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Politics Briefing: Commuter chaos descends on Toronto – The Globe and Mail

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Hello,

Commuters in and around Canada’s biggest city got a taste of the rail chaos that has engulfed much of the country as pipeline protests popped up along Toronto’s busiest transit lines on Tuesday, ensnaring tens of thousands of travellers during rush hour.

Widespread travel disruptions are expected to continue today after new blockades emerged in Ontario as part of ongoing protests in support of the Wet’suwet’en First Nation in B.C., who oppose the Coastal GasLink project. (The issue is further complicated by internal disputes about who speaks for the community – hereditary chiefs or elected council – as The Globe’s Justine Hunter explores today.)

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The protests have put Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in the tricky position of trying to defend and promote Indigenous rights while fending off the economic and political setbacks of a crippled rail line. Meanwhile, Alberta, stung by the loss of the $20-billion Tech Frontier project, has introduced a law that would jail pipeline protesters for up to six months and impose huge fines starting at $1,000 a day. So far, the only thing that appears certain is the issue will not be resolved quietly. The Wet’suwet’en chiefs have said Thursday is the earliest they can meet with the federal government to talk about the dispute.

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TODAY’S HEADLINES

Democratic debate Joe Biden accused front-runner Bernie Sanders of causing “carnage on our streets” by voting against gun control legislation in a heated and relentlessly negative debate that was the last chance for several Democratic presidential contenders to keep their struggling campaigns alive. The seven-person joust was the last before South Carolina’s primary on Saturday and next week’s Super Tuesday contests.

Foreign aid International development experts say the federal government must boost its foreign-aid spending toward the UN target if it wants its feminist agenda to have a meaningful and sustained impact. Trudeau announced plans last year to gradually increase international funding for women and girls’ health and rights to $1.4-billion annually by 2023, up from the $1.1-billion the government currently spends. But the annual budget increases have not resulted in a significant boost in development spending as a percentage of Canada’s gross national income (GNI), the OECD says.

Carbon tax Manitoba Premier Brian Pallister hinted at a potential breakthrough with the federal government on a carbon tax, and did not rule out introducing a tax in the upcoming provincial budget. Mr. Pallister would not reveal what price he is willing to agree to, but said the federal government has been told.

Coronavirus World markets were spooked by the spreading coronavirus this week as the WHO warned that many countries are ill-prepared for an outbreak. As the Globe’s Mark MacKinnon reports, the authoritarian instinct to deny and obfuscate has only made the situation worse. He points to the Iranian regime, which, like China’s, denied there was a problem for weeks before admitting the severity of the threat.

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Boeing 737 Max In a rare acknowledgement that its oversight of the Boeing 737 Max was flawed, Transport Canada said it believed the Max was safe when the government approved the new plane three years ago, but officials did not closely examine the aircraft’s flawed software before clearing it to fly. Aviation authorities grounded the Boeing 737 Max in 2019 after two deadly crashes only months apart.

Konrad Yakabuski (The Globe and Mail) on investments in the oil sands: “It is no longer enough for the promoters of any resource project to pass through an environmental assessment review process and obtain the support of a majority of Indigenous peoples affected to proceed with a development deemed in the ‘public interest.’ A leadership void in Ottawa has allowed an entirely new set of hurdles to pop up.”

Lawrence Martin (The Globe and Mail) on Bernie Sanders’ rise: “To suggest Mr. Sanders can’t defeat Mr. Trump is to be in the grip of old thinking. Few thought Americans would elect a black president. Few thought, given his assaults on norms, they’d elect a Donald Trump. They were outliers both. The outlying Mr. Sanders is thus in keeping with the trendline: He fits the mood and the mould.

Andrew Coyne (The Globe and Mail) on reconciliation, development and carbon pricing: ‘The debate has been dominated by the most extreme, uncompromising, all-or-nothing voices…Only when all sides dispense with the fantasy of total victory will there be a way out of this stalemate.”

Jonathan Kay (National Post) on Trudeau’s political dilemma: “The idea that Indigenous political agitation would lead to Canada’s break-up is not new. The shocking thing now is that the main threat doesn’t actually come from Indigenous peoples.”

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Harris, Beyoncé team up for a Texas rally on abortion rights and hope battleground states hear them

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HOUSTON (AP) — Vice President Kamala Harris will team up with Beyoncé on Friday for a rally in solidly Republican Texas aimed at highlighting the medical fallout from the state’s strict abortion ban and putting the blame squarely on Donald Trump.

It’s a message intended to register far beyond Texas in the political battleground states, where Harris is hoping that the aftereffects from the fall of Roe v. Wade will spur voters to turn out to support her quest for the presidency.

Harris will also be joined at the rally by women who have nearly died from sepsis and other pregnancy complications because they were unable to get proper medical care, including women who never intended to end their pregnancies.

Some of them have already been out campaigning for Harris and others have told their harrowing tales in campaign ads that seek to show how the issue has ballooned into something far bigger than the right to end an unwanted pregnancy.

Since abortion was restricted in Texas, the state’s infant death rate has increased, more babies have died of birth defects and maternal mortality has risen.

With the presidential election in a dead heat, the Democratic nominee is banking on abortion rights as a major driver for voters — including for Republican women, particularly since Trump appointed three of the Supreme Court justices who voted to overturn the constitutional right. He has been inconsistent about how he would approach the issue if voters return him to the White House.

Harris’ campaign has taken on Beyonce’s 2016 track “Freedom” as its anthem, and the message dovetails with the vice president’s emphasis on reproductive freedom. The singer’s planned appearance Friday adds a high level of star power to Harris’ visit to the state. She will be the latest celebrity to appear with or on behalf of Harris, including Lizzo, James Taylor, Spike Lee, Tyler Perry, Samuel L. Jackson, Bruce Springsteen and Eminem. While in Texas, Harris also will tape a podcast with host Brené Brown.

Trump is also headed to Texas Friday where he’ll talk immigration, and tape a podcast with host Joe Rogan.

There is some evidence to suggest that abortion rights may drive women to the polls as it did during the 2022 midterm elections. Voters in seven states, including some conservative ones, have either protected abortion rights or defeated attempts to restrict them in statewide votes over the past two years.

“Living in Texas, it feels incredibly important to protect women’s health and safety,” said Colette Clark, an Austin voter. She said voting for Harris is the best way to prevent further abortion restrictions from happening across the country.

Another Austin resident, Daniel Kardish, didn’t know anyone who has been personally affected by the restrictions, but nonetheless views it as a key issue this election.

“I feel strongly about women having bodily autonomy,” he said.

Harris said this week she thought the issue was compelling enough to motivate even Republican women, adding, “for so many of us, our daughter is going to have fewer rights than their grandmother.”

“When the issue of the freedom of a woman to make decisions about her own body is on the ballot, the American people vote for freedom regardless of the party with which they’re registered to vote,” Harris said.

Harris isn’t likely to win Texas, but that isn’t the point of her presence Friday.

“Of all the states in the nation, Texas has been ground zero for harrowing stories of women, including women who have been denied care, who had to leave the state, mothers who have had to leave the state,” said Skye Perryman, president of Democracy Forward, a legal group behind many lawsuits challenging abortion restrictions. “It’s one of the major places where this reality has been so, so devastatingly felt.”

Democrats warn that a winnowing of rights and freedoms will only continue if Trump is elected. Republican lawmakers in states across the U.S. have been rejecting Democrats’ efforts to protect or expand access to birth control, for example.

Democrats also hope Harris’ visit will give a boost to Rep. Colin Allred, who is making a longshot bid to unseat Republican Texas Sen. Ted Cruz. Allred will appear at the rally with Harris.

When Roe was first overturned, Democrats initially focused on the new limitations on access to abortion to end unwanted pregnancies. But the same medical procedures used for abortions are used to treat miscarriages.

And increasingly, in 14 states with strict abortion bans, women cannot get medical care until their condition has become life-threatening. In some states, doctors can face criminal charges if they provide medical care.

About 6 in 10 Americans think their state should generally allow a person to obtain a legal abortion if they don’t want to be pregnant for any reason, according to a July poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

Trump has been inconsistent in his message to voters on abortion and reproductive rights. He has repeatedly shifted his stance and offered vague, contradictory and at times nonsensical answers to questions on an issue that has become a major vulnerability for Republicans in this year’s election.

Texas encapsulates the post-Roe landscape. Its strict abortion ban prohibits physicians from performing abortions once cardiac activity is detected, which can happen as early as six weeks or before.

As a result, women, including those who didn’t intend to end a pregnancy, are increasingly suffering worse medical care. That’s in part because doctors cannot intervene unless a woman is facing a life-threatening condition, or to prevent “substantial impairment of major bodily function.”

The state also has become a battleground for litigation. The U.S. Supreme Court weighed in on the side of the state’s ban just two weeks ago.

Complaints of pregnant women in medical distress being turned away from emergency rooms in Texas and elsewhere have spiked as hospitals grapple with whether standard care could violate strict state laws against abortion.

Several Texas women have lodged complaints against hospitals for not terminating their failing and dangerous pregnancies because of the state’s ban. In some cases, women lost reproductive organs.

Of late, Republicans have increasingly tried to place the blame on doctors, alleging that physicians are intentionally denying services in an effort to undercut the bans and make a political point.

Perryman said that was gaslighting.

“Doctors are being placed in a position where they are having to face the prospect of criminal liability, of personal liability, threat to their medical license and their ability to care for people — they’re faced with an untenable position,” she said.

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Long reported from Washington and Lathan from Austin, Texas.

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Nova Scotia premier appoints new finance minister after cabinet resignation

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HALIFAX – Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston has announced a cabinet shuffle today, appointing Tim Halman as finance minister and deputy premier.

Halman will retain his portfolio as environment minister as he replaces Allan MacMaster who resigned as finance minister and deputy premier on Thursday.

In a statement on Facebook, MacMaster says he wants to seek the federal Conservative nomination in the riding of Cape Breton—Canso—Antigonish.

MacMaster says he will stay on as the member of the provincial legislature for Inverness, but will resign his seat if he wins the federal nomination.

In a short statement, the premier’s office says Halman’s swearing-in ceremony took place on Thursday.

The cabinet change comes as speculation mounts about a snap provincial election call as early as this weekend.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 25, 2024.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

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Beyoncé, whose ‘Freedom’ is Harris’ campaign anthem, is expected at Democrat’s Texas rally on Friday

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PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Beyoncé is expected to appear Friday in her hometown of Houston at a rally for Vice President Kamala Harris, according to three people familiar with the matter.

Harris’ presidential campaign has taken on Beyonce’s 2016 track “Freedom” as its anthem, and the singer’s planned appearance brings a high-level of star power to what has become a key theme of the Democratic nominee’s bid: freedom.

Harris will head to the reliably Republican state just 10 days before Election Day in an effort to refocus her campaign against former President Donald Trump on reproductive care, which Democrats see as a make-or-break issue this year.

The three people were not authorized to publicly discuss the matter and spoke on condition of anonymity. The Harris campaign did not immediately comment.

Beyoncé‘s appearance was expected to draw even more attention to the event — and to Harris’ closing message.

Harris’ Houston trip is set to feature women who have been affected by Texas’ restrictive abortion laws, which took effect after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. She has campaigned in other states with restrictive abortion laws, including Georgia, among the seven most closely contested states.

Harris has centered her campaign around the idea that Trump is a threat to American freedoms, from reproductive and LGBTQ rights to the freedom to be safe from gun violence.

Beyonce gave Harris permission early in her campaign to use “Freedom,” a soulful track from her 2016 landmark album “Lemonade,” in her debut ad. Harris has used its thumping chorus as a walk-out song at rallies ever since.

Beyoncé’s alignment with Harris isn’t the first time that the Grammy winner has aligned with a Democratic politician. Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, danced as Beyoncé performed at a presidential inaugural ball in 2009.

In 2013, she sang the national anthem at Obama’s second inauguration. Three years later, she and her husband Jay-Z performed at a pre-election concert for Democrat Hillary Clinton in Cleveland.

“Look how far we’ve come from having no voice to being on the brink of history — again,” Beyoncé said at the time. “But we have to vote.”

A January poll by Ipsos for the anti-polarization nonprofit With Honor found that 64% of Democrats had a favorable view of Beyonce compared with just 32% of Republicans. Overall, Americans were more likely to have a favorable opinion than an unfavorable one, 48% to 33%.

Speculation over whether the superstar would appear at this summer’s Democratic National Convention in Chicago reached a fever pitch on the gathering’s final night, with online rumors swirling after celebrity news site TMZ posted a story that said: “Beyoncé is in Chicago, and getting ready to pop out for Kamala Harris on the final night of the Democratic convention.” The site attributed it to “multiple sources in the know,” none of them named.

About an hour after Harris ended her speech, TMZ updated its story to say, “To quote the great Beyoncé: We gotta lay our cards down, down, down … we got this one wrong.” In the end, Harris took the stage to star’s song, but that was its only appearance.

Last year, Harris and her husband, Doug Emhoff, attended Beyoncé’s Renaissance World Tour in Maryland after getting tickets from Beyonce herself. “Thanks for a fun date night, @Beyonce,” Harris wrote on Instagram.

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Long and Kinnard reported from Washington. Associated Press writer Linley Sanders in Washington contributed to this report. Kinnard can be reached at

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

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