Federal Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre says transgender women should not be allowed in women’s change rooms and public washrooms, but as prime minister he would not have the reach to introduce legislation implementing a ban.
Poilievre also said women’s sports should be off-limits to transgender athletes, when asked about the issue by a Rebel News reporter at a news conference in a Kitchener, Ont., health food store today.
“Female spaces should be exclusively for females, not for biological males,” Poilievre said. “Female sports, female change rooms, female bathrooms should be for females.”
But he noted many of those spaces are provincially and municipally controlled. “So it is unclear what reach federal legislation would have to change them.”
The Conservative Leader’s comments align with a policy endorsed at the party’s convention in Quebec City last fall “protecting female sports, intimate spaces and women’s rights.”
Trudeau said Poilievre and politicians like him are very good at creating division, anger and wedges between people, but terrible at putting forward any concrete solutions to challenges that Canadians are facing.
He said Poilievre would “rather pick a fight with trans kids,” but that he would rather do whatever is possible to protect vulnerable people in Canada.
“That’s what Canadians expect,” he said. “I am not going to get dragged into culture wars about this when the fact is Canadians expect their governments to roll up their sleeves and deliver for them, and that’s what we’re doing.”
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TODAY’S HEADLINES
Liberals have not agreed to fully fund diabetes medications in pharmacare talks, Jagmeet Singh says: The NDP Leader said at a news conference in Toronto that diabetes medications remain a sticking point in negotiations on pharmacare.
Quebec turns to Supreme Court to stop asylum seekers’ access to subsidized daycare: Justice Minister Simon Jolin-Barrette says the government will seek leave at the Supreme Court to appeal a Feb. 7 decision that found the province’s daycare rules are discriminatory.
Conservative government would require websites to verify age to watch porn, says Pierre Poilievre: When asked at a news conference in Kitchener, Ont., whether his government if elected would require porn websites to verify the age of users, the Conservative Leader gave a one-word answer: “Yes.”
More humanitarian aid needed for Gaza, Ahmed Hussen says: The movement of aid is nowhere near what’s needed, the International Development Minister said he learned during his recent trip to the Rafah border crossing, where he discussed the crisis with humanitarian workers.
Suspended public servants ask court to block internal border agency probe: Cameron MacDonald and Antonio Utano have filed the notice of application for judicial review in Federal Court after the Auditor-General delivered a report on federal outsourcing at the Canada Border Services Agency that decried a deficit in basic management and contracting practices.
Newly appointed human rights commissioner vying for Sask. Party nomination: Mubarik Syed is seeking a nomination for the governing party in a Saskatoon riding and abstaining from work on the commission until the completion of the nomination and resigning if nominated, the Regina Leader-Post reports.
Bank of Canada Governor highlights inflation fighting errors, lessons learned: The surge of inflation over the past three years has been a “stark reminder” that central banks can’t always ignore supply shocks and hope price increases stabilize on their own, Tiff Macklem wrote in an essay.
B.C. government promises financial relief in budget, despite near-stagnant economic growth: With the next provincial election no more than nine months away, the Throne Speech emphasized the need for new measures to help with a rising cost of living.
TODAY’S POLITICAL QUOTES
“That core choice about who we are as Canadians is so fundamentally important that I could not be the person I am and choose to step away from this fight right now when it is so important just because it’s getting a little difficult or people are wondering if they’re not tired of me or whatever.” – Prime Minister Justin Trudeau today in an interview on Ryan Jespersen’s Real Talk show in Edmonton on the question of whether he will quit ahead of the next election.
THIS AND THAT
Online harms legislation bill next week: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said today in Edmonton that his government will table a long-awaited online harms bill next week. “I look forward to putting forward that online harms bill, which people will see is very, very specifically focused on protecting kids and not on censoring the internet.”
Commons and Senate on a break: Both the House of Commons and the Senate are on breaks until Feb. 26.
Deputy Prime Minister’s day: Private meetings in Toronto.
Ministers on the road: Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister Gary Anandasangaree, in Abbotsford, B.C., appeared with Alice McKay, chief of Matsqui First Nation, to announce a settlement that, according to a department statement, addresses a historic wrong. Later, he held a media availability in Burns Lake with Chief Murphy Abraham, along with other Lake Babine Nation representatives, about a new funding agreement to support the Wit’at and Tachet communities. Public Services Minister Jean-Yves Duclos, in Quebec City, made an announcement regarding the Canadian Coast Guard fleet on behalf of Fisheries Minister Diane Lebouthillier. Rural Economic Development Minister Gudie Hutchings, in St. John’s, with Tourism Minister Martinez Ferrada, and provincial Tourism Minister Steve Crocker, announced details of a federal-provincial initiative to support the Atlantic Canada tourism industry. Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc, in Montreal, announced federal financial support to combat vehicle theft at a news conference with Transport Minister Pablo Rodriguez, Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante, RCMP Commissioner Mike Duheme, and Montreal Police Chief Fady Dagher. In Mississauga, Filomena Tassi, minister for the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario, announced $2.4-million toward the growth of three Southern Ontario food manufacturing companies.
Commons committee highlights: Auditor-General Karen Hogan appeared before the public-accounts committee on the ArriveCan app. Caroline Maynard, the Information Commissioner of Canada, appears before the government-operations committee also on the ArriveCan app.
PRIME MINISTER’S DAY
Justin Trudeau, in Edmonton, visited a housing development with Employment Minister Randy Boissonnault and Edmonton Mayor Amarjeet Sohi, made a housing announcement, and took media questions. Later, Trudeau participated in a roundtable discussion with members of the LGBTQ community.
LEADERS
Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet, concluding a tour of the city of La Malbaie, met with Mayor Michel Couturier, then held a news conference.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre held a news conference in Kitchener, Ont.
Green Party Leader Elizabeth May, with deputy leader Jonathan Pedneault, was scheduled to hold an evening gathering with supporters in Kitchener, Ont.
NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh, in Toronto, held a news conference on the NDP pharmacare plan, met with the executive committee on the Ontario Federation of Labour and spoke to the 2024 convention of the Service Employees International Union.
THE DECIBEL
Today’s edition of The Globe and Mail podcast features The Globe’s Kelly Grant and Tu Thanh Ha, who have found that, as health care systems across Canada struggle with staffing shortages, the provincial use of private nursing agencies has recently skyrocketed. The Decibel is here.
OPINION
A new kind of affordable housing in B.C.
“In mid-2022, when David Eby was cruising toward an easy victory in the NDP leadership race in B.C. – and set to become the province’s next premier – housing was his primary policy focus. His main idea was provincial intervention in housing, to push cities to loosen their overly strict zoning rules to allow for more construction. Mr. Eby, however, also advocated for using government’s heft, from land to financing, to build “housing for the middle class on public land, using public resources.” It was a more expansive view of affordable housing, a political euphemism that generally means homes for lower-income Canadians.” – The Globe and Mail Editorial Board
Must Canada leave a mountain of debt to future generations?
“The 2023 fall economic statement projected large deficits through 2028-29 and a net debt-to-GDP ratio that rises in 2024-25 and then declines only slightly, remaining well above the prepandemic level through 2028-29. Interest payments eat up almost 14 per cent of revenue. The 2024 budget must correct this imprudent treatment of risk. Debt’s risk is lost opportunity. When servicing costs rise, more tax dollars have to go toward financing the debt, leaving less room for more meaningful expenditure. The federal government justified the deficits and debt by showing the net debt-to-GDP ratio declining through 2055-56. This is not credible.” – Don Drummond
Public lands can help unlock the housing crisis – and our governments hold the key
“By any measure, Canada needs to build more housing in the next decade – more than we’ve ever built in the past. Adding more supply will relieve the pressures being felt on all ends of the housing continuum, with middle-class homeowners feeling insecure about the stability of their housing, young people losing sight of a path to home ownership altogether, and newcomers struggling even to pay rent, as homelessness continues to surge. Today, the average price of the average home in Vancouver, for example, is 12 times the average Canadian salary. And yet our housing starts are actually slowing.” – Jennifer Keesmaat
To avoid ArriveCan-style fiascos, the Canadian government should create a COO position
“By almost any objective measure, the public service has not adapted to meet the heightened demands of citizens when it comes to service delivery.” This isn’t a quote from last week’s damning report on the ArriveCan app scandal by the Auditor-General, but it could have been. It’s from a December report to the Clerk of the Privy Council – Canada’s top public servant – on values and ethics in the public service. The ArriveCan scandal was a failure of public servants, not politicians. While ministers are still accountable to Parliament for this failing, the public service was responsible for the fiasco.” – David McLaughlin
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OTTAWA – The federal agency that investigates election infractions found insufficient evidence to support suggestions Beijing wielded undue influence against the Conservatives in the Vancouver area during the 2021 general election.
The Commissioner of Canada Elections’ recently completed review of the lingering issue was tabled Tuesday at a federal inquiry into foreign interference.
The review focused on the unsuccessful campaign of Conservative candidate Kenny Chiu in the riding of Steveston-Richmond East and the party’s larger efforts in the Vancouver area.
It says the evidence uncovered did not trigger the threshold to initiate a formal investigation under the Canada Elections Act.
Investigators therefore recommended that the review be concluded.
A summary of the review results was shared with the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and the RCMP. The review says both agencies indicated the election commissioner’s findings were consistent with their own understanding of the situation.
During the exercise, the commissioner’s investigators met with Chinese Canadian residents of Chiu’s riding and surrounding ones.
They were told of an extensive network of Chinese Canadian associations, businesses and media organizations that offers the diaspora a lifestyle that mirrors that of China in many ways.
“Further, this diaspora has continuing and extensive commercial, social and familial relations with China,” the review says.
Some interviewees reported that this “has created aspects of a parallel society involving many Chinese Canadians in the Lower Mainland area, which includes concerted support, direction and control by individuals from or involved with China’s Vancouver consulate and the United Front Work Department (UFWD) in China.”
Investigators were also made aware of members of three Chinese Canadian associations, as well as others, who were alleged to have used their positions to influence the choice of Chinese Canadian voters during the 2021 election in a direction favourable to the interests of Beijing, the review says.
These efforts were sparked by elements of the Conservative party’s election platform and by actions and statements by Chiu “that were leveraged to bolster claims that both the platform and Chiu were anti-China and were encouraging anti-Chinese discrimination and racism.”
These messages were amplified through repetition in social media, chat groups and posts, as well as in Chinese in online, print and radio media throughout the Vancouver area.
Upon examination, the messages “were found to not be in contravention” of the Canada Elections Act, says the review, citing the Supreme Court of Canada’s position that the concept of uninhibited speech permeates all truly democratic societies and institutions.
The review says the effectiveness of the anti-Conservative, anti-Chiu campaigns was enhanced by circumstances “unique to the Chinese diaspora and the assertive nature of Chinese government interests.”
It notes the election was prefaced by statements from China’s ambassador to Canada and the Vancouver consul general as well as articles published or broadcast in Beijing-controlled Chinese Canadian media entities.
“According to Chinese Canadian interview subjects, this invoked a widespread fear amongst electors, described as a fear of retributive measures from Chinese authorities should a (Conservative) government be elected.”
This included the possibility that Chinese authorities could interfere with travel to and from China, as well as measures being taken against family members or business interests in China, the review says.
“Several Chinese Canadian interview subjects were of the view that Chinese authorities could exercise such retributive measures, and that this fear was most acute with Chinese Canadian electors from mainland China. One said ‘everybody understands’ the need to only say nice things about China.”
However, no interview subject was willing to name electors who were directly affected by the anti-Tory campaign, nor community leaders who claimed to speak on a voter’s behalf.
Several weeks of public inquiry hearings will focus on the capacity of federal agencies to detect, deter and counter foreign meddling.
In other testimony Tuesday, Conservative MP Garnett Genuis told the inquiry that parliamentarians who were targeted by Chinese hackers could have taken immediate protective steps if they had been informed sooner.
It emerged earlier this year that in 2021 some MPs and senators faced cyberattacks from the hackers because of their involvement with the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, which pushes for accountability from Beijing.
In 2022, U.S. authorities apparently informed the Canadian government of the attacks, and it in turn advised parliamentary IT officials — but not individual MPs.
Genuis, a Canadian co-chair of the inter-parliamentary alliance, told the inquiry Tuesday that it remains mysterious to him why he wasn’t informed about the attacks sooner.
Liberal MP John McKay, also a Canadian co-chair of the alliance, said there should be a clear protocol for advising parliamentarians of cyberthreats.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 17, 2024.
WINNIPEG – The federal New Democrats have kept a longtime stronghold in the Elmwood-Transcona riding in Winnipeg.
The NDP’s Leila Dance won a close battle over Conservative candidate Colin Reynolds, and says the community has spoken in favour of priorities such as health care and the cost of living.
Elmwood-Transcona has elected a New Democrat in every election except one since the riding was formed in 1988.
The seat became open after three-term member of Parliament Daniel Blaikie resigned in March to take a job with the Manitoba government.
A political analyst the NDP is likely relieved to have kept the seat in what has been one of their strongest urban areas.
Christopher Adams, an adjunct professor of political studies at the University of Manitoba, says NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh worked hard to keep the seat in a tight race.
“He made a number of visits to Winnipeg, so if they had lost this riding it would have been disastrous for the NDP,” Adams said.
The strong Conservative showing should put wind in that party’s sails, Adams added, as their percentage of the popular vote in Elmwood-Transcona jumped sharply from the 2021 election.
“Even though the Conservatives lost this (byelection), they should walk away from it feeling pretty good.”
Dance told reporters Monday night she wants to focus on issues such as the cost of living while working in Ottawa.
“We used to be able to buy a cart of groceries for a hundred dollars and now it’s two small bags. That is something that will affect everyone in this riding,” Dance said.
Liberal candidate Ian MacIntyre placed a distant third,
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024
OTTAWA – Prime Minister Justin Trudeau say the Liberals have “all sorts of reflections” to make after losing a second stronghold in a byelection in Montreal Monday night.
His comments come as the Liberal cabinet gathers for its first regularly scheduled meeting of the fall sitting of Parliament, which began Monday.
Trudeau’s Liberals were hopeful they could retain the Montreal riding of LaSalle—Émard—Verdun, but those hopes were dashed after the Bloc Québécois won it in an extremely tight three-way race with the NDP.
Louis-Philippe Sauvé, an administrator at the Institute for Research in Contemporary Economics, beat Liberal candidate Laura Palestini by less than 250 votes. The NDP finished about 600 votes back of the winner.
It is the second time in three months that Trudeau’s party lost a stronghold in a byelection. In June, the Conservatives defeated the Liberals narrowly in Toronto-St. Paul’s.
The Liberals won every seat in Toronto and almost every seat on the Island of Montreal in the last election, and losing a seat in both places has laid bare just how low the party has fallen in the polls.
“Obviously, it would have been nicer to be able to win and hold (the Montreal riding), but there’s more work to do and we’re going to stay focused on doing it,” Trudeau told reporters ahead of this morning’s cabinet meeting.
When asked what went wrong for his party, Trudeau responded “I think there’s all sorts of reflections to take on that.”
In French, he would not say if this result puts his leadership in question, instead saying his team has lots of work to do.
Bloc leader Yves-François Blanchet will hold a press conference this morning, but has already said the results are significant for his party.
“The victory is historic and all of Quebec will speak with a stronger voice in Ottawa,” Blanchet wrote on X, shortly after the winner was declared.
NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh and his party had hoped to ride to a win in Montreal on the popularity of their candidate, city councillor Craig Sauvé, and use it to further their goal of replacing the Liberals as the chief alternative to the Conservatives.
The NDP did hold on to a seat in Winnipeg in a tight race with the Conservatives, but the results in Elmwood-Transcona Monday were far tighter than in the last several elections. NDP candidate Leila Dance defeated Conservative Colin Reynolds by about 1,200 votes.
Singh called it a “big victory.”
“Our movement is growing — and we’re going to keep working for Canadians and building that movement to stop Conservative cuts before they start,” he said on social media.
“Big corporations have had their governments. It’s the people’s time.”
New Democrats recently pulled out of their political pact with the government in a bid to distance themselves from the Liberals, making the prospects of a snap election far more likely.
Trudeau attempted to calm his caucus at their fall retreat in Nanaimo, B.C, last week, and brought former Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney on as an economic adviser in a bid to shore up some credibility with voters.
The latest byelection loss will put more pressure on him as leader, with many polls suggesting voter anger is more directed at Trudeau himself than at Liberal policies.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 17, 2024.
