Good evening, let’s start with today’s top stories:
Biden needs to show Canada some respect on Keystone XL pipeline, Kenney says
Alberta Premier Jason Kenney says U.S. president-elect Joe Biden needs to show Canada some respect by discussing the Keystone XL pipeline, and called on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to make it clear to the new administration that the project is vital to Canada’s economic interests and the two countries’ relationship.
News surfaced yesterday that Biden plans to terminate the project’s construction permit as one of his first acts in office, dealing a blow to Canadian efforts to get the pipeline built and jeopardizing the prospect of thousands of jobs in Alberta. Outgoing President Donald Trump signed the construction permit in 2017.
Federal Natural Resources Minister Seamus O’Regan said today the Canadian government is not giving up trying to convince Mr. Biden to let the Keystone XL expansion project proceed.
Opinion: Keystone XL is dead. But who can Jason Kenney blame now? – Max Fawcett
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The latest on COVID-19: Vaccination program delays, new dedicated Ontario hospital and more
At least three provinces – British Columbia, Alberta and Ontario – are temporarily delaying or pausing COVID-19 vaccination programs amid fallout from Pfizer’s decision to reduce Canada’s vaccine deliveries over the next month. All provinces are being forced to revisit their vaccination programs after Pfizer said Friday it would be cutting in half the doses delivered over the next four weeks, while it upgrades a factory.
A hospital dedicated to the treatment of COVID-19 patients will be opening in Vaughan, Ont., north of Toronto, early next month as health care centres in the region struggle to cope with surging infections. It will also be used to manage overflow from other hospitals, taking in uninfected patients to free up beds for COVID-19 cases.
Analysis: Every drop is like ‘liquid gold’: B.C. maximizing COVID-19 vaccine doses during first stage of rollout – Justine Hunter
Opinion: Should coronavirus vaccination be mandatory for health workers? – André Picard
Transport Canada clears Boeing 737 Max for return to service
Transport Canada has cleared the Boeing 737 Max aircraft to resume carrying commercial passengers on Jan. 21. The model has been grounded since March, 2019, after two fatal crashes in five months killed 346 people in Indonesia and Ethiopia.
The plane was cleared to return to service in the United States in November. Canada conducted its own reviews of the safety changes Boeing made to the model, and is requiring pilots obtain additional training and follow different operating procedures.
WestJet previously said it planned to fly the Max on Jan. 21.
Kremlin critic Alexey Navalny remanded in pre-trial detention in Russia
A Russian judge has remanded Kremlin critic Alexey Navalny in pretrial detention for 30 days for violating the terms of a suspended jail sentence, ignoring calls from Western countries to free the opposition politician immediately.
The ruling, a day after police detained him at the airport when he returned to Russia for the first time since being poisoned by a military-grade nerve agent last August, could be the prelude to him being jailed for years.
Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny walks to take his seat in a Pobeda airlines plane heading to Moscow before takeoff from Berlin Brandenburg Airport on Jan. 17, 2021.KIRILL KUDRYAVTSEV/AFP/Getty Images
Couche-Tard executives outline a vision that extends beyond convenience stores
For 40 years, shoppers and investors have thought about Alimentation Couche-Tard as a convenience store chain that sells soda and cigarettes, Nicolas Van Praet writes. Now, they’re waking to the realization that it wants to be much more than that.
Couche-Tard executives, forced to the defensive over the company’s aborted US$20-billion takeover play for French grocer Carrefour, outlined their rationale for the deal on a conference call this morning. But they also articulated a vision for the company that extends beyond what even its closest followers had previously imagined.
Opinion: France kills a Canadian takeover from Couche-Tard, digging a moat around a national corporate champion – Eric Reguly
ALSO ON OUR RADAR
GM deal ratified: Workers at the General Motors auto plant in Ingersoll, Ont., have ratified a collective agreement that will transform the factory in Southwestern Ontario to build electric parcel vans.
Toronto vacancy rates spike: Apartment vacancy rates in Toronto hit a record high late last year, spiking to 5.7 per cent as demand weakened during the pandemic and sent monthly rents tumbling.
MARKET WATCH
The Canadian stock market had a quiet session today as Wall Street was closed for the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, with the S&P/TSX Composite Index rising slightly despite a pullback in energy equities. The benchmark index closed up 35.85 points or 0.2 per cent at 17,944.88.
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TALKING POINTS
How does Biden govern when 50 million Americans don’t believe he won?
“When Joe Biden takes the oath of office on Wednesday, Inauguration Day, he will do so in a capital so terrified of what [Donald] Trump’s troglodytes might do, in a Washington so laden with military platoons that it looks, as Democratic Congressman Adam Schiff put it, like Baghdad in war-convulsed Iraq.” – Lawrence Martin
To end racism against Indigenous peoples, we have to name it and speak up
“We must use our voices and our privilege to shut down hateful, targeted behaviour or commentary in plain sight and grounded in ignorance, racism or denial of the truth.” – Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond, law professor, University of British Columbia
LIVING BETTER
The nutrient B12 is crucial for nerve and brain function - and if you’re older than 60, you may not be getting enough. It is found naturally only in animal-based foods: mussels, trout, beef and milk are excellent sources. If you’re vegetarian or vegan, foods fortified with B12 include ready-to-eat breakfast cereals, plant-based “milks,” soy “meats” and some brands of nutritional yeast.
TODAY’S LONG READ
How a Canadian friend’s crisis helped shape Kamala Harris
Wanda Kagan, right, with U.S. vice-president-elect Kamala Harris while they were in high school in Montreal.Christinne Muschi/The Globe and Mail
Last fall, during her campaign for U.S. vice-president, Kamala Harris tweeted out a video with a hidden Canadian connection. “When I was in high school, I had a best friend who I learned was being molested by her father,” she said. “One of the reasons I wanted to be a prosecutor was to protect people like her.”
That friend, unidentified in the video, is a Montreal woman named Wanda Kagan. Her high-school friendship with Harris was forged over a common identity and a painful secret, and it steered the future politician into a career path that took her from prosecutor, to senator, to the White House.
Many people know the story of Harris’s trajectory to power, and her passage through Canada in the 1970s and early ’80s. Less well-known is the high-school friendship with Kagan, and the insights it offers into Harris’s values and upbringing. Read Ingrid Peritz’s full story here.
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