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Hello,
The race to be the Democratic nominee for president is truly down to two contenders this morning, as Senator Elizabeth Warren has decided to end her campaign.
Ms. Warren, one of the country’s foremost authorities on bankruptcy law before getting into politics, was an early favourite to win the nomination. However, she began to lose ground late last year as the party’s progressive wing started to coalesce around Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders. She did not win any primaries or caucuses, and finished a disappointing third in her home state of Massachusetts.
Ms. Warren’s exit means the party will not nominate a female presidential candidate in 2020.
Mr. Sanders and former vice-president Joe Biden are the two men left standing. The next primaries will be held next Tuesday.
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TODAY’S HEADLINES
The International Criminal Court has authorized an investigation into the activities of the United States in Afghanistan, including the torture of detainees. The court will also look into the actions of the Taliban and Afghan security forces.
At a security conference in Ottawa, Chinese ambassador Cong Peiwu denied his government had set up concentration camps for members of the Uyghur minority. The camps have been well documented by journalists.
At the same conference, General Jonathan Vance – Canada’s top soldier – said China and Russia were Canada’s top security threats in the cyber and physical spheres, respectively.
Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland says the federal government is considering a range of options to address the escalating fears of coronavirus’s spread. Ms. Freeland is leading the newly created group of cabinet ministers looking at the issue.
The Bank of Canada’s interest-rate cut yesterday, in response to worries about the coronavirus’s impact on the economy, is being matched by other banks. But economists are wondering about what kind of knock-on effects the cut will have, such as whether it could further heat up Canada’s hot real-estate market.
The federal Innovation, Science and Industry department spent only $2.3-billion of its $3.3-billion budget in 2018-19. The department’s annual report says the shortfall is mostly because of unspent money in programs meant to support innovative tech companies.
Ontario’s high-school teachers’ union says it sees no path forward in negotiations with the province after the government went public with its position on class sizes and online learning. Work action by the province’s unions, such as strikes, is expected to continue.
As members of the Wet’suwet’en Nation discuss a tentative deal with the B.C. and federal governments, a key factor will be the overlapping land claims in the region.
And Matthew Mendelsohn, a senior public servant tasked with keeping the government on track about its promises, is returning to academia. Mr. Mendelsohn was a key player in the Trudeau government’s early push on “deliverology,” an approach popularized in Britain to keep a government accountable for its promises. “It’s not the end of deliverology,” a Trudeau spokesperson told the Canadian Press.
Natalie Pon (The Globe and Mail) on the Conservative leadership race: “To enact real change, we need a leader with a clear vision for this country and for the future of conservatism. I consider myself a small-c conservative in ideology, but I often struggle to explain to my peers why I am a big-C Conservative when the Tories project themselves as little more than the party of boutique tax credits and blanket opposition to the carbon tax.”
Robyn Urback (The Globe and Mail) on how Joe Biden could fair in the general election: “The presumption is that Mr. Biden can turn purple states blue in a way Mr. Sanders cannot. The problem with that line of thinking, however, is that it failed spectacularly in the not-so-distant past, when the party backed Hillary Clinton over the same flailing Vermont senator. Her team overestimated Ms. Clinton’s base of support in states such as Michigan and Wisconsin and underappreciated the appeal of a disruptor such as Mr. Trump to an American electorate hungry for an outsider. The results of that election were not only a shock to pollsters but also a blow to the political dictum that the most broadly palatable candidate will necessarily be the successful one.”
Sarah Kendzior (The Globe and Mail) on age and the race for the U.S. presidency: “That said, the cold reality is that there is a decent chance neither candidate, should he win, will be able to serve two terms. There is a fundamental instability in a gerontocracy, which is ironic since voters embrace elderly white men – in particular, Joe Biden – because they see them as safe. They are seen as safe because they are familiar. White men benefit from the self-fulfilling prophecy of ‘electability’ that knocked out all the black, Latino, Asian and female Democratic candidates.”
Ujjal Dosanjh (The Globe and Mail) on why the U.S. needs to fix its own drug-price problem: “If we allow the United States to import drugs from Canada in numbers that could actually impact prices there, our own drug inventories will be depleted, and the pharmaceutical companies will have no financial incentives to restock those shelves.”
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