Chinese leader Xi Jinping angrily confronted Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on the sidelines of the G20 meeting Wednesday, complaining Mr. Trudeau’s office had published details of an earlier conversation between them.
You can see the encounter in footage, posted by CPAC, here.
Mr. Trudeau was able to grab a brief, unofficial aside with Mr. Xi on Tuesday afternoon, during which he raised concerns about alleged Chinese interference in Canadian elections and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, according to accounts Canadian officials provided to multiple media outlets. Beijing made no reference to their meeting, nor was it covered in state media.
But Globe and Mail Asia Correspondent James Griffiths reports here that in an exchange captured by a Canadian cameraman around 3 p.m. local time Wednesday, as the G20 summit was wrapping up, an unhappy-looking Mr. Xi confronted Mr. Trudeau, gesturing with his hand at the room.
“Everything we said has been leaked to the papers – that’s not appropriate,” Mr. Xi said, adding, “that’s not the way the conversation was conducted.
“If you are sincere, we should communicate with each other in a respectful manner, otherwise it will be hard to say what the result will be like,” he said as Mr. Trudeau nods, waiting for a translation.
Mr. Trudeau responds that he hopes the two sides can continue to “work constructively together,” adding, “In Canada, we believe in a free and open and frank dialogue,” to which Mr. Xi replies, “Let’s create the conditions first,” before shaking the Canadian leader’s hand and walking off.
In Ottawa, Michael Chong, the Official Opposition foreign affairs critic, said Mr. Trudeau went to the summit unprepared to represent Canada’s interests and values.
“We’ve yet to have the Indo-Pacific strategy from the government and that should have been completed long ago so that the Prime Minister could have gone to this summit prepared to defend Canada’s interests and values,” the Conservative MP told journalists after the weekly party caucus meeting on Parliament Hill.
Mr. Chong called on Mr. Trudeau to identify the 11 federal-election candidates said to have received illicit funds from China.
He was referring to a Nov. 7 Global News report here that said Canadian intelligence officials have warned Mr. Trudeau China has allegedly funded a clandestine network of at least 11 federal candidates running in the 2019 election.
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TODAY’S HEADLINES
ONTARIO EDUCATION UNION ANNOUNCES STRIKE NOTICE – The union representing Ontario’s education support workers has issued another five-days strike notice – just two days after the government repealed a controversial bill that imposed a contract and used the Charter’s notwithstanding clause to ban their right to strike. Story here.
PM EXTENDS TRAINING MISSION OF UKRAINIAN SOLDIERS – Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is extending Canada’s training mission of Ukrainian soldiers after reports that a missile killed two people in Poland this week, though world leaders are urging calm as early findings suggest it was not an intentional attack. Story here.
EX-CBSA HEAD SURPRISED ABOUT LIMITS ON OFFICER POWERS – The former head of the Canada Border Services Agency was surprised to learn last winter that officers did not have the authority to stop would-be protesters from entering the country as demonstrations against COVID-19 restrictions were gaining momentum across Canada, he testified Wednesday. Story here.
PBO RAISES CONCERNS ABOUT WORKERS BENEFIT – Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland’s $4-billion increase to the Canada Workers Benefit will primarily go to Canadians who are no longer eligible for the program, according to a new report by Parliamentary Budget Officer Yves Giroux that raises strong concerns with the government’s latest financial plan. Story here.
HORGAN OFFERS TO BE HEALTH CARE EMISSARY – John Horgan is in his last days as British Columbia premier, but says he would be willing to play a role after he leaves his post facilitating talks on a federal-provincial health care deal. Story here. Meanwhile, The Vancouver Sun reports here on how the leadership style of Mr. Horgan’s successor, David Eby, will differ from the departing premier.
NEW SANCTIONS ON IRAN – Canada has imposed fresh sanctions on Iran, targeting individuals involved in alleged human-rights abuses and companies it accused of supplying Russia with drones for use in Ukraine, the Foreign Affairs Department said in a statement on Wednesday. Story here.
QUESTIONS ABOUT SMITH’S CHEROKEE HERITAGE – APTN News, working with a genealogist, has looked into claims of Alberta Premier Danielle Smith that her great, great grandmother was a member of the Cherokee Nation, making her a person of mixed-race ancestry. In a report here, they say there is no evidence to demonstrate that the Premier’s family is Cherokee.
INFLATION RATE STEADY IN OCTOBER – Canada’s inflation rate held steady in October at elevated levels, and gasoline costs rose sharply, snapping a three-month streak of slowing growth for consumer prices. Story here.
NO QUBEC PLANS TO SOFTEN BILL 96 – Quebec’s new minister responsible for the French language says he has no plans to soften the Coalition Avenir Québec government’s language law, Bill 96, or ease up on applying its rules through regulations. Story here from the Montreal Gazette.
QUESTIONS RAISED ABOUT CANCER CARE IN B.C. – Growing wait times for cancer care in British Columbia are worsening outcomes for patients and leaving some to die before their first medical consultations, a situation doctors say is causing both themselves and those they treat to lose faith in the cancer care system. Story here.
MANITOBA TORIES PITCH POLICY TO BOLSTER RE-ELECTION BID – Manitoba’s Progressive Conservative government promised to improve health care, tackle crime and set up new oversight for teachers in a pre-election Throne Speech on Tuesday. Story here. CBC reports here on how the policy commitments are connected to the party’s bid to woo moderate Winnipeg voters who are key to the PCs winning another term.
THIS AND THAT
TODAY IN THE COMMONS – Projected Order of Business at the House of Commons, Nov. 16, accessible here.
DAYS SINCE CONSERVATIVE LEADER PIERRE POILIEVRE TOOK MEDIA QUESTIONS IN OTTAWA: 64
GOODBYE TO THE BC LIBERALS – The BC Liberals, who governed the province from 2001 to 2017, are getting a name change. Party members have voted to change the party’s name to BC United. More than 8,000 members cast ballots in the online vote, which began last Sunday and concluded on Tuesday. The BC Liberals have no official ties with the federal party. Members have included both federal Conservatives and federal Liberals. In a statement, the party said BC United has been registered with Elections BC, and the party will retain registration of the BC Liberal name, and all associated domains, to avoid any other party obtaining its use. There’s a story here on the change.
BENNETT IN IQALUIT – Mental Health and Addictions Minister Carolyn Bennett, in Iqaluit, Nunavut, makes an infrastructure announcement.
GOULD IN OTTAWA – Families Minister Karina Gould, in Ottawa, announced the launch of an online questionnaire to seek feedback on a national school food policy.
GUILBEAULT IN EGYPT – Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault, in Sharm El-Sheik, Egypt, continues to attend the United Nations Climate Change Conference, which is running to Friday.
SAJJAN IN KELOWNA – Harjit Sajjan, Minister for the Pacific Economic Development Agency of Canada, in Kelowna, B.C., announced the launch of new PacificCan offices in the Okanagan city and Cranbrook.
PRIME MINISTER’S DAY
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, in Bali, Indonesia for the G20 summit, participated in a NATO and G7 leaders’ meeting, met with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, attended the G20 Working Session III on digital transformation and the G20 closing session, and held a media availability.
LEADERS
NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh, in Ottawa, attended the NDP caucus meeting, met with Unifor president Lana Payne, and was scheduled to take questions from journalists and participate in Question Period.
No schedules available for other party leaders.
THE DECIBEL
On Wednesday’s edition of The Globe and Mail podcast, Africa Bureau Chief Geoffrey York explains why a peace agreement between Ethiopia and Tigray is so desperately needed. The brutal two-year-long civil war has led to the death of as many 600,000 people. Mr. York talks about how the arrival of aid is a step in the right direction and why a number of factors still exist that could threaten its implementation. The Decibel is here.
OPINION
The Globe and Mail Editorial Board on why the Ukraine war is unlikely to end anytime soon: “All wars end at the negotiating table, and this one will be no different. Diplomacy will have its day. Eventually. But for now, the two sides to the conflict – the government of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and the regime of Russian President Vladimir Putin – remain far apart, at least in their public statements.”
Shannon Proudfoot (The Globe and Mail)on how RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki is untroubled, even in hindsight: “And then into this maelstrom came RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki on Tuesday, wearing some sort of invisibility cloak of bland calm. She was polite, placid, neither especially blessed of memory nor apparently troubled by its gaps, enthusiastic about certain subtleties of her job, but resolutely incurious about others. Commissioner Lucki was, by her own description, sitting at the fulcrum of all the stress and uncertainty during the Ottawa protests, responsible for conveying vital information about the operations of various police agencies to federal officials and politicians in multiple high-level daily briefings. “We always got the same question each and every day: ‘When is this going to end? How is it going to end?’” she told the inquiry.”
Eric Reguly (The Globe and Mail)on coal: the black, unbeatable monster at the Egyptian climate summit and every other one:“If you had to distill the theme of almost every UN climate summit into one word, it would be “coal.” Coal is the perennial bogeyman of the Conference of the Parties, as it is at the event’s latest edition, COP27, now under way in Egypt. By now there is essentially zero debate among governments, climate scientists and even the coal industry itself that holding global average temperature increases to 1.5 Celsius above preindustrial levels is impossible as long as coal remains the single-biggest source of power generation. It is the most carbon-intensive fossil fuel. Last year, coal emissions accounted for at least a quarter of all planet-warming carbon dioxide output, according to the International Energy Agency.”
Jason Nickerson and Adam Houston (Contributed to The Globe and Mail) on how a viable vaccine for Ebola’s latest strain is shamefully collecting a decade of dust in Canada: “And yet a viable vaccine candidate – produced more than a decade ago in a Canadian government laboratory – has spent years sitting on a shelf, still undeveloped and unavailable for use because of a medical research and development system that is driven by commercial gain rather than by public-health needs. Researchers at Canada’s National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg discovered a suitable vaccine candidate in the 2000s, but instead of being subjected to clinical trials and developed for patient use, it has been collecting dust.”
Dean Beeby (Transparency Journalism) on the access-to-information hamster wheel: “Canada’s information commissioners have complained for years they can’t do their jobs properly without more money. Investigating citizen complaints about access-to-information requests requires trained staff. And a chronic shortage of cash means they can’t hire enough people for growing piles of work, now at record levels. So it’s surprising to learn the office has repeatedly failed to spend the money it already has. Over the last decade, the Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada has “lapsed” a total of $6.4-million in funds that Parliament authorized, according to the Public Accounts of Canada.”
The New Democrats have declared a federal byelection victory in their Winnipeg stronghold riding of Elmwood—Transcona.
The NDP candidate Leila Dance told supporters in a tearful speech that even though the final results weren’t in, she expected she would see them in Ottawa.
With several polls still to be counted, Conservative candidate Colin Reynolds conceded defeat and told his volunteers that they should be proud of what the Conservatives accomplished in the campaign.
Political watchers had a keen eye on the results to see if the Tories could sway traditionally NDP voters on issues related to labour and affordability.
Meanwhile in the byelection race in the Montreal riding of LaSalle—Émard—Verdun the NDP, Liberals and Bloc Québécois remained locked in an extremely tight three-way race as the results trickled in slowly.
The Liberal stronghold riding had a record 91 names on the ballot, and the results aren’t expected until the early hours of the morning.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.
VANCOUVER – An incumbent BC United legislative member has reversed her decision not to seek re-election and has announced she’ll run as an Independent in the riding of West Vancouver-Capilano in the upcoming British Columbia election.
Karin Kirkpatrick has been a vocal critic of BC United Leader Kevin Falcon’s decision last month to suspend the party’s campaign and throw support behind the B.C. Conservatives under John Rustad.
Kirkpatrick announced her retirement this year, but said Monday that her decision to re-enter the race comes as a direct result of Falcon’s actions, which would force middle-of-the-road voters to “swing to the left” to the NDP or to move further right to the Conservatives.
“I did hear from a lot of constituents and a lot of people who were emailing me from across B.C. … that they didn’t have anybody to vote for,” she said. “And so, I looked even at myself, and I looked at my riding, and I said, ‘Well, I no longer have anybody to vote for in my own riding.’ It was clearly an issue of this missing middle for the more moderate voter.”
She said voters who reached out “don’t want to vote for an NDP government but felt deeply uncomfortable” supporting the provincial Conservatives, citing Rustad’s tolerance of what she calls “extreme views and conspiracy theorists.”
Kirkpatrick joins four other incumbent Opposition MLAs running as Independents, including Peace River South’s Mike Bernier, Peace River North’s Dan Davies, Prince George-Cariboo’s Coralee Oakes and Tom Shypitka in Kootenay-Rockies.
“To be honest, we talk just about every day,” Kirkpatrick said about her fellow BC United incumbents now running as Independents. “We’re all feeling the same way. We all need to kind of hold each other up and make sure we’re doing the right thing.”
She added that a number of first-time candidates formerly on the BC United ticket are contacting the group of incumbents running for election, and the group is working together “as good moderates who respect each other and lift each other up.”
But Kirkpatrick said it’s also too early to talk about the future of BC United or the possibility of forming a new party.
“The first thing we need to do is to get these Independent MLAs elected into the legislature,” she said, noting a strong group could play a power-broker role if a minority government is elected. “Once we’re there then we’re all going to come together and we’re going to figure out, is there something left in BC United, BC Liberals that we can resurrect, or do we need to start a new party that’s in the centre?”
She said there’s a big gap left in the political spectrum in the province.
“So, we just have to do it in a mindful way, to make sure it’s representing the broadest base of people in B.C.”
Among the supporters at Kirkpatrick’s announcement Monday was former longtime MLA Ralph Sultan, who held West Vancouver-Capilano for almost two decades before retiring in 2020.
The Metro Vancouver riding has been a stronghold for the BC Liberals — the former BC United — since its formation in 1991, with more than half of the votes going to the centre-right party in every contest.
However, Kirkpatrick’s winning margin of 53.6 per cent to the NDP’s 30.1 per cent and the Green’s 15.4 per cent in the 2020 election shows a rising trend for left-leaning voters in the district.
Mike McDonald, chief strategy officer with Kirk and Co. Consulting, and a former campaign director for the BC Liberals and chief of staff under former Premier Christy Clark, said Independent candidates historically face an uphill battle and the biggest impact may be splitting votes in areas where the NDP could emerge victorious.
“It really comes down to, if the NDP are in a position to get 33 per cent of the vote, they might have a chance of winning,” McDonald said of the impact of an Independent vote-split with the Conservatives in certain ridings.
He said B.C. history shows it’s very hard for an Independent to win an election and has been done only a handful of times.
“So, the odds do not favour Independents winning the seats unless there is a very unique combination of circumstances, and more likely that they play a role as a spoiler, frankly.”
The B.C. Conservatives list West Vancouver School District Trustee Lynne Block as its candidate in West Vancouver-Capilano, while the BC NDP is represented by health care professional Sara Eftekhar.
Kirkpatrick said she is confident that her re-entry to the race will not result in a vote split that allows the NDP to win the seat because the party has always had a poor showing in the riding.
“So, even if there is competition between myself and the Conservative candidate, it is highly unlikely that anything would swing over to the NDP here. And I believe that I have the ability to actually attract those NDP voters to me, as well as the Conservatives and Liberals who are feeling just lost right now.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Secretary of State Antony Blinken heads to Egypt on Tuesday for his 10th trip to the Middle East since the war in Gaza began nearly a year ago, this one aimed partly at refining a proposal to present to Israel and Hamas for a cease-fire deal and release of hostages.
Unlike in recent mediating missions, America’s top diplomat this time is traveling without optimistic projections from the Biden administration of an expected breakthrough in the troubled negotiations.
Also unlike the earlier missions, Blinken has no public plans to go to Israel to meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on this trip. The Israeli leader’s fiery public statements — like his declaration that Israel would accept only “total victory” when Blinken was in the region in June — and some other unbudgeable demands have complicated earlier diplomacy.
Blinken is going to Egypt for talks Wednesday with Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty and others, in a trip billed as focused both on American-Egyptian relations and Gaza consultations with Egypt.
The tamped-down public approach follows months in which President Joe Biden and his officials publicly talked up an agreement to end the war in Gaza as being just within reach, hoping to build pressure on Netanyahu’s far-right government and Hamas to seal a deal.
The Biden administration now says it is working with fellow mediators Egypt and Qatar to come up with a revised final proposal to try to at least get Israel and Hamas into a six-week cease-fire that would free some of the hostages held by Hamas in exchange for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel. Americans believe public attention on details of the talks now would only hurt that effort.
American, Qatari and Egyptian officials still are consulting “about what that proposal will contain, and …. we’re trying to see that it’s a proposal that can get the parties to an ultimate agreement,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said Monday.
The State Department pointed to Egypt’s important role in Gaza peace efforts in announcing last week that the Biden administration planned to give the country its full $1.3 billion in military aid, overriding congressional requirements that the U.S. hold back some of the funding if Egypt fails to show adequate progress on human rights. Blinken told Congress that Egypt has made progress on human rights, including in freeing political prisoners.
Blinken’s trip comes amid the risk of a full-on new front in the Middle East, with Israel threatening increasing military action against the Hezbollah militant organization in Lebanon. Biden envoy Amos Hochstein was in Israel on Monday to try to calm tensions after a stop in Lebanon.
Hezbollah has one of the strongest militaries in the Middle East, and like Hamas and smaller groups in Syria and Iraq it is allied with Iran.
Hezbollah and Israel have exchanged strikes across Israel’s northern border with Lebanon since the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas started the war in Gaza. Hezbollah says it will ease those strikes — which have uprooted tens of thousands of civilians on both sides of the border — only when there’s a cease-fire in Gaza.
Hochstein told Netanyahu and other Israeli officials that intensifying the conflict with Hezbollah would not help get Israelis back in their homes, according to a U.S. official. The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the private talks, said Hochstein stressed to Netanyahu that he risked sparking a broad and protracted regional conflict if he moved forward with a full-scale war in Lebanon.
Hochstein also underscored to Israeli officials that the Biden administration remained committed to finding a diplomatic solution to the tensions on Israel’s northern border in conjunction with a Gaza deal or on its own, the official said.
Netanyahu told Hochstein that it would “not be possible to return our residents without a fundamental change in the security situation in the north.” The prime minister said Israel “appreciates and respects” U.S. support but “will do what is necessary to maintain its security and return the residents of the north to their homes safely.”
Israel Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, meanwhile, warned in his meeting with Hochstein that “the only way left to ensure the return of Israel’s northern communities to their homes will be via military action,” his office said.
In Gaza, the U.S. says Israel and Hamas have agreed to a deal in principle and that the biggest obstacles now include a disagreement on details of the hostage and prisoner swap and control over a buffer zone on the border between Gaza and Egypt. Netanyahu has demanded in recent weeks that the Israeli military be allowed to keep a presence in the Philadelphi corridor. Egypt and Hamas have rejected that demand.
The Hamas-led attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7 killed about 1,200 people. Militants also abducted 250 people and are still holding around 100 hostages. About a third of the remaining hostages are believed to be dead.
Israel’s offensive in Gaza has killed more than 41,000 Palestinians, said Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and militants in its count. The war has caused widespread destruction, displaced a majority of Gaza’s people and created a humanitarian crisis.
Netanyahu says he is working to bring home the hostages. His critics accuse him of slow-rolling a deal because it could bring down his hardline coalition government, which includes members opposed to a truce with the Palestinians.
Asked earlier this month if Netanyahu was doing enough for a cease-fire deal, Biden said, simply, “no.” But he added that he still believed a deal was close.
___
Associated Press writer Aamer Madhani contributed to this report.
