. But what now? Today, there’s not much of that. Rarely a peep of protest from within the ranks. No big divide in the party on the major issues of the day. No one openly challenging the leadership of Justin Trudeau despite his losing the popular vote in two straight elections.”
Robyn Urback (The Globe and Mail)on how Ontarians don’t fear Doug Ford the way they did in 2018: “Some time between 2018 and 2022, then, the Ford fear factor must have evaporated from Ontario’s public consciousness. No doubt many Ontarians still detest or dislike Mr. Ford, but the province doesn’t appear to fear him the same way it did just four years ago. The question is, over the past four years, did Mr. Ford change, or did we?”
Michelle Rempel Garner (National Post)on the duty to reject conspiracy theories about white replacement: “With Canadian politics becoming more divisive and polarized every day, this dogma can’t be ignored. It must be vehemently, and pro-actively, denounced and stopped. This is particularly true for leaders in right leaning political movements where this sentiment may be more pervasive, and the temptation to mainstream it for political gain is greater. Promoting it or being silent when it occurs in the ranks amounts to the same thing.”
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OTTAWA – Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says the NDP is caving to political pressure from Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre when it comes to their stance on the consumer carbon price.
Trudeau says he believes Jagmeet Singh and the NDP care about the environment, but it’s “increasingly obvious” that they have “no idea” what to do about climate change.
On Thursday, Singh said the NDP is working on a plan that wouldn’t put the burden of fighting climate change on the backs of workers, but wouldn’t say if that plan would include a consumer carbon price.
Singh’s noncommittal position comes as the NDP tries to frame itself as a credible alternative to the Conservatives in the next federal election.
Poilievre responded to that by releasing a video, pointing out that the NDP has voted time and again in favour of the Liberals’ carbon price.
British Columbia Premier David Eby also changed his tune on Thursday, promising that a re-elected NDP government would scrap the long-standing carbon tax and shift the burden to “big polluters,” if the federal government dropped its requirements.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
Simon Jolin-Barrette, minister responsible for consumer protection, has tabled a bill to force merchants to calculate tips based on the price before tax.
That means on a restaurant bill of $100, suggested tips would be calculated based on $100, not on $114.98 after provincial and federal sales taxes are added.
The bill would also increase the rebate offered to consumers when the price of an item at the cash register is higher than the shelf price, to $15 from $10.
And it would force grocery stores offering a discounted price for several items to clearly list the unit price as well.
Businesses would also have to indicate whether taxes will be added to the price of food products.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
Quebec legislature member Youri Chassin has announced he’s leaving the Coalition Avenir Québec government to sit as an Independent.
He announced the decision shortly after writing an open letter criticizing Premier François Legault’s government for abandoning its principles of smaller government.
In the letter published in Le Journal de Montréal and Le Journal de Québec, Chassin accused the party of falling back on what he called the old formula of throwing money at problems instead of looking to do things differently.
Chassin says public services are more fragile than ever, despite rising spending that pushed the province to a record $11-billion deficit projected in the last budget.
He is the second CAQ member to leave the party in a little more than one week, after economy and energy minister Pierre Fitzgibbon announced Sept. 4 he would leave because he lost motivation to do his job.
Chassin says he has no intention of joining another party and will instead sit as an Independent until the end of his term.
He has represented the Saint-Jérôme riding since the CAQ rose to power in 2018, but has not served in cabinet.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
