Good evening,
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW
Kavanaugh speaks to Senate panel after emotional testimony from accuser Ford
Christine Blasey Ford testified this morning in front of a Senate panel vetting Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, alleging that he sexual assaulted her at a 1982 party. Fighting back tears, she delivered an opening statement about the alleged assault, the years of trauma it caused and her agonizing decision about whether to speak out.
Kavanaugh began testifying this afternoon. He called Ford’s allegation a “calculated and orchestrated political hit” fuelled by anger against U.S. President Donald Trump, and said this series of events “has been a circus.”
Trump has said he could withdraw support for Mr. Kavanaugh depending on the testimony during the hearing.
New budget watchdog raises alarm over provincial debt
New Parliamentary Budget Officer Yves Giroux is sounding the alarm over the provinces’ debt problem, and says federal transfers won’t keep up with the rising health-care costs among aging Canadians. According to his first fiscal sustainability report, Alberta and Ontario account for almost all of the PBO’s finding that provincial and territorial finances are not sustainable, Bill Curry writes. But smaller provinces such as New Brunswick, Manitoba and Newfoundland and Labrador are on track for large spikes in their provincial debt loads that could force governments to make tough decisions.
Privacy Commissioner seeks court ruling on ‘right to be forgotten’
Canada’s privacy watchdog is asking the federal court to rule on Canadians’ rights to some control over the information that appears about them in online search results, Susan Krashinsky Robertson writes. A report from the Privacy Commissioner touched on a number of issues, including a plan to ask for a court determination on whether Google’s search engine is subject to Canada’s digital privacy law. The question relates to what is known as “de-indexing,” or the right of individuals to ask search engines not to show websites in search results that include incorrect information about those individuals. (for subscribers)
MPs vote to strip Aung San Suu Kyi of honorary Canadian citizenship over Rohingya crisis
MPs have unanimously endorsed a Bloc Québécois motion to revoke the honorary Canadian citizenship of Myanmar’s de facto leader, Aung San Suu Kyi. Today’s vote came one day after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said it was up to Parliament to decide. She has been widely criticized for not speaking out against the atrocities being committed against her country’s Rohingya people.
This is the daily Evening Update newsletter. If you’re reading this online, or received it from someone else, you can sign up for Evening Update and all Globe newsletters here. Have feedback? Let us know what you think.
MARKET WATCH
Canada’s main stock index rose today as energy shares were boosted by a rise in oil prices ahead of U.S. sanctions against major crude exporter Iran. The Toronto Stock Exchange’s S&P/TSX composite index was up 35.34 points at 16,204.62. The largest percentage gainer was Cameco, which jumped 15.7 per cent after a favorable ruling from the Tax Court of Canada.
The U.S. dollar rose held near a one-week high against a basket of major currencies following a hike in U.S. interest rates, while a robust economy and surging shares of Apple and Amazon boosted Wall Street. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 54.65 points to 26,439.93, the S&P 500 gained 8.03 points to close at 2,914 and the Nasdaq Composite added 51.60 points to close at 8,041.97.
Got a news tip that you’d like us to look into? E-mail us at tips@globeandmail.com. Need to share documents securely? Reach out via SecureDrop.
WHAT’S TRENDING ON SOCIAL
Legendary play-by-play broadcaster Bob Cole is set to return to the broadcast booth for one last season of Hockey Night in Canada. He will call 10 games in his 50th and final season, Sportsnet says. The network did not reveal which games the 85-year-old will be calling, but they will all be in the first half of the season.
TALKING POINTS
Faith Goldy doesn’t want to be mayor of Toronto
“I don’t think that Ms. Goldy is especially different from other unsavoury characters who’ve tried to squeeze into the spotlight by running for office. That’s an old trick – another fringe mayoral candidate in this very election is due to go to court on charges of willfully promoting hate against women and Jewish people. What’s different, of course, is the era, one in which self-promotion is cheap and easy, and traditional journalists don’t quite know how to employ balance, fairness and free speech against those who purposefully manipulate them. I do include myself among them.” - Denise Balkissoon
Murphy Brown spotlights an uncomfortable truth: Women experience the world differently, and men don’t get it
“Men don’t get it. Women experience the reality of the workplace, social life and social media differently from men. For most women, the #MeToo movement is not about a bunch of powerful men being named and shamed. It’s about a systemic issue – an acknowledgment that sexism, discrimination, harassment and abuse are everyday, omnipresent factors in their lives. Advance episodes of the new Murphy Brown have become available and the reviews are vastly illuminating. Most women writing about the show are cheering it on. Most men see the revived series as creaky, dull and too pointed in its anti-Trump administration direction.”- John Doyle
Trump’s barbs send Canada-U.S. relations to new lows
“Never before has a U.S. president threatened to inflict direct harm on Canada. While there have been some rough spots over the course of our shared history, Mr. Trump’s apparent disdain for Canada and threats of economic warfare, seeming to relish in the prospect like some kind of neighbourhood bully, has taken the bilateral relationship into a state of political disrepair.” - Lawrence Herman, former Canadian diplomat (for subscribers)
It’s uncertainty over trade policies, not just NAFTA, that’s undermining business investment in Canada
“The climate of trade uncertainty is something that businesses despise. Because access to American consumers is at risk, investment dollars have favoured the United States rather than Canada. Add to that the uncertainty created around the future of the energy sector because of our inability to reach global markets, and business investment overall is likely to stay below what is needed to pick up the pace of growth.” - Pedro Antunes, deputy chief economist of the Conference Board of Canada
LIVING BETTER
Is it worth investing in an air fryer? Makers say it offers lower calorie meals with that crisp, deep-fried taste, a quick cooking time, no mess and easy cleanup. But Lucy Waverman sees a few problems. Storage: It’s big and heavy, so you may have to clear other appliances from your countertop. Servings: The interior space is too small to do a lot of cooking at once. Fan noise: It can drown out conversation.
LISTEN AND LEARN
She’s been building companies since she was 12 years old in Saudi Arabia. Now, Huda Idrees is tackling Canada’s arcane health-care system with her latest company, Dot Health. In the latest episode of The Globe’s I’ll Go First podcast, the founder and CEO talks about immigrating to Canada, jumping out of planes and her journey as a woman in the tech industry.
LONG READS FOR A LONG COMMUTE
‘We were dying’: Inside the scramble to overhaul Investors Group
It seemed a little ruthless. Jeff Carney had barely settled in at Investors Group before bringing down the axe, Tim Kiladze writes. In a single shot in the fall of 2016, mere months after taking over as CEO of the mutual fund giant, he gave the order to fire 400 advisers from the firm’s network. He assured investors and analysts it was a “one-time event.” But Carney kept trimming, and in fall 2017, Investors Group shed close to another 400 people. All told, its network had shrunk to just over 4,000, down from almost 5,400.
That was just the beginning. In his short tenure, the new CEO has enforced a minimum certification standard for advisers, revamped the firm’s leadership and slashed its notoriously high fees. This fall, Investors Group is rolling out the next phase of its transformation: moving away from middle-class Canadians in favour of high-net-worth clients.
It’s a risky bet. As slick as the new strategy may sound, Investors Group is shifting away from the very customers it was built for, to go head to head with powerful banks and other asset managers that have played the high-net-worth game for years. The change also spells trouble for average Canadians. Because if Investors Group doesn’t want them, who will? (for subscribers)
Petite Dutch girl Freddie Oversteegen was an assassin and saboteur
Freddie Oversteegen was only 14, petite with long braids, when she became an assassin and saboteur. It was 1940, Germany had invaded the Netherlands, and she and her sister, Truus, who was two years older, had been recruited by the local Dutch resistance commander, in the city of Haarlem.
The sisters, along with a lapsed law student, Hannie Schaft, became a singular female underground squad, part of a cell of seven, that killed collaborators and occupying troops. The three staged drive-by shootings from their bicycles, seductively lured German soldiers from bars to nearby woods, where they would execute them, and sheltered fleeing Jews, political dissidents, gay people and others who were being hunted by the invaders.
Freddie Dekker-Oversteegen, the last surviving member of the trio, died on Sept. 5, the day before her 93rd birthday, at a nursing home in Driehuis in the Netherlands
Evening Update is written by S.R. Slobodian. If you’d like to receive this newsletter by e-mail every weekday evening, go here to sign up. If you have any feedback, send us a note.