Alberta UCP leader Jason Kenney speaks to reporters in Calgary on Oct. 29, 2017.Jeff McIntosh/The Canadian Press
Good morning,
These are the top stories:
Alberta's NDP government tabled a bill to protect the privacy of students in gay-straight alliances
The bill is intended to prevent students in elementary and high schools from being outed to their parents by their schools. It appears to be a direct response to United Conservative Party Leader Jason Kenney, who has said there may be cases where parents should be told if their child joins a gay-straight alliance. GSAs or queer-straight alliances function as peer-support groups for LGBTQ students. The bill will also force principals to approve the creation of GSAs; the NDP say a "handful" of private schools that receive some public funding have been reluctant to give the go-ahead.
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The Liberals are playing 'ethics bingo,' opposition parties argue
Justin Trudeau and Ethics Commissioner Mary Dawson are at odds over how many Liberal cabinet ministers are using a conflict-of-interest loophole. Trudeau has said Finance Minister Bill Morneau is the only holding assets indirectly through numbered corporations (a practice that Morneau is in the process of ending). Dawson, meanwhile, has only said the figure is "fewer than five."
Both the Conservatives and the NDP lashed out at Liberals over the lack of clarity on the issue. "Am I getting warmer or colder? Is it more than one but less than five?" Tory Leader Andrew Scheer said. NDP MP Nathan Cullen also chimed in: "Liberals seem to have invented a whole new game. It is called 'ethics bingo,'" NDP MP Nathan Cullen said. "How many Liberals have secret numbered companies that they have not told Canadians about?"
Trump's (temporary) Twitter trouble
Social media was abuzz on Thursday night after the POTUS's Twitter account went down for about 11 minutes. The culprit? A rogue employee heading for the exit: "We have learned that this was done by a Twitter customer-support employee who did this on the employee's last day. We are conducting a full internal review," Twitter said in a tweet. President Trump is known for his extensive use of Twitter, using the service for everything from attacking opponents to announcing policy. He has 41.7 million followers on Twitter.
Ontario's policing overhaul would make it possible to suspend officers without pay
The changes to provincial policing laws are in part aimed at addressing concerns from minority groups. "We have all heard the growing concerns that some communities, in particular black and Indigenous communities, feel unjustly harmed at the hands of police," Attorney-General Yasir Naqvi said. The measure to allow for suspensions without pay would be used to punish officers who have committed a serious crime outside of duty. (Ontario is the only remaining province where a suspended officer must be paid.) The overhaul would also expand oversight powers in order to investigate the conduct of current and former officers and police forces.
The political crisis in Catalonia is getting worse
A Spanish judge jailed nine former members of Catalonia's separatist government. He's also exploring the possibility filing an international arrest warrant for Catalonia leader Carles Puigdemont, who has fled to Belgium along with some ex-ministers. Spain's government removed Catalonia's cabinet last week in a bid to assert control over the region after it declared independence following a disputed referendum. The former ministers are being investigated for rebellion, sedition and embezzlement in connection with the separatist effort. Judges in Spain are able to detain suspects without charge, sometimes for months, while a case is being investigated.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
The Supreme Court ruled a resort could be built on a site sacred to an Indigenous community
The Ktunaxa Nation had argued that the private ski resort would affect the grizzly-bear habitat, an animal whose spirit is essential to their faith. But seven of nine judges said the claim didn't apply to freedom of religion, and viewed the request no differently than if it were made by non-Indigenous. "In short, the Charter protects the freedom to worship, but does not protect the spiritual focal point of worship," Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin and Justice Malcolm Rowe wrote for the seven judges.
A lawyer for the Ktunaxa said Indigenous spirituality has a right to legal protection and questioned why the ruling didn't make mention of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. "It is a tragedy that this judgment will be the last judgment on aboriginal issues of this Chief Justice, who's had a long legacy," Peter Grant said.
MORNING MARKETS
Global shares took a breather and the U.S. dollar crept up on Friday, as investors turned their attention to monthly U.S. jobs data after welcoming the appointment of Jerome Powell to the helm of the Federal Reserve. Tokyo's Nikkei was closed, but Hong Kong's Hang Seng gained 0.3 per cent while the Shanghai composite lost 0.3 per cent. In Europe, London's FTSE 100 and Germany's DAX were up by between 0.3 and 0.4 per cent by about 6:10 a.m., with the Paris CAC 40 little changed. New York futures were up, and the Canadian dollar was still stuck below 78 cents (U.S.). Oil prices rose, nearing their highest levels in more than two years, with buyers attracted by expectations of an extension to a global pact to cut output that has reduced oversupply.
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WHAT EVERYONE'S TALKING ABOUT
Will Vancouver ever stop eating its young?
"[Jessica Barrett] essay for the Tyee, an online news magazine, was profound, heartbreaking and sadly all too true. Titled: 'I left Vancouver because Vancouver left me,' her piece was also beautifully composed, likely another reason it has become something of an internet sensation. Tales about how Vancouver has become a city that eats its young have now become routine, but this one was different. … Barrett is now moving to Calgary, a place that is welcoming many of Vancouver's millennials. So are a lot of cities across the country. What bothers Barrett is the indifference with which this phenomenon is being greeted by our political leadership. 'I mean, you're really okay with this? Honestly? This is the kind of society we want to build here?' Barrett told me. It certainly seems to be, with no end in sight to the [housing] market insanity we are witnessing in Vancouver and Toronto." – Gary Mason
More than half of Canada's Jews are missing
"In the 2016 census, all of the suggested responses are national or Indigenous groups. But Jews are neither. They are a cultural group, members of which come from many nations. Accordingly, it seems that the responses suggested by Statistics Canada in 2016 led many Canadian Jews to indicate their ethnic or cultural origin as Canadian or Polish or Tunisian or French, not Jewish. And so more than half the Jewish population was not counted. Of course, no survey is perfect. But it is unacceptable when more than half of a sizable cultural group suddenly disappears because of poorly thought-through question-wording." – Robert Brym, professor of sociology at the University of Toronto
Time's up: The economic case against daylight-saving time
"Research I undertook … shows that stock markets may fall back whenever people collectively reset the clocks to gain or lose an hour. We looked at stock-returns data for Canada, the United States, Britain and Germany, and found returns tended to be lower on average on the Monday after the time change, both in the spring and the fall, perhaps due to heightened anxiety arising from market participants' disrupted sleep schedules. … The informal advantages of abolishing time changes are clear to anyone who has ever hit snooze on their alarm clock or gulped back an extra cup of coffee to deal with the consequences of a time change. Deeper analysis of the society-wide economic benefits of abolishing time changes supports what our bodies tell us. We should listen." – Lisa Kramer, professor of finance at the University of Toronto
HEALTH PRIMER
'Brain fog' from the common cold isn't all in your head
Sinus colds may affect your thinking just as badly as alcohol or getting a bad night's sleep. Reaction time and manual dexterity, which are key when you're driving, could also be impacted. The cognitive impairments can start as early as 24 to 48 hours before you start to notice the cold, otherwise known as the incubation period. And it can persist for a few days after you stop coughing and sneezing.
MOMENT IN TIME
Raptors play their first game
Nov. 3, 1995: More than 30,000 people flocked to the SkyDome, but it was not to see the Blue Jays. The baseball diamond was transformed into a basketball court, ushering in the city's first professional basketball team in almost 50 years. The NBA expanded into Canada with two franchises: The Vancouver Grizzlies and the Toronto Raptors. The Toronto team got its name as a result of a nationwide contest. In the mid-nineties, dino-mania was all the rage after the success of the film Jurassic Park and so, out of thousands of entries, Raptors became the winner. The team started off strong: On its opening night, Toronto beat the New Jersey Nets 94-79, but there wasn't much success after that in their first year. The Raptors ended up finishing last in the Central Division. Twenty-two years later, the team has yet to win a championship, but it has garnered huge success as a franchise. – Sherrill Sutherland
Morning Update is written by Arik Ligeti.
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