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These are the top stories:
Alberta orders 8.7% oil production cut to deal with price crisis
Alberta Premier Rachel Notley is ordering a mandatory 8.7-per-cent reduction in oil production to deal with a price crisis. As of January, production of raw crude oil and bitumen will be reduced by 325,000 barrels per day. That figure is expected to shrink as the glut of oil in storage is reduced. The mandated cut ends on Dec. 31, 2019. Ms. Notley said the action is necessary to reverse the widening price differential that she says could cause further harm to Alberta’s economy if not addressed immediately. The government expects it will be able to roll back the production cut to only 95,000 barrels a day in the spring after storage tanks begin to empty out.
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Macron orders talks to begin with French protesters after third weekend of mounting violence
A third weekend of nationwide protests from the movement group “Yellow Vests,” made up of largely working-class people angry about a planned increase in fuel taxes and their dwindling purchasing power, left burned cars and smashed store windows in several of the wealthiest neighbourhoods of Paris. One person died in the unrest this weekend outside of Paris, bringing the number of casualties to three. More than 260 people were wounded nationwide, at least 133 of them in Paris. French President Emmanuel Macron ordered Prime Minister Édouard Philippe to meet with representatives of the Yellow Vests and leaders of opposition political parties. Those meetings start Monday.
Ottawa urged to reunite Yazidi refugees with their families to help treat rare disorder
Doctors and opposition critics are calling on the federal government to resettle Yazidi refugees from Iraq to help those already in Canada who are suffering from pseudoseizures, a rare and extreme form of post-traumatic stress disorder triggered by extreme psychological pressure and believed to be worsened by family separation. Canada recently resettled 1,200 Yazidi refugees from Iraq after the Islamic State unleashed a brutal campaign of murder, kidnap and rape on the religious minority group in 2014 – atrocities the government has since declared a genocide. Doctors and researchers believe the pseudoseizures could be reduced if they can eliminate family separation, and opposition parties are calling on the Liberal government to take steps to reunite Yazidi families in Canada as soon as possible.
Trump threatens to ‘terminate’ NAFTA to press Congress to approve USMCA
U.S. President Donald Trump is vowing to “terminate” the original NAFTA to put pressure on Congress to approve the new U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement set to replace it. He told reporters Saturday that he would trigger NAFTA’s six-month withdrawal process “in the not-too-distant future.” Pulling out of NAFTA without approving USMCA would leave the U.S. with no free-trade deal governing more than US$1-trillion in annual commerce with two of its largest trading partners. Among other things, NAFTA and USMCA ensure that there are no tariffs on nearly all goods that move between the three countries. On Friday, Mr. Trump, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and now-former Mexican president Enrique Pena Nieto (on his last day in office) signed the text of USMCA. (for subscribers)
John Ibbitson writes: “Canada and Mexico may need to embark on talks to tweak the text in ways that will satisfy the concerns of Democrats and Republicans without angering the Trump administration. From now until ratification, everyone on the original New NAFTA team will need to be either in Washington, or on the phone to it.” (for subscribers)
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IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
Former President George H.W. Bush dies at age 94
George H.W. Bush, who was U.S. president from 1989 to 1993, died late Friday at his Houston home at the age of 94. Mr. Bush’s presidency soared with the coalition victory over Iraq in Kuwait, but then plummeted in the throes of a weak economy that led voters to turn him out of office after a single term. He also backed Bill Clinton − who succeeded him − on the North American free-trade agreement, which had its genesis during his own presidency. Read David Shribman’s obituary for Mr. Bush, where he describes him as “perhaps the most misunderstood and underestimated president of modern times.”
MORNING MARKETS
Markets surge
A truce between U.S. and Chinese leaders on trade tariffs boosted global markets on Monday, fuelling a nearly 1-per-cent surge on world stocks and pushing emerging currencies higher against the U.S. dollar. Tokyo’s Nikkei climbed 1 per cent, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng and the Shanghai Composite each gained 2.6 per cent. In Europe, London’s FTSE 100, Germany’s DAX and the Paris CAC 40 were up by between 1.7 and 2.5 per cent by about 6:15 a.m. ET. New York futures were also up sharply. The Canadian dollar was closing in on 76 US cents.
WHAT EVERYONE’S TALKING ABOUT
Who won the Nylander standoff? Nobody
“Nobody won here. Everybody is left looking different degrees of foolish. If Nylander was willing to concede for US$6.9-million per annum over six years – a symbolic smidgen under the halfway point between the reported $8-million he wanted versus the $6-million Toronto was offering – why not do that last summer? If this was about betting on himself, why not push for fewer years and trust that he’d be in a position to demand really big money once they were up, à la Nikita Kucherov? Or, having dragged this out until the final hour, why not sit out? That would’ve shown some people.” - Cathal Kelly
Saturday night supper: World order may have changed before our eyes
“In years to come, the dinner may be seen as a signal event in the emergence of a new realist world order, characterized by unilateral negotiations based on individual state power interests. These interests overwhelm the institutions of rules-based order, which had emerged from the ashes of the Second World War. This does not bode well for nations like Canada." − Charles Burton, associate professor of political science at Brock University and former counsellor at the Canadian Embassy in Beijing (for subscribers)
LIVING BETTER
Just as there is no such thing as a bad dog, only bad owners, there are no unsafe exercises, only poorly selected ones. With this guide from Paul Landini, a personal trainer and health educator at the Toronto West End College Street YMCA, learn how to progress safely into “the big three” strength exercises - squats, deadlifts and the bench press.
MOMENT IN TIME
Celebrating Hanukkah
For more than 100 years, photographers, photo editors and photo librarians working for The Globe and Mail have preserved an extraordinary collection of 20th-century news photography. Every Monday, The Globe features one of these images. In December, we’re featuring images that celebrate the holidays.
Dec. 3, 1947: In 1947, Toronto’s Holy Blossom Temple received a special gift of a Hanukkah lamp. In this Globe and Mail photo, Rabbi Abraham L. Feinberg is seen lighting the new menorah, which was given in memory of RCAF Sergeant Lionel Roher, killed on June 28, 1941. Shortly before Sgt. Roher was to receive his wings, he was practising forced landings in a Harvard aircraft in Dauphin, Man., when he crashed into an open field. In a eulogy, the 19-year-old was described as being gentle, funny and intelligent, and having "a special radiance about him, too, so that passersby in the street would turn to follow him with their eyes and smile, remembering their own youth.” It was hoped that the memory of the young man’s radiance would shine on each December for Hanukkah. – Dianne Nice
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Shelby Blackley