Hello, welcome to Politics Insider. Let’s look at what happened today.
One of the last meetings on Mark Carney’s whirlwind tour of Asia may be his most important: a Friday sit-down with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
The meeting is taking place as the Prime Minister seeks new markets to offset the economic damage that Donald Trump is doing to Canada.
Steven Chase reports that Carney’s tête-à-tête with Xi during the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC) summit in South Korea will be the first formal get-together between a Canadian prime minister and the Chinese President since 2017.
Relations have been in a severe diplomatic chill since 2018, when Canada arrested a Chinese tech executive at the request of the United States, and China jailed two Canadians in response.
Carney’s courting of Xi is an abrupt change of course in Ottawa’s approach to China, a country Ottawa publicly characterized less than three years ago as an “increasingly disruptive” global power.
But Trump protectionism is driving U.S. allies to look far and wide for new markets, including those that countries such as Canada have often criticized for human-rights abuses.
In other news, Defence Minister David McGuinty says next week’s federal budget will pave the way for the government to fulfill its new NATO commitment to spend 5 per cent of GDP on defence.
“What we’ll be doing in the budget is laying track to meet the 5-per-cent target by 2035,” McGuinty told reporters on the eve of the APEC summit in South Korea.
Steven Chase reports that McGuinty also said he’s confident the minority government will receive the votes it needs to pass the 2025 fiscal plan in the House of Commons – unlike Steven MacKinnon, the Government House Leader, who has said the Liberals do not yet have the votes.
“I have every confidence that we will pass the budget,” McGuinty said. “I think that we will earn the respect and the support in the House. It’s a question of negotiations, the question of making sure that we are reflecting priorities for different members of Parliament.”
The steep increase in military spending – the biggest in more than 70 years – has handed the federal government a fresh challenge: how to pay for it.
Canada has yet to allocate money in the fiscal framework to buy as many as 12 new submarines. The subs will cost up to $2-billion each, and that does not include all the weapons systems and associated costs of operating the boats. Over their operating lives, they will cost more than $100-billion when maintenance, parts and upgrades are included.
National Defence Minister David McGuinty and Prime Minister Mark Carney seen during a tour of the Hanwha Ocean Shipyard in Geoje Island, South Korea, on Thursday.Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press
What else is going on
Quebec minister quits over doctors crisis: Social Services Minister Lionel Carmant, a doctor, says his wife and daughter, both doctors, were angry over a recently passed law imposing a new payment system on the province’s doctors. “It’s not easy at home,” he told a news conference.
King Charles strips brother Andrew of titles, forces him from home: The measures targeting the 65-year-old second son of the late Queen Elizabeth are linked to his ties to late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Canadians say relatives in Sudan receiving visas after massacres: Sudanese Canadians say family members who have applied to join them from war-torn Sudan are, after months of waiting, suddenly receiving visas, or e-mails from Ottawa’s immigration department asking to confirm their contact details.
Fentanyl czar says he underestimated opioid crisis: Kevin Brosseau, appointed Canada’s fentanyl czar in February, says his last policing role in front-line communities ended in 2016, and, since then, he has missed the toll fentanyl and synthetic opioids had taken across North America.
CN Rail lays off 400 managers as freight volumes tied to U.S. trade war fall: The job losses are at rail offices across Canada and the United States, where CN has extensive operations.
Crisis warnings as softwood summit looms: Ahead of next week’s meeting in Vancouver, the BC Lumber Trade Council, the Forest Products Association of Canada, and the Canadian Lumber Trade Alliance are among groups sounding the alarm about sawmills operating at below break-even levels.
On our radar
Prime Minister’s Day: In South Korea, Mark Carney met with President Lee Jae Myung and later visited a defence-manufacturing facility. In the evening, Carney met with Thailand Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul. He also met with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon, and Singapore Prime Minister Lawrence Wong.
Party Leaders: In Toronto, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre was scheduled, this evening, to deliver a keynote speech at a youth-oriented rally. Green Party Leader Elizabeth May was at the House of Commons and later, in Toronto, attended the annual Telling Tales Out of School fundraising event to celebrate public education. Interim-NDP Leader Don Davies spoke to the gathering of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, and was later scheduled to meet with members. He also participated in the Pearson Centre’s Cannabis at the Crossroads conference. And he met with members of Electricity Canada. No schedule provided for Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet.
Canada responds to Hurricane Melissa: No Canadians have been reported killed or injured by the hurricane, Randeep Serai, a federal secretary of state for international development, said today at a Parliament Hill news conference. Serai said $7-million in humanitarian assistance is being provided to support emergency relief efforts across the Caribbean region. Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand, also at the news conference, said Jamaica has only asked for humanitarian aid. “That is what we are stepping up to provide. There has been no request for the Canadian Armed Forces at this time,” she said.
Harper in Saudi Arabia - Former prime minister Stephen Harper was in the Saudi Arabian capital of Riyadh this week where he met with Adel Aljubeir, the country’s minister of state for foreign affairs, according to a posting by the Saudi Arabian foreign ministry. They met on the sidelines of the FII9 conference, which concluded today. “They discussed matters of shared interest,” said the posting.
Quote of the day
“I don’t have an issue with a premier standing up in support of their residents and workers, and I think that’s what Ontario was doing. I thought the ad was pretty classy and pretty accurate to be honest,” - Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston, at a news conference in Halifax today, responds to Globe and Mail reporter Laura Stone asking him about Ontario’s Ronald Reagan tariff ad.
Question period
Thirty years ago today, Quebec held its second sovereignty referendum after a previous vote in 1980. In the October, 1995 vote, the No side won by 50.58 per cent to 49.4 per cent saying yes. What was the wording of the question?
Scroll to the bottom of this newsletter for the answer.
Perspectives
Washington, we have a serious problem: Your ambassador to Canada
If U.S. President Donald Trump’s goal in selecting a top diplomat to station in Canada was to find someone who embodied the pure arrogance of his administration, who would give new life to the old epithet, "ugly American,” he found his man in Ambassador Pete Hoekstra.
— Gary Mason, National Affairs Columnist
The U.S. Supreme Court decision won’t save Canada from Trump’s tariffs
Mr. Trump’s belief in the benefits of tariffs is so ingrained that there is no likelihood he will take a Supreme Court defeat sitting down. More likely, it will trigger the mad king’s rage and bolster his determination to continue his tariff war.
— Lawrence Martin, Public Affairs Columnist
Should Carney, the businessman, really run Canada like a business?
This idea that government should be run like a business, and the proposed accounting changes that flow from it, could expose Canadian taxpayers to excessive risks and make them a cash cow for inefficient businesses and special interests.
— Claude Lavoie is a contributing columnist for The Globe and Mail. He was director-general of economic studies and policy analysis at the Department of Finance from 2008 to 2023.
Go deeper
- The Decibel - André Picard, the Globe health reporter and columnist, is on the Globe and Mail podcast to discuss new Quebec legislation to impose a contract on doctors in the province.
- Follow along for our stories on Canada-U.S. relations as news develops
- Get the latest insight and analysis from our political opinion writers
- Take a look at the history of immigration reporting and great political scandals from A Nation’s Paper, a book about The Globe and Mail’s role in Canadian history
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The answer to today’s question: The question was as follows: Do you agree that Quebec should become sovereign after having made a formal offer to Canada for a new economic and political partnership within the scope of the bill respecting the future of Quebec and of the agreement signed on June 12, 1995?