U.S. President Donald Trump meets with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, second left, at the White House in Washington, Wednesday, May 10, 2017. (Russian Foreign Ministry Photo via AP)The Associated Press
Trump revealed classified information to Russian foreign minister: officials
Donald Trump revealed highly classified information to Russia's foreign minister Sergey Lavrov during a meeting last week, U.S. officials say. The President reportedly shared intelligence, obtained via a U.S. ally, about a planned Islamic State operation. While Trump has the authority to disclose classified information, sharing secrets without consulting the ally that provided it could affect an intelligence-sharing agreement. In the meeting, Trump boasted: "I get great intel. I have people brief me on great intel every day," the Washington Post reported. H.R. McMaster, Trump's national security adviser, said "no intelligence sources or methods were discussed" during the meeting. U.S. officials had previously expressed concerns about the possibility of Trump sharing classified information.
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Inquiry into missing and murdered women a failure: Indigenous group
So far, the national inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women has been a failure, says a key organization that pushed for a public investigation of the issue. In a report being released today, the Native Women's Association of Canada criticizes the inquiry for delays and a lack of communication with families of victims. While family testimony was supposed to start this spring and run through the summer, the commission has pushed back the timeline for most of those conversations to the fall. Families appear to be taking a backseat to technical and legal considerations, said interim NWAC president Francyne Joe, "and they have been the ones fighting for this inquiry for decades." NWAC gave the inquiry a failing grade on 10 out of 15 measures.
Ambrose to resign from federal politics
Interim Conservative Party Leader Rona Ambrose is leaving federal politics. Ambrose is set to announce today that she's stepping down from her post as an Edmonton MP, and won't run in the 2019 election. The Conservatives will pick a new leader on May 27 in Toronto. Bloomberg reported Ambrose will be taking a position as a visiting fellow at the Canadian arm of the Wilson Center, where she'll focus on trade issues.
Singh enters NDP leadership race
On the other side of the political table, Ontario politician Jagmeet Singh announced his candidacy for leadership of the federal NDP. Singh, who's currently the deputy Ontario NDP leader, has made a name for himself provincially for fighting against police street checks, otherwise known as carding. Singh, who is Sikh, is vying to become the first non-Caucasian to lead a major federal party. His charisma should worry Trudeau more than any of the politicians vying to lead the NDP or Conservatives, Adam Radwanski writes.
BC Liberals planning to introduce reworked, Green Party-influenced budget
Regardless of whether they squeak out a tiny majority after final ballot counts, the BC Liberals are planning on adjusting their budget to appeal to the Green Party. Right now, the Greens hold the balance of power with three seats, with the Liberals at 43 and the NDP at 41. It's set to be the first time a B.C. budget has had hints of Green influence since the province introduced a carbon tax in 2008. Education spending and tax changes could be a few things on the table in the revised budget. If the Liberals can't get enough support for the budget, Clark's government would collapse and NDP Leader John Horgan would have a chance to put one together. The final election ballot numbers will be in on May 24.
NHL PLAYOFF ROUNDUP
The Ottawa Senators couldn't find the back of the net last night, losing to the Pittsburgh Penguins 1-0. Phil Kessel scored the winner for Pittsburgh in the third period. The Eastern Conference final is now all tied up at one game apiece, with the series heading over to Ottawa for Game 3 tomorrow.
MORNING MARKETS
The euro hit a six-month peak on Tuesday, reinforced by dollar losses prompted by allegations that U.S. President Donald Trump disclosed highly classified information to Russia's foreign minister about a planned Islamic State operation. Tokyo's Nikkei gained 0.3 per cent, and the Shanghai composite 0.7 per cent, though Hong Kong's Hang Seng lost 0.1 per cent. In Europe, London's FTSE 100 was up 0.6 per cent by about 5:45 a.m. (ET), while Germany's DAX and the Paris CAC 40 were down by between 0.1 and 0.4 per cent. New York futures were little changed, and the Canadian dollar was sitting just above the 73-cent (U.S.) mark. Oil moved back towards a three-week high breached on Monday, after top producers Saudi Arabia, Russia and Kuwait supported prolonging supply cuts until the end of March, 2018.
WHAT EVERYONE'S TALKING ABOUT
The RCMP is never going to fix itself. Only Ottawa can end the abuses
"A new report makes very plain what many have suspected for years: that the RCMP is incapable of ending decades of abusive mismanagement on its own, and that only the intervention of the federal government can turn things around now. … Ottawa needs to immediately separate the operational roles in the RCMP from the administrative ones, and give the administrative jobs to civilians trained in those areas. … But this long-overdue change won't happen until Ottawa finally accepts the hard truth that the RCMP cannot and will not heal itself. The well-documented evidence is clear and undeniable. From here on in, any continued abuses in the ranks of the Mounties will be on the heads of governments that fail to take the obvious steps required to end them." – Globe editorial
'WannaCry': Will cyberattacks continue to get worse?
"Our development and dependence on information technology has enabled unprecedented opportunities for situational awareness, global connectedness and remote decision-making, while these same advances, as we witness daily, can be exploited by nefarious parties. For the foreseeable future, cybersecurity is a problem here to stay because technological innovation outpaces risk management. … Will cyberattacks continue to get worse? For the short term, yes. The threat landscape is ever-changing and risk-mitigation best practices are not mature. An attack-defense equilibrium will likely be established, but how we address cybersecurity in Canada now will affect where this equilibrium will lie – promoting an open proactive environment or one that is guarded and reactionary." – Deepa Kundur, University of Toronto professor specializing in cybersecurity
HEALTH PRIMER
Canada must (and can) take control of drug prices
"Canada has the third-highest prescription-drug prices in the world, behind only the United States and Germany. That's because our regulatory regime for pricing drugs is outdated and ineffectual, a self-inflicted wound that costs taxpayers and employers billions of dollars annually. Canadian prescription drug prices are 35 per cent higher than the average among other developed countries. To put that in more digestible form, consider that $13.7-billion in patented medicines were sold in this country in 2014; if Canadians had paid the OECD average instead of our own inflated prices, the bill would have been $3.6-billion less." – André Picard
MOMENT IN TIME
First Hotel Vancouver opens
May 16, 1888: Following the arrival of the Canadian Pacific Railway in 1886, the first Hotel Vancouver opened its doors. It was also the first of what would become Canada's legendary chain of CP hotels. The four-storey, 60-room brick structure, one of the city's largest hotels at the time, was built on the corner of Georgia and Granville Streets and criticized by locals for being too far from the city centre. CPR president William Van Horne was reportedly no fan of its design, "with all those little windows." In 1916, a grander, Italianate revival-style building took its place, welcoming guests such as Winston Churchill and Babe Ruth. In 1939, CPR closed the hotel just as competing railway Canadian National opened the third (and present) Hotel Vancouver in time for the visit of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth. The hotel still stands as one of Vancouver's historic and decorative landmarks. – Kabrena Robinson
Morning Update is written by Arik Ligeti.
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