Politics Briefing: Manitoba, Ottawa each commit $20-million to search Winnipeg landfill for bodies of First Nations women - The Globe and Mail | Canada News Media
The federal and Manitoba governments will each commit $20-million to search a Winnipeg-area landfill where police believe the bodies of at least two First Nations women were dumped by a serial killer, The Globe and Mail has learned.
In an exclusive interview, Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew said he had scheduled a private meeting in downtown Winnipeg to share information about the funding with the families of the victims this afternoon.
He was joined by Grand Chief Cathy Merrick of the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs, Families Minister Nahanni Fontaine and representatives from Ottawa and the City of Winnipeg.
The new funding marks the first step toward locating the remains of Morgan Harris, Marcedes Myran and the unidentified woman who has been given the spirit name Mashkode Bizhiki’ikwe, which means Buffalo Woman. Winnipeg police allege all three were killed in 2022 by Jeremy Skibicki, who has also been charged with the first-degree murder of Rebecca Contois.
“I can’t commit to any of these families that this search is going to be successful, but I can 100 per cent guarantee that we’re going to try,” Kinew said.
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Princess of Wales says she has cancer, is undergoing chemotherapy: Catherine said today she is undergoing preventative chemotherapy after tests following major abdominal surgery in January revealed the presence of cancer.
Liberal MP decries ‘political games’ over criticism of Conservatives on Ukraine: Rob Oliphant, the parliamentary secretary to Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly, says framing the Tories as soft on Ukraine isn’t helping the country fend off Russia’s invasion.
NDP requests commissioner investigate second lobbying firm operating out of office owned by Poilievre’s top adviser: In a letter sent to Lobbying Commissioner Nancy Bélanger, NDP MP and ethics critic Charlie Angus said details in The Globe’s report about a federal lobby firm that operates out of Jenni Byrne’s provincial lobbying office were concerning. Story here.
Founder of ArriveCan contractor failed to disclose conflicts of interest, other ‘schemes,’ deputy minister of defence says: Bill Matthews, the Defence Department’s top public servant, told parliamentarians he had concerns about the explanations offered by David Yeo for not disclosing his outside work with Dalian when he was hired by the department on Sept. 19, 2023. “I would say it’s highly suspicious,” he said.
Canadian retail sales down in January as new car purchases fell: Statistics Canada said today that overall retail sales were down in three of nine subsectors it tracks, with sales at motor vehicle and parts dealers falling 2.4 per cent, the category’s first decline in five months.
B.C. Premier to meet with woman who took herself off transplant list due to costs: “I look forward to meeting with her to talk with her about suggestions she has about her particular health journey and things we can do to make her life easier,” David Eby told CTV News.
Yukon MLAs vote down motion to condemn federal carbon tax increase: Yukon Party MLA Wade Istchenko brought the motion forward to condemn the increase. CBC reports that the motion ultimately failed, with eight MLAs voting in favour and 10 voting against it.
TODAY’S POLITICAL QUOTES
“If the Bank of Canada lowered their interest rates, even down to 4 or below 4 per cent, you’d see homes pop up like mushrooms all over this province.” – Ontario Premier Doug Ford at a news conference in Hamilton today.
“He’s the Premier of Ontario. I’m the next prime minister of Canada, so I’ll work with all premiers on my common-sense plan.” – Federal Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, asked on CP24 in Toronto today, about his relationship with Ford.
“There is a saying around home that we chuckle about, that everybody loves a good crier, and there is no one better at that than Wes Libbey.” – Conservative MP Eric Duncan on Libbey, who has served as a town crier in the Ontario city of Cornwall and was recently named Cornwall’s 2023 Citizen of the Year.
THIS AND THAT
Brian Mulroney’s state funeral: Saturday’sfuneral ceremony for the former prime minister begins at 11 a.m. ET. It is being held in Montreal at Notre-Dame Basilica of Montréal. Eulogies will offered by Caroline Mulroney, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Wayne Gretzky, businessman Pierre Karl Péladeau, James Baker – the former U.S. secretary of state – and former Quebec premier Jean Charest. Please check The Globe and Mail for coverage.
Ng leading trade mission to Malaysia and Vietnam: Global Affairs has announced the Team Canada mission led by International Trade Minister Mary Ng, which will run between March 24 and 29 and will see the minister joined by more than 135 Canadian businesses and organizations.
Robertson gets Travers fellowship: Dylan Robertson, the international affairs reporter with the Ottawa bureau of The Canadian Press, has been awarded this year’s $25,000 R. James Travers Foreign Corresponding Fellowship. Details here.
Today in the Commons: This afternoon the Commons was adjourned for a two-week break, with MPs returning April. 8. The Senate is also on a two-week break, with April 9 set as a fixed sitting day.
Deputy Prime Minister’s day: No public events scheduled.
Ministers on the road: Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault, in the Montreal-area suburb of Repentigny, announced support for the conservation and improvement of the St. Lawrence ecosystem.
Commons and Senate Committee highlights: No committee meetings set today for either the Commons or the Senate.
PRIME MINISTER’S DAY
No public events scheduled for Justin Trudeau.
LEADERS
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre attended a party fundraising event in Mississauga.
Green Party Leader Elizabeth May attended House of Commons proceedings and travelled by train to Montreal for Saturday’s state funeral of Brian Mulroney.
NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh, in Montreal, hosted a townhall focusing on pharmacare, visited a seniors residence to discuss dental care and, in the evening, was scheduled to join the local Muslim community for a Ramadan Iftar, or break of fast.
No schedule released for Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet.
Free trade wasn’t just Mulroney’s key achievement – it is one of the most dramatic public opinion turnarounds in Canada’s history
“Since Brian Mulroney’s death last month, pundits and the public alike have reflected on his political acumen and accomplishments. The negotiation of the free-trade deal with the United States tops everyone’s list of his achievements as prime minister. But the free-trade story is not just about a policy that put a dramatic end to the protectionism that had underpinned Canada’s economic strategy for more than 100 years. It is the story of one of the most remarkable turnarounds of public opinion in the country’s history – one with two important lessons for political leaders today.” – Michael Adams and Andrew Parkin
Fond memories of Mulroney’s ‘blarney’ and empathy
“In the spring of 2016, I was heading for what was promising to be a challenging leadership review in Edmonton. I remember being hunkered down in a room with my closest advisers preparing my keynote for the event. Word came in from a colleague that Mulroney was trying to reach me. I gladly accepted his call and what transpired next blew me away.” -Tom Mulcair, The Montreal Gazette
OPINION
Canada’s dangerous slide into antisemitism
“Antisemitism has imbedded itself in Canada. As if to drive home the point, on Wednesday the country’s largest French-language newspaper, La Presse, ran an editorial cartoon depicting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as Nosferatu – an antisemitic movie character from 1922 based on Dracula that the Nazis went on to use as a propaganda tool against Jews. But that wasn’t even the worst thing to happen this week. On Monday, an NDP member of Parliament, Brian Masse, acknowledged the rise in antisemitism in Canada but said, “We’re not going to be able to fix anything right now until there’s a ceasefire [in Gaza].” While Mr. Masse and both the editor and the publisher of La Presse apologized, the incidents were all too telling.” – The Globe and Mail Editorial Board
Even as fiscal pressures mount, we must still spend to spur growth
“Having once stood at the helm of Canada’s finances, I empathize with my former counterparts. The challenges that finance ministers face today are more formidable than in recent history. These global upheavals are not only exerting immense pressure on fiscal budgets but will act as impediments to economic growth as well. I acknowledge how difficult it is for a finance minister to get the balance right, between reining in expenditures and spending to spur growth. But it can be done.” – Bill Morneau
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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.
