Aug 13 2020 — Robert Asselin — Globe and Mail — As Joe Biden is set to be formally nominated by his party at the Democratic National Convention on Aug. 20, Canadian policy makers would be wise to start thinking through the implications of a Biden presidency on Canada’s economic policy. What will happen in November is still anybody’s guess. This is an unprecedented moment in […]
Aug 13 2020 — Steven Chase — Globe and Mail — Members of Parliament were warned on Wednesday that sweeping national security legislation in Hong Kong jeopardizes 300,000 Canadians who live in the former British colony, and to prepare for the possibility that China might prevent some from leaving. A new cadre of “secret police” empowered by the June 30 law can arrest Canadians living in […]
Aug 12 2020 — Steven Chase — Globe and Mail — Foreign Affairs Minister François-Philippe Champagne said Ottawa will not tolerate the intimidation of human rights activists in this country by foreign governments after a democracy activist told a parliamentary committee she and her family have faced threats from Beijing over the past year. But Amnesty International said Wednesday that Canada’s response to rising complaints about […]
Aug 12 2020 — Laura Stone — Globe and Mail — The Ontario government’s deficit will balloon to $38.5-billion in 2021, almost double the size predicted in March, as Finance Minister Rod Phillips declared the province is in a recession as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Progressive Conservative government released its first quarter financial report on Wednesday, which revealed it will now spend $30-billion […]
Aug 11 2020 — Andrew Coyne — Globe and Mail — It began with a story in Saturday’s Toronto Star. The Prime Minister, it said, was thinking of ways to seize the “once in a century opportunity” of the COVID-19 pandemic to radically expand the scope and reach of government. “Now is the time,” the story said, summarizing the views of those close to him, to […]
Aug 11 2020 — Steven Chase — Globe and Mail — The Canadian government is being urged to do more than issue written condemnation of China’s crackdown on Hong Kong, but a governing Liberal MP says he’s concerned how further action might imperil efforts to free two Canadians locked up by Beijing. A parliamentary committee holding hearings Tuesday on the deterioration of civil rights in Hong […]
Aug 11 2020 — Robert Fife — Globe and Mail — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is not committed to keeping Bill Morneau on as the key architect of the federal government’s economic revival plan after the two men clashed over the Finance Department’s policy responses to the COVID-19 crisis, sources say. Insiders say Mr. Trudeau is uncertain whether Mr. Morneau is the right fit to navigate […]
Aug 10 2020 — Steven Chase — Globe and Mail — The Canadian government is strongly condemning the arrest of Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai whose Apple Daily newspaper has been sharply critical of the Chinese Communist Party in Beijing. It also denounced the fact that Hong Kong police entered and searched the offices of the tabloid-style Apple Daily, which is among the most popular […]
Aug 9 2020 — Globe and Mail — The Alberta government will adopt the federal COVID-19 exposure app, after earlier insisting Ottawa should help the province fix its own smartphone contact tracing system that had been beset by technical limitations and user complaints. Alberta was the first jurisdiction in Canada to release a smartphone app designed to track potential exposure to the coronavirus. […]
Aug 8 2020 — Marieke Walsh — Globe and Mail — The spouse of the Prime Minister’s chief of staff took part in a meeting with the Crown corporation responsible for the government’s commercial rent-relief program after the company where he works was awarded the contract to administer the program, and before the contract was extended.
Aug 8 2020 — Robert Fife and Steven Chase — Globe and Mail — A high-ranking former Saudi intelligence czar is under a heightened security watch in Canada because of an active threat by agents of Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, according to a source with knowledge of the situation. The source told The Globe and Mail that Canadian security agencies were recently alerted to a new […]
Aug 7 2020 — Andrew Coyne — Globe and Mail — Until about the middle of June, the pandemic had been proceeding along roughly similar lines in the United States and Canada. To be sure, the U.S. had peaked higher and fallen slower: from about 100 new daily cases per million population at its spring high to 60 by the second week in June, versus 50 […]
Aug 7 2020 — Tu Thanh Ha — Globe and Mail — A 72-year-old Canadian has died in hospital after he was held for nearly three months in a U.S. immigration detention centre that had a major COVID-19 outbreak. James Hill had been in custody at the privately run detention centre in Virginia operated on behalf of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Farmville Detention Center has […]
Aug 6 2020 — Robert Fife and Steven Chase — Globe and Mail — Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince dispatched a hit squad to Toronto in an attempt to murder a former high-ranking intelligence officer, an effort made shortly after the assassination of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Turkey, according to allegations contained in court documents filed in Washington. The target was Saad Aljabri, 61, who held a senior intelligence […]
Aug 6 2020 — Robert Fife and Steven Chase — Globe and Mail — The Canadian Security Intelligence Service has warned the country’s universities and research institutions that Beijing is using academic recruitment programs such as its Thousand Talents Plan to attract scientists to China in hopes of obtaining cutting-edge science and technology for economic and military advantage. The federal spy agency says the Thousand Talents Plan (TTP), which […]