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These are the top stories:
Coastal GasLink estimates $115-million in payments to elected Wet’suwet’en band councils
The company projected that its B.C. pipeline project would pump $115-million during a 25-year period to five elected Wet’suwet’en band councils and generate more than $60-million in construction contracts for local Indigenous businesses in the region.
Those estimates are set out in a letter sent in 2014. Coastal GasLink posted a redacted version of the eight-page letter on its website last month, blacking out one entire page and portions of two other pages.
The Globe and Mail has obtained an unredacted copy, marked confidential, revealing details under a section titled “Economic opportunities available to the Wet’suwet’en people from Coastal GasLink.”
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Alberta to increase its industrial carbon tax in step with Ottawa
Premier Jason Kenney has now confirmed that his United Conservative Party government will increase the rate of its Technology Innovation and Emissions Reduction levy from its current price of $30 a tonne up to $50 a tonne, to stay within the federal requirements and prevent Ottawa from imposing its own levy on the province’s oil and gas sector.
Alberta has repeatedly clashed with the federal government on the climate-change file and is currently challenging the separate consumer carbon tax in court. The tax on industrial emissions is not part of that legal case.
The latest on the coronavirus
British Columbia has identified Canada’s first-known case of community transmission of the novel coronavirus, marking a pivotal moment in the country’s battle against the outbreak.
In Ontario, a Toronto hospital has proposed some creative ways to handle overwhelmed emergency departments, including a pop-up screening clinic and tests at drive-through or walk-up windows.
Have a question about coronavirus? Globe columnist André Picard will take reader questions today at 11 a.m. on Facebook.Leave us a comment on Facebook or email audience@globeandmail.com.
Also read:
- Toronto’s transit unions demand better health precautions as coronavirus spreads
- Canadian universities plan for video lectures, remote exams if coronavirus epidemic worsens
- Ask a travel expert: How do I keep healthy while on a cruise ship?
British Columbia has confirmed its ninth case of COVID-19 in a man who returned from Iran last week. Dr. Bonnie Henry, the provincial health officer, says the man in his 50s began to feel ill after he returned home to the Fraser Health region, which is near Vancouver.JONATHAN HAYWARD/The Canadian Press
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ALSO ON OUR RADAR
Ontario to invest $202-million over five years in massive strategy targeting human trafficking: The anti-human-trafficking strategy, to be announced on Friday by Premier Doug Ford and others, is believed to be the largest total investment of any provincial or federal government in dedicated supports and services for victims.
Solidarity protest for Wet’suwet’en at B.C. Legislature winds down after five arrested for mischief: The encampment occupying the ceremonial entrance and front steps of the building began with a raucous protest that sought to shut down the legislature on Feb. 11.
Toronto Police say they found boy who was abducted as pawn in failed multimillion-dollar cocaine deal: Toronto Police said late Thursday that the boy had been found safe and was being taken for a medical checkup.
Deadly clashes erupted in southern Idlib: Fifteen people were killed hours after Russia and Turkey announced a ceasefire deal aimed at ending the fighting in the last rebel-held enclave in Syria.
MORNING MARKETS
World stocks tumble as coronavirus cases spread, disruptions grow: Global stock markets tumbled on Friday as disruptions to business from the spreading coronavirus epidemic worsened, stoking fears of a prolonged economic slowdown. In Europe, Britain’s FTSE 100 was down 3.38 per cent just after 6 a.m. ET. Germany’s DAX and France’s CAC 40 fell 3.56 per cent and 3.76 per cent, respectively. In Asia, Japan’s Nikkei ended down 2.72 per cent, following Wall Street’s weak hand off from Thursday. The Shanghai Composite Index fell 1.21 per cent. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng shed 2.32 per cent. New York futures were lower. The Canadian dollar was trading at 74.62 US cents.
The world of public finance can be as bewildering as it is important. Billions spent, and some misspent. Billions taxed, and some overtaxed. A new series from The Globe, Tax and Spend, will deliver insight each week, examining the intricacies and oddities of taxation and government spending. In the series debut, Patrick Brethour, The Globe and Mail’s tax and fiscal policy reporter, takes an in-depth look at why low interest rates are blowing up Ottawa’s deficit.
WHAT EVERYONE’S TALKING ABOUT
Investing in oil and gas is the wrong lesson for Alberta to learn from Lougheed
Max Fawcett: “But Jason Kenney is no Peter Lougheed, and his United Conservative Party government’s apparent interest in supporting the oil and gas industry has very little in common with the concerns that motivated Mr. Lougheed’s Progressive Conservatives.” Fawcett is the former editor of Alberta Oil magazine and Vancouver magazine. He previously worked in Alberta’s Climate Change Office.
While coronavirus is on everyone’s mind, another plague – of locusts – threatens Africa
Robert Rotberg: “Desert locusts develop the wings that they need to swarm across seas and continents with the help of warming temperatures and the right amount of rain to grow the plants that they need for food.” Rotberg is the founding director of the Harvard Kennedy School’s Program on Intrastate Conflict, a former senior fellow at CIGI and president emeritus of the World Peace Foundation.
TODAY’S EDITORIAL CARTOON
Brian GableBrian Gable/The Globe and Mail
LIVING BETTER
What’s new in theatres this weekend?
You have plenty of options this weekend if the theatre is calling you. Check out The Globe’s round up to decide which flicks are worth your time and which are not. here are a few you might have heard of:
- Pixar’s Onward is a delightful family friendly answer to Lord of the Rings
- Run This Town is as regrettable as Rob Ford’s Toronto City Hall scandals
- Also: Your best streaming bets for this March 7-8 weekend
MOMENT IN TIME
Julius and Ethel Rosenberg (nee Ethel Greenglass) in a Marshal's van on March 29, 1951. They were found guilty in a highly controversial trial of passing on atomic secrets to the Soviet Union and became the first US civilians to be executed for espionage in Sing Sing Prison 19 June 1953. UPI PHOTOUPI
Trial of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg begins
March 6, 1951: One of the most controversial trials of the 20th century began on this day in 1951 and resulted in the execution of two American civilians for espionage-related activity during the Cold War. Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were tried for passing American military secrets to the Soviet Union. The severity of the sentence took the world by surprise, even though the United States was at the height of McCarthyism. Public sympathy focused on Ethel, whom many believed was not an active participant in her husband’s activities. The trial hinged on the testimony of her brother, David Greenglass, who later said he was encouraged by the prosecution to give false testimony as part of a plea deal for him and his wife. "My wife is more important to me than my sister. Or my mother or my father, okay?” The prosecution said they had urged the death sentence for Ethel in an effort to extract a full confession from Julius. In 1953, Julius died after the first shock in the electric chair. It took five shocks to complete Ethel’s execution. In January, 2017, Senator Elizabeth Warren and others petitioned president Barack Obama to pardon Ethel. The Rosenbergs’ two sons continue to seek exoneration for their mother. — Graeme Harris
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