This Week in Canadian Politics 2018-06-10

by | June 10, 2018

 

By Scott Douglas Jacobsen

“The Canadian government announced at the G7 summit in Quebec that it has raised more than $3.8 billion in an effort with other countries to send the world’s poorest girls to school.

That includes a $400-million investment from Canada as part of the overall three-year commitment, and also includes contributions from G7 partners and the World Bank.

Canada, along with the European Union, Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the World Bank, will partner on the funds, which will go towards supporting women acquiring job skills, improving teacher training to improve curriculum for girls, expanding the quality of data available on female education and promoting more coordination between humanitarian partners.”

Source: http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-education-girls-g7-1.4699620.

“Ontario turned Tory Blue in this week’s election, not because newly-crowned Premier Doug Ford is an extremist, but because he isn’t.

The contest became a weird three-way race: Between a moderate and fiscally conservative businessman and two tax-and-spenders out of the public sector, one more extreme than the other.

It was not a right, center and left contest. It was Doug Ford in the center versus a left and an extreme left leader.

He promised to cut spending, taxes, hydro rates, and scandals. His goal was to trim spending overall by a relatively modest four per cent and to fire Hydro One’s overpaid $6-million-a-year chief executive officer.

By contrast, the Liberal and NDP leaders outdid one another with promises to spend more, never less. They offered the status quo on steroids despite widespread public dissatisfaction about taxes, energy costs, and scandals.

The first indication Ford would win handily was when sitting Liberal Premier Kathleen Wynne conceded that she couldn’t win. Her announcement was an admission that her policies had alienated voters. It was unusual, classy, but risky, and ended up handing the NDP’s Andrea Horwath the highest popular vote of any NDPer. Wynne’s concession convinced many Liberal voters to move into the extreme left lane to stop Ford.

Meanwhile, Ford never veered, adhering to his pledge to restore fiscal integrity and cut taxes.””

Source: http://business.financialpost.com/diane-francis/doug-fords-win-sends-a-message-to-the-rest-of-canadas-politicians-including-the-prime-minister.

“OTTAWA – U.S. President Donald Trump has backed up threats of tariffs in the past with real trade action, and that’s why his latest comments about the Canadian dairy and auto sectors are worrying, and need to be taken seriously, say trade insiders.

On CTV’s Question Period Sunday morning, Former premier of Quebec and deputy prime minister Jean Charest said Canada has to prepare for Trump to act, because as seen with the levelling of steel and aluminum tariffs on Canada, “he tends to follow through on the threats he makes.”

“We have to prepare and we’re very worried, and should be very worried on this side,” said Charest. “On a day-to-day basis the Trump administration is confusion and chaos, but on the key issues he ran on… he has remained constant.””

Source: https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/trump-s-parting-g7-threats-to-canadian-dairy-autos-a-real-cause-for-concern-trade-insiders-1.3967340.

“QUEBEC — When Donald Trump boarded Air Force One in Quebec and whisked his way to Singapore on Saturday, he left behind a stormy wake of mixed signals that bordered on rage. Hours after indicating he would sign on to a carefully drafted G7 communique, he rescinded his support, accused Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of being meek and dishonest, and threatened Canada with more trade action.

Here are five questions about what’s at stake:

The future of the G7: The leaders huddled late into the night on Friday and again on Saturday morning to find compromises palatable to all, especially on maintaining free trade and carefully managing trade disputes. With Trump rejecting those compromises and turning his back on an agreement, can the G7 remain intact? They also affirmed the importance of the “international rules-based order” and that the G7 is based on a set of “shared values.” What is lost if the G7 becomes the G6, or simply falls apart?

Canada-U.S. trade: The United States is, by far, Canada’s biggest customer. Much of Canada’s export sector is tightly linked to having an open border with the United States. That makes the renegotiation of the North America Free Trade Agreement that Trump has instigated crucial to the future of Canadian investment and prosperity. The U.S. has recently thrown up or reinforced several barriers to that open border — in aerospace, lumber, and most recently steel and aluminum. With Trump and Trudeau exchanging increasingly personal and public insults, what happens to those NAFTA negotiations? Are Canada’s supply chains at risk? Are there enough reasonable conversations taking place with thoughtful American powerbrokers behind the scenes to help Canada escape a full-blown trade war that would devastate a wide range of sectors?””

Source: https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/trump-s-aggression-against-g7-and-canada-five-questions-about-what-s-at-stake-1.3967281.

“You would have been called a cynic if you had predicted that, on the launch of a Canada-U.S. trade war initiated without valid cause by the larger country, Canada’s free-market Conservative Party would use the occasion to undermine its own government by supporting tariff-protected dairy farmers.

But then, politics has a way of breeding cynicism.

Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer did his part on Tuesday when he released a statement criticizing not U.S. President Donald Trump, who capriciously imposed levies on Canadian steel and aluminum last week, but Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for the crime of announcing “flexibility” in his position on access to the Canadian dairy market.

Mr. Scheer called any weakening of the tariffs that shield Canadian milk, eggs and poultry from foreign competition “totally unacceptable” and accused the PM of being duplicitous for saying otherwise to an American audience.

The most galling thing about this attack on the PM was not that the Conservative stance on supply management is dead wrong. All three major parties have, in the past, steadfastly supported the antiquated and expensive fixed prices, production quotas and trade barriers that protect dairy and poultry farming in Canada, so Mr. Scheer is not alone in this.””

Source: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/editorials/article-globe-editorial-andrew-scheers-cheesy-trade-war-politics/.

“The federal Department of Justice has quietly agreed to amend the regulations on internet child pornography after Parliament Hill’s legal fact checkers spotted problems with the law.

The back and forth between department officials and lawyers with the Standing Joint Committee on Scrutiny of Regulations — detailed in internal letters — shines a light on the imperfect science of drafting government regulations.

The regulations brought in by the Harper government in 2011 to accompany a new child pornography law require that Canadian internet service providers (ISPs) report child pornography to the police.

The regulations include a unique provision that asks a designated organization — the Canadian Centre for Child Protection — to review any online files flagged by ISPs or members of the public to determine if they constitute child pornography. The Manitoba-based charity is seen as the leading voice on the issue in Canada.”

Source: http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/scutiniy-committee-internet-porn-1.4695165.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen is the Founder of In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal and In-Sight Publishing. He authored/co-authored some e-books, free or low-cost. If you want to contact Scott: Scott.D.Jacobsen@Gmail.com.

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Category: Canada Tags: , , , , ,

About Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Scott Douglas Jacobsen is the Founder of In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal and In-Sight Publishing. Jacobsen works for science and human rights, especially women’s and children’s rights. He considers the modern scientific and technological world the foundation for the provision of the basics of human life throughout the world and advancement of human rights as the universal movement among peoples everywhere. You can contact Scott via email, his website, or Twitter.

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