Good morning,
Ottawa is taking a stronger tone with Washington over the United States’ trade relationship with China.
David MacNaughton, Canada’s ambassador to the U.S., told The Globe’s Lawrence Martin in an interview that he has been blunt with top members of the Trump administration over the superpowers’ trade talks that have continued while two Canadian citizens remain detained in China.
Mr. MacNaughton’s message to the U.S.: “There’s no way you would do a trade deal with China if they had jailed two of your citizens. We’ve got two of our citizens in jail in China as a result of our actions on your behalf. You should be treating those people as if they are American citizens.”
Canada’s trade with China has rapidly deteriorated as a result of Ottawa’s compliance with a U.S. request to arrest Huawei Technologies executive Meng Wanzhou in December. On Tuesday, tensions were ratcheted up further with the news that Chinese authorities have sentenced a second Canadian to death for alleged drug trafficking.
The U.S. response so far has been muted, Mr. MacNaughton said. “They acknowledge the point. But our folks are still in jail,” he said.
Meanwhile, Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale says the government will decide before the federal election whether to join the United States and other Five Eyes intelligence allies in banning Huawei from Canada’s next-generation 5G wireless networks.
And Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Ottawa would soon announce help for canola farmers hurt by China’s ban on imports of the oilseed but brushed off calls to pull funding for a Chinese-led investment bank.
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TODAY’S HEADLINES
Justice Minister David Lametti says he will continue to compile information on the past political donations and partisan activities of candidates for judicial appointments, saying they offer relevant information when he selects new judges.
The Conservative Party’s first-quarter fundraising haul of $8-million is more than any party has ever raised in the first three months of a year.
Canada’s Chief Electoral Officer says Elections Canada will deploy teams to monitor social media for misinformation about the electoral process during this fall’s election.
The federal government is about to be hit with the first of what could be more than one thousand individual suits filed by veterans, active members of the military and former RCMP officers who were ordered to take mefloquine while deployed overseas.
Ottawa has backed off a controversial plan to give bureaucrats more time to respond to disabled veterans seeking benefits and support for their service-related injuries.
Polio-eradication advocates are calling on the Trudeau government to make a long-term funding commitment to support the global elimination of the infectious disease before Canadian foreign aid for the effort ends next year.
The Parliamentary Budget Officer expects federal deficits will be slightly larger than what Finance Minister Bill Morneau announced in his March budget.
The federal government will exempt non-mining oil sands projects from impact-assessment reviews as long as Alberta’s new, United Conservative Party government maintains the province’s legislated cap on greenhouse gas emissions from the oil sands, a source said.
Jason Kenney set Alberta on a collision course with British Columbia in his first day in the premier’s office as his cabinet proclaimed a law giving his new government power to cut off oil and gas supplies across the Rocky Mountains.
More than 3,000 private properties in British Columbia could be swept up in land claims by two First Nations, but those landowners are being kept in the dark about that possibility as Ottawa and the two bands litigate the claims.
Robert Mueller, the special counsel, wrote a letter in late March to Attorney General William Barr objecting to his early description of the Russia investigation’s conclusions that appeared to clear U.S. President Donald Trump on possible obstruction of justice, according to the Justice Department and three people with direct knowledge of the communication between the two men.
The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration issued an order prohibiting U.S. air operators from flying below 26,000 feet in Venezuela’s airspace until further notice, citing “increasing political instability and tensions.”
David Mulroney (The Globe and Mail) on Canada-China relations: “Getting China right will be particularly difficult for a Liberal government that has, to put it charitably, struggled with foreign policy. The government approaches the world beyond our borders with the inexplicable conviction that other countries are either as progressive as Liberal voters or aspire to be. This is wrong, and dangerously so.”
Konrad Yakabuski (The Globe and Mail) on Jason Kenney and the oil sands: “It was not Ms. Notley’s fault that the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion has not advanced, nor was she to blame for TransCanada Corp.’s cancellation of its proposed Energy East pipeline. Mr. Kenney won’t win support for either of those projects outside Alberta by declaring war on anyone that expresses reservations about them. The oil sands don’t need a new sheriff; they need a better salesman.”
Stephen Maher (Maclean’s) on Scheer and the carbon tax: “What Scheer can’t say, if he wants to be taken seriously, is that Trudeau’s job-killing carbon tax is going to destroy our economy and do nothing to help the environment. That’s not true, no matter how often he says it, and it is going to be hard to listen to him respectfully if he wants to build his campaign around a false premise.”
Chris Selley (National Post) on Scheer and the carbon tax: “That carbon pricing literally doesn’t work — in essence, that prices do not influence consumer behaviour — will never not sound weird coming from a conservative. It takes some nerve for Scheer to knock a plan that comes within spitting distance of what ought to be his party’s preferred approach — a simple, revenue-neutral carbon tax — while not having even unveiled his less-efficient preferred alternative.”
Paris Marx (CBC News) on Trudeau and carbon pricing: “After framing carbon pricing as social licence for pipelines, federal Liberals appear caught off guard by the extent of the right-wing backlash, but they shouldn’t have been: Australia’s experience with carbon pricing would have shown them exactly what they’d be up against.”
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