Speaking with reporters at a news conference in Waterloo, Ont., Wednesday morning, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the reported spike in hate crimes in Canada can be linked to the COVID-19 pandemic and greater political polarization.
Mr. Trudeau was asked about the federal government’s plans to increase funding toward anti-racism infrastructure in Canada in light of recent attacks at Ontario mosques.
This past weekend, five men were attacked in a drive-by shooting outside a mosque in Scarborough, Ont. Last month, a man wielding an axe and bear spray attacked worshippers at Dar Al-Tawheed Islamic Centre in Mississauga, Ont. No one was harmed.
The April 2022 budget announced $85-million in funding over five years related to a new anti-racism strategy and combatting hate. It also announced $11-million over five years for a special envoy on preserving Holocaust remembrance and combatting antisemitism, as well as a special representative on combatting Islamophobia.
“Over the past years, we’ve seen a rise in hate crimes, a rise in intolerance and racist acts. Part of it is the pandemic, sure, and the stress and the anxiety that comes from that, but a part of it is a trend toward greater polarization in our politics, greater intolerance in our communities,” Mr. Trudeau said.
The Globe and Mail’s Joy SpearChief-Morris and deputy Ottawa bureau Chief Bill Curry have more details here.
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TODAY’S HEADLINES
CANADA’S ANNUAL INFLATION RATE SPIKES TO 6.7% IN MARCH, HIGHEST SINCE 1991 – Canada’s inflation rate hit a new three-decade high in March and blew past expectations on Bay Street, an unwelcome sign for central bankers trying to douse the acceleration. The Consumer Price Index rose 6.7 per cent in March from a year earlier, a full percentage point higher than February’s 5.7-per-cent pace, Statistics Canada said Wednesday. Financial analysts were expecting an annual inflation rate of 6.1 per cent. Story here.
CANADA TO SEND HEAVY ARTILLERY WEAPONS TO UKRAINE, TRUDEAU PLEDGES – Canada will send heavy artillery weapons to Ukraine as its land battle with Russia intensifies, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced Tuesday, calling Kyiv’s resistance to Moscow’s military assault a struggle for liberty and democracy. Story here.
FREELAND EXPECTED TO BOYCOTT RUSSIA’S G20 SPEECHES OVER UKRAINE WAR: SOURCE – Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland is expected to boycott any sessions at the G20 finance ministers’ meeting where Russian representatives attempt to speak, Global News reports. A Canadian government official said Ms. Freeland may also use the G20 gatherings to provide a direct rebuttal to any Russian statements made in the plenary session. Story here from Global.
LAW COMBATING MODERN SLAVERY AND CHILD LABOUR A PRIORITY: MINISTER – Labour Minister Seamus O’Regan says the Liberal government is planning legislation to make Canadian companies ensure that they are not using slave labour or exploiting child workers overseas. Story here from the Canadian Press.
FIRST DEADLINE ARRIVES FOR CONSERVATIVE LEADERSHIP RACE, 10 DAYS UNTIL FINAL ONE – At least eight candidates have crossed the first threshold to having their names appear on the final ballot of the Conservative Party of Canada leadership race. Story here from the Canadian Press.
FORMER TOP COMMANDER VANCE ACKNOWLEDGES SEXUAL RELATIONSHIP WITH SUBORDINATE IN COURT DOCUMENT – Retired general Jonathan Vance has acknowledged he was in a sexual relationship with a subordinate while he was the chief of defence staff, after having denied the allegations in the past. In an agreed statement of facts recently filed in court, Mr. Vance also confirmed he had one child with the woman, Maj. Kellie Brennan. Story here from CBC.
AT LEAST 20 PER CENT OF CANADIAN MPS HOLD RENTAL, INVESTMENT REAL ESTATE AMID HOUSING CRUNCH – At least 65 Canadian members of Parliament hold rental or investment real estate assets, according to their filings with the federal conflict of interest commissioner. However, that number may actually be much higher because 91 MPs either have not yet completed their disclosure process or the conflict of interest commissioner’s office hasn’t yet published their filings. Story here from Global.
CONSERVATIVE LEADERSHIP RACE
The newsletter reached out to the Conservatives leadership campaigns to see what they were up to on Wednesday.
Jean Charest will be in Pickering and Whitby, Ont., for meet and greets.
Roman Baber will present his national autism plan on Wednesday evening at a campaign event in Vaughan, Ont. Speaking to the National Post, Mr. Baber said as prime minister, he would match provincial funding of autism treatment of up to $500-million per year. Story here.
In a press release Wednesday, Scott Aitchison announced he would end supply management to help Canadians struggling with rising grocery bills and high inflation.
Pierre Poilievre’s and Leslyn Lewis’s campaigns said the candidates do not have any public events today.
The other campaigns did not reply.
THIS AND THAT
TODAY IN THE COMMONS – The House is adjourned until Monday, April 25, 2022 at 11:00 a.m. ET.
THE BOLD, VARIED VISIONS FOR OTTAWA’S BLOCK 2 – The Globe’s architecture critic Alex Bozikovic weighs the design options for Block 2 of the Parliamentary precinct. Elite architects are competing to transform this strip south of Parliament Hill, and a jury is deciding the winner soon. Story here.
THE DECIBEL
On Wednesday’s edition of The Globe and Mail podcast, economics reporter Matt Lundy explains how inflation is resulting in a pay cut for most Canadians and what – if anything – you can do about it. With inflation eating into people’s bank accounts, some people are starting to wonder: Hey, is my paycheque shrinking? And according to a new report from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, it is. The Decibel is here.
PRIME MINISTER’S DAY
The Prime Minister began his day in Waterloo, Ont., where met with families to discuss the budget commitments for housing and took questions from reporters.
Mr. Trudeau will meet with members of the Muslim community to mark the observance of Ramadan Wednesday afternoon. He will be joined by Treasury Board president Mona Fortier and MPs from the Waterloo region.
LEADERS
NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh is in Montreal with Deputy Leader Alexandre Boulerice to discuss the party’s plan to address the housing crisis. Mr. Singh will host a townhall Wednesday evening, where he will be joined by House Leader Peter Julian.
Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet will hold a press conference Wednesday after a caucus meeting in Quebec City.
No other schedules released for party leaders.
PUBLIC OPINION
POILIEVRE FAVOURITE TO WIN CONSERVATIVE LEADERSHIP, BUT MAY STRUGGLE TO GROW PARTY: POLL – The race to become the next leader of the Conservative Party appears to be Mr. Poilievre’s to lose, according to a new poll that also suggests he may not be able to broaden the party’s appeal. The Ipsos poll conducted exclusively for Global News found 20 per cent of Canadians surveyed think Mr. Poilievre will win the race, rising to 37 per cent among Conservative voters. That pales to his closest competitor, Mr. Charest, who earned 12 per cent support among Canadians polled and just 14 per cent among Conservative voters. Story here from Global.
OPINION
Andrew Coyne (The Globe and Mail)on how the Charter was more evolution than revolution: “It is for the courts to hold governments to their promises. But the courts are products of the same society as those we elect – whose handiwork, after all, the Charter was. The Charter embodied a broadly shared, though not universal, view of the relationship between the state and the citizen. Subsequent court rulings have likewise reflected, as much as shaped, evolving social attitudes. Ultimately, we are all in this together.”
This semantic failure is no doubt contributing to the fact that the effort to get third shots into Canadians has all but stalled out.”
Chris Selley (National Post) on how Poilievre almost speaks the unspeakable: “The wealthy single-family homeowner is about as natural a Conservative voter as you’ll come across in urban Canada. You might think Poilievre would be averse to angering them. But then, urban-core ridings with lots of single-family homeowners haven’t been sending that many Conservatives MPs to Ottawa since 2011. The more Toronto and Vancouver grow despite those restrictive housing policies, the less clout those single-family homeowners have. And those on the outside looking in might quite like what they’re hearing from Poilievre.”
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NEW YORK (AP) — In a new video posted early Election Day, Beyoncé channels Pamela Anderson in the television program “Baywatch” – red one-piece swimsuit and all – and asks viewers to vote.
In the two-and-a-half-minute clip, set to most of “Bodyguard,” a four-minute cut from her 2024 country album “Cowboy Carter,” Beyoncé cosplays as Anderson’s character before concluding with a simple message, written in white text: “Happy Beylloween,” followed by “Vote.”
At a rally for Donald Trump in Pittsburgh on Monday night, the former president spoke dismissively about Beyoncé’s appearance at a Kamala Harris rally in Houston in October, drawing boos for the megastar from his supporters.
“Beyoncé would come in. Everyone’s expecting a couple of songs. There were no songs. There was no happiness,” Trump said.
She did not perform — unlike in 2016, when she performed at a presidential campaign rally for Hillary Clinton in Cleveland – but she endorsed Harris and gave a moving speech, initially joined onstage by her Destiny’s Child bandmate Kelly Rowland.
“I’m not here as a celebrity, I’m not here as a politician. I’m here as a mother,” Beyoncé said.
“A mother who cares deeply about the world my children and all of our children live in, a world where we have the freedom to control our bodies, a world where we’re not divided,” she said at the rally in Houston, her hometown.
“Imagine our daughters growing up seeing what’s possible with no ceilings, no limitations,” she continued. “We must vote, and we need you.”
Harris used the song in July during her first official public appearance as a presidential candidate at her campaign headquarters in Delaware. That same month, Beyoncé’s mother, Tina Knowles, publicly endorsed Harris for president.
Beyoncé gave permission to Harris to use the song, a campaign official who was granted anonymity to discuss private campaign operations confirmed to The Associated Press.
Outside of sports and a “Cold front coming down from Canada,” American news media only report on Canadian events that they believe are, or will be, influential to the US. Therefore, when Justin Trudeau’s announcement, having finally read the room, that Canada will be reducing the number of permanent residents admitted by more than 20 percent and temporary residents like skilled workers and college students will be cut by more than half made news south of the border, I knew the American media felt Trudeau’s about-face on immigration was newsworthy because many Americans would relate to Trudeau realizing Canada was accepting more immigrants than it could manage and are hoping their next POTUS will follow Trudeau’s playbook.
Canada, with lots of space and lacking convenient geographical ways for illegal immigrants to enter the country, though still many do, has a global reputation for being incredibly accepting of immigrants. On the surface, Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver appear to be multicultural havens. However, as the saying goes, “Too much of a good thing is never good,” resulting in a sharp rise in anti-immigrant sentiment, which you can almost taste in the air. A growing number of Canadians, regardless of their political affiliation, are blaming recent immigrants for causing the housing affordability crises, inflation, rise in crime and unemployment/stagnant wages.
Throughout history, populations have engulfed themselves in a tribal frenzy, a psychological state where people identify strongly with their own group, often leading to a ‘us versus them’ mentality. This has led to quick shifts from complacency to panic and finger-pointing at groups outside their tribe, a phenomenon that is not unique to any particular culture or time period.
My take on why the American news media found Trudeau’s blatantly obvious attempt to save his political career, balancing appeasement between the pitchfork crowd, who want a halt to immigration until Canada gets its house in order, and immigrant voters, who traditionally vote Liberal, newsworthy; the American news media, as do I, believe immigration fatigue is why Kamala Harris is going to lose on November 5th.
Because they frequently get the outcome wrong, I don’t take polls seriously. According to polls in 2014, Tim Hudak’s Progressive Conservatives and Kathleen Wynne’s Liberals were in a dead heat in Ontario, yet Wynne won with more than twice as many seats. In the 2018 Quebec election, most polls had the Coalition Avenir Québec with a 1-to-5-point lead over the governing Liberals. The result: The Coalition Avenir Québec enjoyed a landslide victory, winning 74 of 125 seats. Then there’s how the 2016 US election polls showing Donald Trump didn’t have a chance of winning against Hillary Clinton were ridiculously way off, highlighting the importance of the election day poll and, applicable in this election as it was in 2016, not to discount ‘shy Trump supporters;’ voters who support Trump but are hesitant to express their views publicly due to social or political pressure.
My distrust in polls aside, polls indicate Harris is leading by a few points. One would think that Trump’s many over-the-top shenanigans, which would be entertaining were he not the POTUS or again seeking the Oval Office, would have him far down in the polls. Trump is toe-to-toe with Harris in the polls because his approach to the economy—middle-class Americans are nostalgic for the relatively strong economic performance during Trump’s first three years in office—and immigration, which Americans are hyper-focused on right now, appeals to many Americans. In his quest to win votes, Trump is doing what anyone seeking political office needs to do: telling the people what they want to hear, strategically using populism—populism that serves your best interests is good populism—to evoke emotional responses. Harris isn’t doing herself any favours, nor moving voters, by going the “But, but… the orange man is bad!” route, while Trump cultivates support from “weird” marginal voting groups.
To Harris’s credit, things could have fallen apart when Biden abruptly stepped aside. Instead, Harris quickly clinched the nomination and had a strong first few weeks, erasing the deficit Biden had given her. The Democratic convention was a success, as was her acceptance speech. Her performance at the September 10th debate with Donald Trump was first-rate.
Harris’ Achilles heel is she’s now making promises she could have made and implemented while VP, making immigration and the economy Harris’ liabilities, especially since she’s been sitting next to Biden, watching the US turn into the circus it has become. These liabilities, basically her only liabilities, negate her stance on abortion, democracy, healthcare, a long-winning issue for Democrats, and Trump’s character. All Harris has offered voters is “feel-good vibes” over substance. In contrast, Trump offers the tangible political tornado (read: steamroll the problems Americans are facing) many Americans seek. With Trump, there’s no doubt that change, admittedly in a messy fashion, will happen. If enough Americans believe the changes he’ll implement will benefit them and their country…
The case against Harris on immigration, at a time when there’s a huge global backlash to immigration, even as the American news media are pointing out, in famously immigrant-friendly Canada, is relatively straightforward: During the first three years of the Biden-Harris administration, illegal Southern border crossings increased significantly.
The words illegal immigration, to put it mildly, irks most Americans. On the legal immigration front, according to Forbes, most billion-dollar startups were founded by immigrants. Google, Microsoft, and Oracle, to name three, have immigrants as CEOs. Immigrants, with tech skills and an entrepreneurial thirst, have kept America leading the world. I like to think that Americans and Canadians understand the best immigration policy is to strategically let enough of these immigrants in who’ll increase GDP and tax base and not rely on social programs. In other words, Americans and Canadians, and arguably citizens of European countries, expect their governments to be more strategic about immigration.
The days of the words on a bronze plaque mounted inside the Statue of Liberty pedestal’s lower level, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free…” are no longer tolerated. Americans only want immigrants who’ll benefit America.
Does Trump demagogue the immigration issue with xenophobic and racist tropes, many of which are outright lies, such as claiming Haitian immigrants in Ohio are abducting and eating pets? Absolutely. However, such unhinged talk signals to Americans who are worried about the steady influx of illegal immigrants into their country that Trump can handle immigration so that it’s beneficial to the country as opposed to being an issue of economic stress.
In many ways, if polls are to be believed, Harris is paying the price for Biden and her lax policies early in their term. Yes, stimulus spending quickly rebuilt the job market, but at the cost of higher inflation. Loosen border policies at a time when anti-immigrant sentiment was increasing was a gross miscalculation, much like Trudeau’s immigration quota increase, and Biden indulging himself in running for re-election should never have happened.
If Trump wins, Democrats will proclaim that everyone is sexist, racist and misogynous, not to mention a likely White Supremacist, and for good measure, they’ll beat the “voter suppression” button. If Harris wins, Trump supporters will repeat voter fraud—since July, Elon Musk has tweeted on Twitter at least 22 times about voters being “imported” from abroad—being widespread.
Regardless of who wins tomorrow, Americans need to cool down; and give the divisive rhetoric a long overdue break. The right to an opinion belongs to everyone. Someone whose opinion differs from yours is not by default sexist, racist, a fascist or anything else; they simply disagree with you. Americans adopting the respectful mindset to agree to disagree would be the best thing they could do for the United States of America.
PHOENIX (AP) — Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a prominent proponent of debunked public health claims whom Donald Trump has promised to put in charge of health initiatives, said Saturday that Trump would push to remove fluoride from drinking water on his first day in office if elected president.
Fluoride strengthens teeth and reduces cavities by replacing minerals lost during normal wear and tear, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The addition of low levels of fluoride to drinking water has long been considered one of the greatest public health achievements of the last century.
Kennedy made the declaration Saturday on the social media platform X alongside a variety of claims about the heath effects of fluoride.
“On January 20, the Trump White House will advise all U.S. water systems to remove fluoride from public water,” Kennedy wrote. Trump and his wife, Melania Trump, “want to Make America Healthy Again,” he added, repeating a phrase Trump often uses and links to Kennedy.
Trump told NBC News on Sunday that he had not spoken to Kennedy about fluoride yet, “but it sounds OK to me. You know it’s possible.”
The former president declined to say whether he would seek a Cabinet role for Kennedy, a job that would require Senate confirmation, but added, “He’s going to have a big role in the administration.”
Asked whether banning certain vaccines would be on the table, Trump said he would talk to Kennedy and others about that. Trump described Kennedy as “a very talented guy and has strong views.”
The sudden and unexpected weekend social media post evoked the chaotic policymaking that defined Trump’s White House tenure, when he would issue policy declarations on Twitter at virtually all hours. It also underscored the concerns many experts have about Kennedy, who has long promoted debunked theories about vaccine safety, having influence over U.S. public health.
In 1950, federal officials endorsed water fluoridation to prevent tooth decay, and continued to promote it even after fluoride toothpaste brands hit the market several years later. Though fluoride can come from a number of sources, drinking water is the main source for Americans, researchers say.
Officials lowered their recommendation for drinking water fluoride levels in 2015 to address a tooth condition called fluorosis, that can cause splotches on teeth and was becoming more common in U.S. kids.
In August, a federal agency determined “with moderate confidence” that there is a link between higher levels of fluoride exposure and lower IQ in kids. The National Toxicology Program based its conclusion on studies involving fluoride levels at about twice the recommended limit for drinking water.
A federal judge later cited that study in ordering the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to further regulate fluoride in drinking water. U.S. District Judge Edward Chen cautioned that it’s not certain that the amount of fluoride typically added to water is causing lower IQ in kids, but he concluded that mounting research points to an unreasonable risk that it could be. He ordered the EPA to take steps to lower that risk, but didn’t say what those measures should be.
In his X post Saturday, Kennedy tagged Michael Connett, the lead attorney representing the plaintiff in that lawsuit, the environmental advocacy group Food & Water Watch.
Kennedy’s anti-vaccine organization has a lawsuit pending against news organizations including The Associated Press, accusing them of violating antitrust laws by taking action to identify misinformation, including about COVID-19 and COVID-19 vaccines. Kennedy is on leave from the group but is listed as one of its attorneys in the lawsuit.
What role Kennedy might hold if Trump wins on Tuesday remains unclear. Kennedy recently told NewsNation that Trump asked him to “reorganize” agencies including the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institutes of Health, the Food and Drug Administration and some agencies under the Department of Agriculture.
But for now, the former independent presidential candidate has become one of Trump’s top surrogates. Trump frequently mentions having the support of Kennedy, a scion of a Democratic dynasty and the son of former Attorney General Robert Kennedy and nephew of President John F. Kennedy.
Kennedy traveled with Trump Friday and spoke at his rallies in Michigan and Wisconsin.
Trump said Saturday that he told Kennedy: “You can work on food, you can work on anything you want” except oil policy.
“He wants health, he wants women’s health, he wants men’s health, he wants kids, he wants everything,” Trump added.
