Politics Briefing: Canadian veterans group gives up Afghan rescue efforts amid Ottawa's bureaucratic roadblocks - The Globe and Mail | Canada News Media
A Canadian veterans group is giving up its efforts to evacuate Afghans who supported Ottawa’s military and diplomatic mission in the country, citing staff burnout and a federal immigration system that is overburdened with red tape.
The Veterans Transition Network, which says it raised $3.6-million and helped rescue 2,061 Afghans since the Taliban took control of Afghanistan in August, 2021, is refocusing on its main priority of helping Canadian veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and other mental-health problems.
Oliver Thorne, VTN executive director, said onerous government paperwork, lack of federal funding and the difficulty of finding safe routes out of Afghanistan forced the charitable organization to give up its evacuation work.
Mr. Thorne said VTN staff are exhausted from performing double duty, especially the additional workload of handling the complicated application process put in place by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada. The paperwork and security vetting causes significant delays in approvals of special visas for Canada’s Afghan allies, he said.
Canada committed to resettling 40,000 Afghan refugees. Learn more about why thousands are still stuck overseas here.
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TODAY’S HEADLINES
RCMP TO RECEIVE $5.1-MILLION TO AID COMMUNITY RESPONSES TO UNMARKED BURIAL SITES AT FORMER RESIDENTIAL SCHOOLS – The RCMP, who have long faced criticism over their troubled relationship with Indigenous people in Canada, are poised to receive $5.1-million over five years, beginning this fiscal year, to support community-led responses to unmarked burial sites at former residential schools. Story here.
AN INSIDE LOOK AT PATRICK BROWN’S PITCH FOR SELLING CONSERVATIVE PARTY MEMBERSHIPS – An apology to the Tamil community, improving cricket infrastructure, and putting a visa office in Kathmandu are just some of the promises Patrick Brown has made in hopes of becoming the next leader of the Conservative Party of Canada. Story here from The Canadian Press.
CANADA PREPPING MORE AID AS UKRAINE WAR ENTERS WHAT FORMER U.S. DEFENCE SECRETARY CALLS ‘CRITICAL’ PHASE – International Development Minister Harjit Sajjan says Canada is looking at more ways to help humanitarian crisis in eastern Europe as about 100 troops deploy to Poland to help with refugees fleeing war in Ukraine. Story here from CBC.
‘STRONG ARGUMENT’ TO BE MADE WHAT’S HAPPENING IN UKRAINE IS A GENOCIDE, SAYS DEFENCE MINISTER – Canada’s Defence Minister Anita Anand says that there’s a “strong argument” to be made that the “atrocities” in Ukraine occurring at the hands of the Russians amount to genocide. Story here from CTVNews.ca.
POPE FRANCIS TO MAKE THREE CANADIAN STOPS IN JULY TO MEET RESIDENTIAL SCHOOL SURVIVORS, SOURCES SAY – Pope Francis is expected to visit at least three cities during a late July trip to Canada, according to a new report from CBC. Sources involved in the planning of the trip told CBC the Pope will likely make stops in Edmonton, Quebec City and Iqaluit during what is scheduled to be about a four-day trip to the country. Story here from CBC.
RCMP REVIEW OF OLD SEXUAL ASSAULT FILES SENDS MORE THAN 200 BACK TO INVESTIGATORS – The RCMP has reviewed more than 30,000 of its previous sexual assault investigations and has found “consistent deficiencies” in how they were handled. The review, which looked at sexual assault investigations that took place between 2015 and 2017 and did not result in charges, sent 327 files for further investigation — about 1 per cent of all the files. Of those, 242 were reopened, resulting in 26 charges being sworn. Story here from CBC.
THIS AND THAT
TODAY IN THE COMMONS – The House is adjourned until Monday, April 25, 2022 at 11:00 a.m. (EDT).
SUMMIT SERIES LESSONS ON DEALING WITH RUSSIA – In his newly published book, Ice War Diplomat, former Canadian diplomat Gary J Smith takes readers back to the 1972 Summit Series. Mr. Smith was sent to Moscow in 1971 as the second secretary and vice counsel, arriving in February of that year. As the 1972 Summit Series began in Montreal, he was named the Canadian government’s official escort and liaison officer to the Soviet team, and, later, the Canadian embassy point man in Moscow for Team Canada.
The 50th anniversary of the legendary contest saw national hockey teams from Canada and the USSR face off in the eight-game series. Four games were played in Canada and four in Moscow. The final moment of the final game is considered one of the greatest moments in Canadian sporting history.
Mr. Smith was along for the ride as a diplomat working at the Canadian embassy in Moscow, early on in a career that would later take him to postings in such countries as Belgium, Israel and India. (He retired in 1998.) The hockey initiative was part of the foreign policy agenda of prime minister Pierre Trudeau, seeking common ground with the Soviet Union.
Ice War Diplomat (published by Douglas & MacIntyre) tells the story from Mr. Smith’s perspective, and comes amid the turmoil caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – a point that Mr. Smith, who now lives in the eastern Ontario town of Perth, was well aware of in an interview with the Politics Briefing newsletter.
Q-How will Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine affect the way your book, Ice War Diplomat, is received?
A- Is this book relevant to what’s happening now in Ukraine? I would say it is because the book tells us a lot about Russia, Russia’s history, Russia’s motivations. People who want to know some more about Russia can find it in the book. In 1972 we were having to deal with the Soviet Union at the time, which was a nuclear state, which was an expansionist power, and had a history of invading its neighbours, Hungary and Czechoslovakia being a couple, and East Germany as well. We had more troops in Europe than we do today. We had more aircraft on the ground We had to deal with the Soviet Union. So I think there are lessons in what we did in 1972 that are applicable to today. Since this is the 50th anniversary of the series, hockey fans will continue to be interested in what happened off the ice and how that legendary series really got going.
Q-What are the lessons in 1972 that are applicable to what we have to do today?
A-I think it’s important that we know that hard power is still here, that you have to have a strong defensive position. I think we were able to deal with the Soviet Union from a position of strength. We had a way to go forward with diplomacy, and to find some common ground. So those are all basic elements of foreign policy. Strong defense, effective diplomacy, and looking for for common ground to reduce the risk of a major war and to see if we can find ways to reach arms control agreements that limit the number of threatening actions.
Q-Why was it important for you to write this book and tell this story?
A-There were 40 to 50 books being written about the Summit Series. None of them really got into the the political and diplomatic side of it. They largely focused on what happened on the ice, and the immediate surroundings of it, but they didn’t have the long view. I had a unique perspective. Instead of letting other people tell my story.
Q-You were in the Canadian diplomatic ranks that offered advice, on Russia, to former prime minister Pierre Trudeau. What advice would you offer the current Prime Minister Trudeau on dealing with Russia given the climate we’re in vis-à-vis the Ukraine?
A-Well, I think [the Canadian government] are pretty much on track right now. We know that Russia is an expansionist power; that they have a proclivity to use military force for their foreign policy. So supporting Ukraine right now is extremely important, not only diplomatically and dealing with refugees, great humanitarian assistance, and reconstruction being needed at some point. But we also need to provide lethal weaponry. Perhaps we could have provided that earlier, but we’re doing it now. I think we need to look at our own defence policy. Are we ready to deal with a hard-power world? Because we have to think not only about Russia, but about China. There are other threats around the world to the security of Canada and Canadians so I think we have to look at how much money we put into defence, and how we put it into defence. The Arctic has been mentioned by many people as an area where the Russians are building up with their Arctic bases and China is declaring itself now an Arctic player. You need military forces to try and stabilize the world. There is the old Roman expression that if you want peace, you need to prepare for war.
The other thing I would say, and I am very happy to see is that we’re continuing to keep our embassy in Moscow, to keep our ambassador there. We need ears, and eyes and a voice at this particular time. It’s easy to say, `Close off the embassies,’ but what you’re doing [if you do that] is closing off your lines of communication and falling back onto megaphone diplomacy where you may feel good about making a statement, but it doesn’t have much impact on the actual face-to-face, and on-the-ground diplomatic work required.
Q-You have referred to hockey as a diplomatic bridge between Canada and Russia. Is hockey finished as a diplomatic bridge given the invasion of Ukraine?
A-The tanks have gone over the hockey bridge, no doubt. What I am watching is whether or not all hockey relations are cut off with Russia. I am looking primarily at the 50 or so Russian players who are in the NHL, playing for Canadian and American teams. Those players are still playing. Fans are still applauding them. As long as the Russian players continue to play in the NHL, I think the possibility of using a diplomatic bridge still exists. The International Ice Hockey Federation world championships are still scheduled for St. Petersburg in the spring of next year. We’ll see whether that’s cancelled like other tournaments have been. But I think hockey, at the moment, still offers a bridge to Russia. But tanks rolling across all bridges can cause them to collapse.
Q-You tell the story in the book about you and your wife learning Russian in a year before you went to Russia as a diplomat. What was that like and did it work?
A-It was a very, very hard grind. You weren’t sitting in a class of 20 or 30 students. It was just the two of us together with a teacher so you couldn’t look out the window, or drift off to sleep. You had to keep at it every hour, every day, every week. For months and months and months. Sometimes my wife would be ahead of me and sometimes I would be picking things up more quickly. It can create tensions in a marriage that way when you’re both learning at the same time, but I think we realized that if she didn’t have the Russian when we went to Moscow, it would make her situation very difficult. We were very, very happy and pleased that we both learned Russian at the same time. She had to take a year off work to do it, but it made all the difference in the world because we could understand what was being said. We could communicate to people, on the streets, in the stores. You could read newspapers and it made me a much more effective diplomat, being able to understand the culture first-hand being able to communicate to the extent you could with anyone in the Soviet population. So it’s something that I think is very, very important in diplomacy, that you engage in a foreign culture and particularly in countries where they are adversaries like Russia, like China, like Iran and so on, that we have diplomats who are professionals, and well-schooled in the language and the culture because that can really provide the eyes, ears and voice to Canadian policymakers, ministers and prime ministers, coming up with what’s the most effective way to go forward.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
THE DECIBEL
On Monday’s edition of the Globe and Mail podcast, Natalie Slyusar recounts what it’s like for a family to cope with the Russian invasion in Ukraine. When your country is invaded, how do you keep your family’s spirits up? In besieged Kharkiv, Ukraine, Ms. Slyusar focused on trying to give her son a regular 16th birthday – complete with a homemade chocolate cake. But baking’s a lot easier said than done while a war rages around you. This beguilingly simple story reveals a lot about how we get ourselves and our loved ones through the hardest parts of life. The Decibel is here.
PRIME MINISTER’S DAY
The Prime Minister is on a “personal” day in Whistler, B.C., according to the itinerary advisory from his office.
LEADERS
No other schedules released for party leaders.
OPINION
Andrew Coyne (The Globe and Mail)on the tangled Web the Trudeau government is weaving: “The Trudeau government, in particular, seems to see the internet not as an opportunity, a chance to stand down the immense regulatory army that has hitherto stood watch over the Canadian media, but as a challenge. Far from packing it in, it is resolved to do more; and the more manifest the flaws in that approach have become, the more its resolve seems to have grown.”
The Globe and Mail Editorial Boardon how Canadian health care needs a lot of reform, and (at most) a little more money: “But Canada also has to recognize that the world’s best health care systems cost less than ours, yet deliver more – shorter waiting lists, quicker access to a doctor when you’re sick, fewer emergency room visits, and fewer appointments cancelled during the pandemic. What can we learn from them, and copy?
Keep universal health insurance. Expand it. But rethink how it’s organized, incentivized and delivered. That’s what our more successful peers did.”
They say it’s coming, one day soon. Both Mr. Trudeau and Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland suggested there will be more money when the provinces negotiate a deal. The federal-provincial health care runaround continues.”
Alan Williams (contributed to The Globe and Mail) on whether Canada can really afford the ships and jets that the military has bought: “If insufficient funding is provided to the DND to support the government’s defence policy, the solution is to reflect that reality to Ottawa and force it to modify its strategy – not to understate costs and acquiesce to an unaffordable policy.”
Got a news tip that you’d like us to look into? E-mail us at tips@globeandmail.com. Need to share documents securely? Reach out via SecureDrop.
The New Democrats have declared a federal byelection victory in their Winnipeg stronghold riding of Elmwood—Transcona.
The NDP candidate Leila Dance told supporters in a tearful speech that even though the final results weren’t in, she expected she would see them in Ottawa.
With several polls still to be counted, Conservative candidate Colin Reynolds conceded defeat and told his volunteers that they should be proud of what the Conservatives accomplished in the campaign.
Political watchers had a keen eye on the results to see if the Tories could sway traditionally NDP voters on issues related to labour and affordability.
Meanwhile in the byelection race in the Montreal riding of LaSalle—Émard—Verdun the NDP, Liberals and Bloc Québécois remained locked in an extremely tight three-way race as the results trickled in slowly.
The Liberal stronghold riding had a record 91 names on the ballot, and the results aren’t expected until the early hours of the morning.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump on Monday launched his family’s cryptocurrency venture, World Liberty Financial, with an interview on the X social media platform in which he also gave his first public comments on the apparent assassination attempt against him a day earlier.
Trump did not discuss specifics about World Liberty Financial or how it would work, pivoting from questions about cryptocurrency to talking about artificial intelligence or other topics. Instead, he recounted his experience Sunday, saying he and a friend playing golf “heard shots being fired in the air, and I guess probably four or five.”
“I would have loved to have sank that last putt,” Trump said. He credited the Secret Service agent who spotted the barrel of a rifle and began firing toward it as well as law enforcement and a civilian who he said helped track down the suspect.
World Liberty Financial is expected to be a borrowing and lending service used to trade cryptocurrencies, which are forms of digital money that can be traded over the internet without relying on the global banking system. Exchanges often charge fees for withdrawals of Bitcoin and other currencies.
Other speakers after Trump, including his eldest son, Don Jr., talked about embracing cryptocurrency as an alternative to what they allege is a banking system tilted against conservatives.
Experts have said a presidential candidate launching a business venture in the midst of a campaign could create ethical conflicts.
“Taking a pro-crypto stance is not necessarily troubling; the troubling aspect is doing it while starting a way to personally benefit from it,” Jordan Libowitz, a spokesperson for the government watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, said earlier this month.
During his time in the White House, Trump said he was “not a fan” of cryptocurrency and tweeted in 2019, “Unregulated Crypto Assets can facilitate unlawful behavior, including drug trade and other illegal activity.” However, during this election cycle, he has reversed himself and taken on a favorable view of cryptocurrencies.
He announced in May that his campaign would begin accepting donations in cryptocurrency as part of an effort to build what it calls a “crypto army” leading up to Election Day. He attended a bitcoin conference in Nashville this year, promising to make the U.S. the “crypto capital of the planet” and create a bitcoin “strategic reserve” using the currency that the government currently holds.
Hilary Allen, a law professor at American University who has done research on cryptocurrencies, said she was skeptical of Trump’s change of heart on crypto.
“I think it’s fair to say that that reversal has been motivated in part by financial interests,” she said.
Crypto enthusiasts welcomed the shift, viewing the launch as a positive sign for investors if Trump retakes the White House.
Meanwhile, Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign has not offered policy proposals on how it would regulate digital assets like cryptocurrencies.
In an effort to appeal to crypto investors, a group of Democrats, including Sens. Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, participated in an online “Crypto 4 Harris” event in August.
Neither Harris nor members of her campaign staff attended the event.
____
Gomez Licon contributed from Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
The NDP has a slight early lead in Winnipeg while remaining in a three-way race with the Liberals and the Bloc Québécois in Montreal as ballots continue to be counted in two crucial federal byelections.
Laura Palestini, the Liberal candidate in the party’s Montreal stronghold of LaSalle—Émard—Verdun, gave a speech thanking her volunteers just a little over an hour after the polls closed and early results showed her trailing in third spot.
The NDP are so far also holding on to their own seat in the Winnipeg riding of Elmwood — Transcona. The first 7,210 ballots reported by Elections Canada show 48.1per cent of votes have gone to the NDP and 43.8 per cent to the Conservatives, with the vast majority of votes yet to be counted.
While byelections aren’t usually credited with much significance on Parliament Hill, the votes in Winnipeg and Montreal are being treated as bellwethers of the political shifts happening in Canada.
The Elmwood — Transcona seat has been vacant since the NDP’s Daniel Blaikie left federal politics.
The New Democrats are hoping to hold onto the riding and polls suggest the Conservatives are in the running.
LaSalle—Émard—Verdun opened up when former justice minister David Lametti left politics.
Polls suggested the race was tight between the Liberal candidate and the Bloc Québécois, but the NDP were hopeful it could win.
Palestini thanked her volunteers as the results rolled in Monday night.
“Thanks to your efforts, our message resonated,” she said in French at a Liberal gathering in Dilallo Burger, a Ville-Émard institution dating back to 1929.
“Perhaps tomorrow morning, early, we will hear what the people of LaSalle—Émard—Verdun want as their member of parliament.”
She departed shortly after.
Meanwhile at the NDP headquarters, cries of joy erupted as the first poll results were showed.
Montrealer Graham Juneau said that despite all the campaigning, he and many of his friends are “relatively disengaged.”
He opted to vote for no one, to make a point about “a lack of confidence in the political establishment in Canada.”
“At least amongst my peers, there hasn’t been a groundswell of enthusiasm for any of the particular parties,” he said.
Liberal ministers have visited the area several times as the party worked hard to keep the riding it has held for decades.
Ahead of the results, Liam Olsen, a volunteer with the Young Liberals of Canada, said he was feeling optimistic.
He had travelled to Montreal from Ottawa to knock on doors on byelection day.
“It’s going to be a close one,” he said.
“Unpredictable things can happen. But definitely good vibes at the doors today.”
Outside the headquarters of the Bloc Québécois in Verdun, volunteer Sarah Plante, 21, said she was feeling similarly confident.
A Bloc victory in Montreal would prove that the Bloc has a place in Montreal and would send a “strong message” to the federal government that the party represents the interests of all Quebecers, she said.
The stakes are particularly high for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who faced calls for his resignation last June when the Conservatives took over a Liberal stronghold seat in a Toronto byelection.
The loss sent shock waves through the governing party, as the Liberals were faced with the stark reality of their plummeting poll numbers.
C.B. Singh, an 85-year-old Montrealer who has been volunteering for the Liberals since Pierre Elliott Trudeau was prime minister, said he still supports Justin Trudeau.
“I know his father, so I’m for him,” he said. “He is still popular among the immigrants.”
Some strategists have suggested that Jagmeet Singh’s leadership could come under similar scrutiny if the NDP fails to hold onto the Winnipeg seat.
As early results rolled in there were cheers from supporters in the NDP camp in Winnipeg.
Singh took a political gamble on signing a pact with Trudeau in 2022 to prevent an early election in exchange for progress on NDP priorities.
While that deal has yielded a national dental care program, legislation to ban replacement workers and a bill that would underpin a future pharmacare program, the results haven’t translated to gains in the polls.
Singh pulled out of that deal just weeks ago in a bid to distance his party from the Liberals and try to make the next election a two-way race between himself and Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre.
The Conservatives have made an aggressive play for the riding by appealing to traditional NDP voters on issues related to labour and affordability.
“Jagmeet Singh and Justin Trudeau are the same person,” Poilievre said in a social media video posted Sunday ahead of Monday’s vote.
A vote for the Conservative candidate in Elmwood — Transcona is a vote to “fire Justin Trudeau and axe the tax,” he said.
Elections Canada warned on social media Monday evening that the results in the Montreal riding could take longer than usual to be counted because of the record number of candidates.
There are 91 names on the ballot, making it the longest list in the history of federal elections. Most are affiliated with a group protesting Canada’s first-past-the-post voting system.
“Results will be available tonight or early tomorrow. Thank you for your patience,” Elections Canada said on X Monday.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.
