Good morning,
“This is genocide,” Marion Buller, the first Indigenous woman appointed as a Provincial Court judge in British Columbia, told a crowd in Gatineau, Que., yesterday.
Ms. Buller, the Chief Commissioner of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, was speaking of the tragedy she spent more than two years investigating.
The inquiry’s 1,200-page report contains 231 recommendations that range from measures to improve policing to a call for providing all Canadians a guaranteed livable income.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he welcomed the report and promised he wouldn’t just leave it on the shelf.
“You have my word that my government will turn the inquiry’s calls to justice into real, meaningful, Indigenous-led action,” he said.
This is the daily Politics Briefing newsletter, written by Chris Hannay and Aron Yeomanson. It is available exclusively to our digital subscribers. If you’re reading this on the web, subscribers can sign up for the Politics newsletter and more than 20 others on our newsletter signup page. Have any feedback? Let us know what you think.
HELP US MONITOR POLITICAL ADS ON FACEBOOK
This year’s federal election may very well be won – or lost – on Facebook. Like Britain, Germany and the U.S.’s most recent elections, politicians and third party groups will be using the platform’s powerful ad targeting tools to reach voters.
To monitor what these ads say, and who they say it to, The Globe has taken over a global Facebook political ad collection effort, and we could use your help.
You can learn more about The Globe’s Facebook Political Ad Collector project here.
If you’d like the participate in the project, all you need to do is install the Chrome or Firefox browser extension.
TODAY’S HEADLINES
Even with just a matter of days left in the parliamentary session, the Liberal government is still introducing new legislation while it has time: The latest measure addresses the United States’ concern that other countries would dump cheap foreign-produced steel in Canada.
The Liberals see their best chance of holding on to power in the next election in Quebec, and they are courting a former Parti Québécois minister to run for them in the province this fall. Réjean Hébert, who was the minister of health in the PQ government of Pauline Marois from 2012 to 2014 and is currently the dean of the school of public health at the University of Montreal, said the issue of sovereignty is off the table for him and he’d be interested in working with the federal government on issues such as health and the environment.
A private member’s bill requiring sexual-assault education for judges has made it through a committee of senators and is now on its way to the Senate for a full vote.
Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan said the Canadian navy and air force would help enforce United Nations sanctions against North Korea.
And a new survey from the Environics Institute suggests Canadians are generally supportive of the federal equalization program, though opposition is getting strongest in Alberta and Saskatchewan.
Signa Daum Shanks (The Globe and Mail) on the final report of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls: “Debating whether the final report’s use of the word ‘genocide’ is justified is a cop-out, and lets society get away with not doing more to realize what problems have led to the inquiry’s need to be invented at all. What we should focus on is what we can do today to stop the racism and the indifference. Moving forward means reframing our thoughts and accepting that, although we may not be sure about all the details, we need to use the report to guide us.”
Campbell Clark (The Globe and Mail) on why the inquiry was necessary: "[Former minister Bernard] Valcourt['s dismissal of the inquiry] not only sparked controversy, he also highlighted the point of the inquiry – to say that something deeply wrong had happened, and that it was worth looking into. And that is worth repeating to the many people who, like Mr. Valcourt, figure that murders are for the police to solve and not for a costly inquiry to address.
Naomi Sayers (CBC News) on human trafficking in the report: “It is clear that the conversation about Indigenous women in the sex trade or Indigenous women and girls experiencing exploitation isn’t as complex or nuanced as it should be.”
André Picard (The Globe and Mail) on buying alcoholic beverages at corner stores in Ontario: “We have to remember too that, while making beer, wine and other alcoholic drinks more widely available can have negative health impacts, prohibition does a lot of damage too. One thing that is clear from research is that the greatest impact on alcohol consumption comes from pricing policies. The cheaper alcohol is, the more people consume. Yet we don’t talk about the benefits of high taxes or floor prices.”
Andrew Coyne (National Post) on climate policy: “if the Liberals, fearing further erosion of support to their left, go further? Then Scheer can claim that it is he, and not Justin Trudeau, who has struck the better balance between the environment and the economy. Are his policies inferior, his targets inadequate? Almost certainly. It does not matter. In politics, victory goes not to the party with the better program, but the better story.”
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