Ottawa has named an independent special interlocutor to connect Indigenous communities dealing with the discovery of unmarked graves with the federal government.
Kimberly Murray, a former executive director of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, will work with Indigenous peoples to recommend ways to strengthen federal laws and practices to protect and preserve burial sites found at former residential school sites.
“To the survivors and elders who are here today and those who may be watching online, I appreciate everything you have done to raise our collective awareness about the violence perpetrated against you, your families and your communities,” Ms. Murray told a new conference in Ottawa.
“I promise that I will do everything in my power to ensure that the office of the special interlocutor is here to help, and not do further harm in any way.”
Ms. Murray is a member of the Kahnesatake Mohawk Nation in southwestern Quebec, and a lawyer by training. She was Ontario’s first assistant deputy Attorney General for Indigenous Justice, from 2015, to Aug. 2, 2021, where her responsibilities included creating a unit to work with Indigenous communities on revitalizing their Indigenous laws and legal orders. Her professional biography is here.
The federal government promised to create the position last year after ground-penetrating radar detected what are believed to be hundreds of unmarked graves on the sites of former residential schools in British Columbia and Saskatchewan.
More burial sites have been found and Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister Marc Miller says they are expected to be just the “tip of the iceberg.”
Kukpi7 Rosanne Casimir of the Tk’emlups te Secwepemc, who attended the announcement in Ottawa alongside Chief Cadmus Delorme of the Cowessess First Nation, says the mandate of the interlocutor confirms respect between Indigenous communities and the government.
Ms. Murray says she is ready to hear about challenges communities have faced in their tireless efforts to recover, protect and commemorate those buried at former schools, including how to dismantle colonial laws that are obstructing them.
She noted her mandate begins June 14 and lasts for two years.
In a statement, the NDP Indigenous Services Critic Lori Idlout congratulated Ms. Murray on her appointment, calling the appointment an “important step” to help First Nations, Inuit and Métis communities shoulder the tremendous burden as they continue their search for children who never came home and begin the difficult process of healing. She said it is disappointing it has taken so much time to appoint a special interlocutor.
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TODAY’S HEADLINES
LINE 5 SHUTDOWN WOULD HIKE GAS PRICES: CONSULTANT – A U.S. energy industry consultant hired by Enbridge Inc. estimates that a shutdown of the Line 5 petroleum pipeline would lead to a 1- to 2-cent rise in gasoline prices for Ontarians and Quebeckers. Story here.
STRONGER ELECTION LAWS NEEDED: ELECTORAL OFFICER – Canada’s Chief Electoral Officer is calling for stronger federal elections laws to address hate groups, and says courts should be granted the power to block such organizations from registering as political parties. Story here.
CANADA AND U.S. STRIKE TECHNOLOGY EXPORT AGREEMENT – Ottawa and Washington have struck an agreement to stop the export of technology that could help Moscow’s war in Ukraine, with the collaboration paying special attention to goods flowing to third countries or what Canada’s border agency calls “known Russian supporters.” Story here.
PM CHARTS OWN PATH AT SUMMIT – U.S. President Joe Biden and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau are charting markedly different paths at the Summit of the Americas. Story here.
PRIORITIZE AFGHAN RESETTLEMENT: KABUL LAWYER – A Kabul lawyer who received refugee protection in Canada is urging Ottawa to prioritize the resettlement of Afghans who assisted the Canadian government in Afghanistan and remain trapped in the country, including 28 lawyers and employees who worked for his firm. Story here.
NATIONAL GALLERY DIRECTOR QUITS – The director and chief executive of the National Gallery of Canada is leaving to take on a leadership role at a noted art museum in the United States. Story here.
FIRST CANADIAN OFFSET MARKET LAUNCHED – Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault is creating Canada’s first carbon offset market to help big industry in its quest to cut its greenhouse gas emissions. Story here.
B.C. NEEDS TO BE READY FOR FUTURE HEAT DOMES AFTER 2021 EVENT KILLS 619: CORONER – Six hundred and nineteen British Columbians, mostly older adults with compromised health who lived alone and without air conditioning, died as a result of the unprecedented heat wave last summer, a coroner’s review has found, highlighting the need for the province to prepare for the inevitable next extreme-weather crisis. Story here.
NEW SANCTIONS BAR SOME WORK FOR RUSSIAN OIL AND GAS FIRMS – Advertising and public-relations agencies have been banned for working for Russian oil and gas firms as part of a new wave of sanctions designed to increase pressure on the Putin regime. Story here.
ALBERTA NDP UNDER SCRUTINY OVER TREATMENT OF VOLUNTEERS – A letter from 15 Alberta NDP constituency presidents and regional vice-presidents calls on Opposition Leader Rachel Notley and the party to investigate what it alleges to be a pattern of disrespect and mistreatment of party volunteers. Story here.
ANDREA HORWATH’S CHIEF OF STAFF QUITS – The chief of staff for Ontario’s NDP leader has quit after an election that saw Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservatives win a majority. Story here.
MINISTER MISUNDERSTOOD IN POLICE COMMENTS: SENIOR OFFICIAL – A senior official in the Department of Public Safety says the minister has been “misunderstood” in saying police asked the federal government to use the Emergencies Act in February. Story here.
PARLIAMENTARY INTERPRETERS FACING CHALLENGES – Wherever Myriam Bureau goes, the high-pitched ringing in her ears goes with her. The veteran parliamentary interpreter says the unending noise is the price she pays for doing work she loves. Her medical issues, linked to her work by an audiologist’s letter she provided to The Globe and Mail, reflect a brewing problem for the interpreters who, plugged into sound systems, translate the business of Canada’s government from English to French and French to English. Story here.
THIS AND THAT
TODAY IN THE COMMONS – Projected Order of Business at the House of Commons, June 8, accessible here.
MORNEAU MEMOIR – First the speech, and now a book. Last week, former finance minister Bill Morneau used a speech – story here – to criticize Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s economic agenda. It turns out Mr. Morneau is the latest former member of Mr. Trudeau’s cabinet to write a book about life in politics. Where To from Here: A Path to Canadian Prosperity, published by Toronto-based ECW Press, is due out on Jan. 17. Mr. Morneau’s co-author is writer John Lawrence Reynolds. A media release on the project says, “Bill Morneau paints a positive picture, tracing his widely lauded entry into the political arena, the arc of his career in politics, major accomplishments and missed opportunities, his surprising exit, and a host of revealing episodes between the events. Told with measures of both pride and regret, he explores personalities, achievements, and failures with candor.”
TENEYCKE ON THE ONTARIO ELECTION – Doug Ford’s campaign manager Kory Teneycke appears here on the Herle Burly podcast to deconstruct the recent Ontario election, and explain how Mr. Ford won.
BOISSONNAULT AND NG IN PARIS – From Wednesday to Friday, Tourism Minister Randy Boissonnault is in Paris to attend the 2022 meeting of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development ministerial council. International Trade Minister Mary Ng is also attending the meeting on Thursday and Friday, and then travelling to Geneva for the 12th WTO Ministerial Conference.
GARON HAS COVID-19 – Jean-Denis Garon, the Bloc Québécois MP for the Montreal-area riding of Mirabel, has tested positive for COVID-19 so is isolating at home. Six Bloc MPs are currently in isolation, according to party spokesperson Julien Coulombe-Bonnafous.
FREEDOM IN OTTAWA – NBA Free agent Enes Kanter Freedom was on Parliament Hill this week to offer support to Conservative MP Garnett Genuis, the critic for international development, and Senator Leo Housakos as they denounced government inaction in stopping products made from forced labour from entering Canada. The senator has a bill in the works to ban such imports. Mr. Freedom has been a critic of China’s communist regime and the persecution of the Uyghur Muslims. Senator Housakos recorded highlights of the day here. Senior Parliamentary Reporter Steven Chase looked at the issue here.
THE DECIBEL
On Wednesday’s edition of The Globe and Mail, Europe Correspondent Paul Waldie discusses Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s uncanny ability to skirt scandal and why this Partygate scandal he’s embroiled in now might be the thing that brings him down. The Decibel is here.
PRIME MINISTER’S DAY
In Los Angeles, the Prime Minister met with Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley, and then with the President of General Motors International, Shilpan Amin, and also participated in a roundtable discussion with leaders attending the Summit of the Americas. With Sophie Grégoire Trudeau, the Prime Minister was scheduled to participate in the summit’s opening ceremony hosted by U.S. President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden.
LEADERS
No schedules released for party leaders.
OPINION
Andrew Coyne (The Globe and Mail) on how mandatory voting works in Australia and can work here: “What’s the problem this is trying to solve? The problem isn’t just low turnout. It’s that turnout, when it is low, varies wildly among different groups of voters. Young people, poorer people, racial minorities – all are statistically less likely to turn out than others. An election is in this regard rather like a census: a self-selected sample is a skewed sample. Unless you make participation mandatory you don’t get a representative result. And representation is what an election is supposed to be all about. There’s another benefit to mandatory voting: it eliminates turnout as a factor in the parties’ calculations.”
André Picard (The Globe and Mail)on how a B.C. report on last year’s heat wave is a grim reminder that we must better protect our most vulnerable: “Most of the deceased were older adults with compromised health due to multiple chronic diseases and who lived alone.” That is the single most important sentence in the 59-page report of the B.C. Death Review Panel, which examined how 619 people in the province died of heat-related causes in a single week in the summer of 2021. Two-thirds of those who died during the “heat dome” that battered B.C. from June 25 to July 1 of last year were over the age of 70. How this could happen in a province of one of the wealthiest countries on Earth is not explained. No one is called to account. Still, it’s a grim reminder that when catastrophes strike – from extreme heat to once-in-a-century pandemics – the impact is always felt much more acutely by the vulnerable, and elders in particular.”
Steve Paikin (TVO) on whether the Ontario Liberals and NDP should join forces: “Many Liberals I’ve spoken to since election day do feel the sky appears to be falling in on them. So this may be the time to remind them that the party has been here before. From 1943 to 1985 – 42 straight years – the party was in the wilderness as the PC dynasty won the most seats in 13 straight elections. But from 1985 until 2018, the Liberals held power after six of the next nine elections. These things do come in waves. David Peterson, Liberal premier from 1985 to 1990, is against a merger with the NDP. In fact, his advice is pretty simple. “Let it settle,” he says of last week’s awful results. “We don’t need all the answers today. Leadership matters.”
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HALIFAX – Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston says it’s “disgraceful and demeaning” that a Halifax-area school would request that service members not wear military uniforms to its Remembrance Day ceremony.
Houston’s comments were part of a chorus of criticism levelled at the school — Sackville Heights Elementary — whose administration decided to back away from the plan after the outcry.
A November newsletter from the school in Middle Sackville, N.S., invited Armed Forces members to attend its ceremony but asked that all attendees arrive in civilian attire to “maintain a welcoming environment for all.”
Houston, who is currently running for re-election, accused the school’s leaders of “disgracing themselves while demeaning the people who protect our country” in a post on the social media platform X Thursday night.
“If the people behind this decision had a shred of the courage that our veterans have, this cowardly and insulting idea would have been rejected immediately,” Houston’s post read. There were also several calls for resignations within the school’s administration attached to Houston’s post.
In an email to families Thursday night, the school’s principal, Rachael Webster, apologized and welcomed military family members to attend “in the attire that makes them most comfortable.”
“I recognize this request has caused harm and I am deeply sorry,” Webster’s email read, adding later that the school has the “utmost respect for what the uniform represents.”
Webster said the initial request was out of concern for some students who come from countries experiencing conflict and who she said expressed discomfort with images of war, including military uniforms.
Her email said any students who have concerns about seeing Armed Forces members in uniform can be accommodated in a way that makes them feel safe, but she provided no further details in the message.
Webster did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
At a news conference Friday, Houston said he’s glad the initial request was reversed but said he is still concerned.
“I can’t actually fathom how a decision like that was made,” Houston told reporters Friday, adding that he grew up moving between military bases around the country while his father was in the Armed Forces.
“My story of growing up in a military family is not unique in our province. The tradition of service is something so many of us share,” he said.
“Saying ‘lest we forget’ is a solemn promise to the fallen. It’s our commitment to those that continue to serve and our commitment that we will pass on our respects to the next generation.”
Liberal Leader Zach Churchill also said he’s happy with the school’s decision to allow uniformed Armed Forces members to attend the ceremony, but he said he didn’t think it was fair to question the intentions of those behind the original decision.
“We need to have them (uniforms) on display at Remembrance Day,” he said. “Not only are we celebrating (veterans) … we’re also commemorating our dead who gave the greatest sacrifice for our country and for the freedoms we have.”
NDP Leader Claudia Chender said that while Remembrance Day is an important occasion to honour veterans and current service members’ sacrifices, she said she hopes Houston wasn’t taking advantage of the decision to “play politics with this solemn occasion for his own political gain.”
“I hope Tim Houston reached out to the principal of the school before making a public statement,” she said in a statement.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 8, 2024.
REGINA – Saskatchewan Opposition NDP Leader Carla Beck says she wants to prove to residents her party is the government in waiting as she heads into the incoming legislative session.
Beck held her first caucus meeting with 27 members, nearly double than what she had before the Oct. 28 election but short of the 31 required to form a majority in the 61-seat legislature.
She says her priorities will be health care and cost-of-living issues.
Beck says people need affordability help right now and will press Premier Scott Moe’s Saskatchewan Party government to cut the gas tax and the provincial sales tax on children’s clothing and some grocery items.
Beck’s NDP is Saskatchewan’s largest Opposition in nearly two decades after sweeping Regina and winning all but one seat in Saskatoon.
The Saskatchewan Party won 34 seats, retaining its hold on all of the rural ridings and smaller cities.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 8, 2024.
HALIFAX – Nova Scotia‘s growing population was the subject of debate on Day 12 of the provincial election campaign, with Liberal Leader Zach Churchill arguing immigration levels must be reduced until the province can provide enough housing and health-care services.
Churchill said Thursday a plan by the incumbent Progressive Conservatives to double the province’s population to two million people by the year 2060 is unrealistic and unsustainable.
“That’s a big leap and it’s making life harder for people who live here, (including ) young people looking for a place to live and seniors looking to downsize,” he told a news conference at his campaign headquarters in Halifax.
Anticipating that his call for less immigration might provoke protests from the immigrant community, Churchill was careful to note that he is among the third generation of a family that moved to Nova Scotia from Lebanon.
“I know the value of immigration, the importance of it to our province. We have been built on the backs of an immigrant population. But we just need to do it in a responsible way.”
The Liberal leader said Tim Houston’s Tories, who are seeking a second term in office, have made a mistake by exceeding immigration targets set by the province’s Department of Labour and Immigration. Churchill said a Liberal government would abide by the department’s targets.
In the most recent fiscal year, the government welcomed almost 12,000 immigrants through its nominee program, exceeding the department’s limit by more than 4,000, he said. The numbers aren’t huge, but the increase won’t help ease the province’s shortages in housing and doctors, and the increased strain on its infrastructure, including roads, schools and cellphone networks, Churchill said.
“(The Immigration Department) has done the hard work on this,” he said. “They know where the labour gaps are, and they know what growth is sustainable.”
In response, Houston said his commitment to double the population was a “stretch goal.” And he said the province had long struggled with a declining population before that trend was recently reversed.
“The only immigration that can come into this province at this time is if they are a skilled trade worker or a health-care worker,” Houston said. “The population has grown by two per cent a year, actually quite similar growth to what we experienced under the Liberal government before us.”
Still, Houston said he’s heard Nova Scotians’ concerns about population growth, and he then pivoted to criticize Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for trying to send 6,000 asylum seekers to Nova Scotia, an assertion the federal government has denied.
Churchill said Houston’s claim about asylum seekers was shameful.
“It’s smoke and mirrors,” the Liberal leader said. “He is overshooting his own department’s numbers for sustainable population growth and yet he is trying to blame this on asylum seekers … who aren’t even here.”
In September, federal Immigration Minister Marc Miller said there is no plan to send any asylum seekers to the province without compensation or the consent of the premier. He said the 6,000 number was an “aspirational” figure based on models that reflect each province’s population.
In Halifax, NDP Leader Claudia Chender said it’s clear Nova Scotia needs more doctors, nurses and skilled trades people.
“Immigration has been and always will be a part of the Nova Scotia story, but we need to build as we grow,” Chender said. “This is why we have been pushing the Houston government to build more affordable housing.”
Chender was in a Halifax cafe on Thursday when she promised her party would remove the province’s portion of the harmonized sales tax from all grocery, cellphone and internet bills if elected to govern on Nov. 26. The tax would also be removed from the sale and installation of heat pumps.
“Our focus is on helping people to afford their lives,” Chender told reporters. “We know there are certain things that you can’t live without: food, internet and a phone …. So we know this will have the single biggest impact.”
The party estimates the measure would save the average Nova Scotia family about $1,300 a year.
“That’s a lot more than a one or two per cent HST cut,” Chender said, referring to the Progressive Conservative pledge to reduce the tax by one percentage point and the Liberal promise to trim it by two percentage points.
Elsewhere on the campaign trail, Houston announced that a Progressive Conservative government would make parking free at all Nova Scotia hospitals and health-care centres. The promise was also made by the Liberals in their election platform released Monday.
“Free parking may not seem like a big deal to some, but … the parking, especially for people working at the facilities, can add up to hundreds of dollars,” the premier told a news conference at his campaign headquarters in Halifax.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2024.
