Good morning,
These are the top stories:
General Motors is shutting down its Oshawa plant
Sources say the closing, which would affect roughly 2,500 unionized workers, is part of a restructuring of GM’s operations to focus on autonomous and zero-emission vehicles. The plant is slated to be idle in a year, GM told the union that represents the autoworkers. The federal government will be examining the impact of the closing and what measures it might take to help laid-off workers. The Oshawa plant, which has been a key hub for GM for more than 100 years, was saved from imminent closing in 2016 after GM said it would invest $400-million to upgrade an assembly line. The company is expected to announce the closing this morning.
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The oil patch has failed to clean up a growing stockpile of abandoned wells
Data show 84,569 wells in B.C., Alberta and Saskatchewan have been abandoned as Canada’s biggest oil and gas companies put off the cost of remediation. That’s on top of the 122,456 inactive sites tallied in a Globe investigation. And unlike those inactive sites, abandoned wells hold no potential for future production. Equipment has been removed and holes have been sealed, but the surrounding landscape hasn’t been restored to its predrilling state – a process that can unearth contamination of soil and water and potentially require expensive monitoring and remediation work. The numbers show how lax regulations allow companies to delay the final cleanup steps for years, and sometimes decades, after production has ceased. (for subscribers)
Tensions are escalating between Ukraine and Russia after a violent clash at sea
The Ukrainian navy said Russia’s military opened fire on and seized three of its ships, wounding six sailors in the process. Russia countered that the Ukrainian ships had entered Russian waters near the disputed Crimea region. Now, Ukraine is considering declaring martial law in the country, raising alarms that President Petro Poroshenko might use the incident to delay a presidential election polls suggest he’s trailing in.
Just last month, author Richard Lourie wrote about how Vladimir Putin’s newly constructed Crimean Bridge “is a piece in a political game, one that both resembles chess as well as the bait-and-switch moves of three-card Monte. The bridge not only allows Putin to safeguard Crimea, it gives him a way to fuel a conflict with Ukraine in the Sea of Azov that in turn frees him up to play peacemaker in Donetsk.”
U.S. authorities fired tear gas on migrants approaching the border
The latest escalation in tensions came after Mexican police broke up protests in Tijuana, triggering a rush toward the border. The U.S. also shut the country’s busiest border crossing, with traffic suspended in both directions between San Diego and Tijuana. Thousands of Central American migrants, mostly Hondurans fleeing poverty and violence, are camped in a sports stadium on the Mexican side after arriving in a caravan. Mexico’s government said it would deport those who attempted to “violently” and “illegally” cross the border yesterday.
All eyes are on a Mars probe set to make landing today
The US$1-billion InSight mission is the first probe sent to Mars with the task of exploring the planet’s deep exterior. And a successful landing is no small task: The probe will have to decelerate from a cruising speed of 20,000 kilometres an hour to just eight km/h to survive its seven-minute plunge into the thin Martian atmosphere. If something goes wrong, a Mars effort of this magnitude likely won’t be repeated for many years. Canadian researchers are among those participating in the project, which is aiming to reconstruct how the planet formed and evolved, shedding light on Earth’s own ancient trajectory.
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IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
After two years of frustration, the Calgary Stampeders are Grey Cup champions
The Stampeders beat the Ottawa Redblacks 27-16 to win the Canadian football championship for the first time in four years. The Stamps lost in the title game in each of the past two years, including to the Redblacks in 2016. A sellout crowd of 55,819 packed Edmonton’s Commonwealth Stadium for a game that saw the temperature dip below zero as players struggled with their footing on the icy turf.
MORNING MARKETS
Stocks rise
European stocks, Italian bonds and the euro rallied on Monday on signs that Rome was preparing to rework the spending plans that have left it facing formal European Union disciplinary action. A bounce in oil prices after their ‘black’ Friday, the survival chances of Britain’s newly sealed Brexit agreement and renewed Russia and Ukraine tensions were keeping traders busy too. Tokyo’s Nikkei gained 1.1 per cent, and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng 1.7 per cent, though the Shanghai Composite lost 0.1 per cent. In Europe, where the EU backed Britain’s divorce settlement on the weekend, London’s FTSE 100, Germany’s DAX and the Paris CAC 40 were up by between 0.9 and 1.2 per cent by about 6:50 a.m. ET. New York futures were also up sharply. The Canadian dollar was still in the doldrums, trading below 76 US cents.
WHAT EVERYONE’S TALKING ABOUT
Even if back to work, Canada Post is still plagued by deeper issues
“After spending the weekend studying back-to-work legislation, Canada’s Senate will continue the discussion Monday. Whether or not postal workers are mandated back to work, the deeper, existential structural problems facing Canada Post will not be fixed. Since the middle of the last decade, as with other industries including financial services, retailing and entertainment, Canada Post has experienced profound digital disruption. … The good news for Canada Post is that parcel delivery has exploded due to the phenomenal increase in e-commerce sales. Parcel revenue increased by over $400-million between 2011 and 2015 and reached the $2-billion mark last year. However, the displacement of letters with parcels masks a deeper set of structural issues facing Canada Post and the transformation to a parcel-delivery firm. The business model that underlies parcel-and-courier delivery firms is radically different from traditional postal systems.” – Ian Lee, associate professor at Carleton University’s Sprott School of Business
Cutting Ontario’s francophone office is a case of big offence, small savings
“[Franco-Ontarians] see themselves as under attack from a hostile government run by a Premier, who, at times, seems unaware they even exist. They are further angered by the fact that, when Doug Ford does acknowledge their presence, he lumps them in with other linguistic minorities, ignoring the status of French as one of Canada’s two official languages. The decisions also touched a raw nerve in Quebec. Editorialists and columnists have published a stream of angry articles claiming Ontario’s actions are proof that English Canada doesn’t care about French-speakers outside of Quebec, or is actively hostile to them. One writer even compared it all to the hanging of Louis Riel.” – Globe editorial
My small-town newspaper died a year ago. The community has been grieving ever since
“There’s a perception that small towns never change. But my small town – bucolic St. Marys, Ont. – can now mark the passage of time from one specific day, almost a year ago: Nov. 27, 2017. That day, the St. Marys Journal Argus and more than 20 other community weekly newspapers were suddenly shuttered by Postmedia Network Canada Corp. … When stories, good or bad, are no longer shared, it’s all the easier to believe that nothing changes in a small town. Apathy grows, and communities wither as a result. Earlier this week, as the first anniversary of the death of the Journal approached, the federal government pledged almost $600-million in funding to Canada’s news industry. Hopefully, it will help another small town avoid the same fate as St. Marys. For the Journal Argus, it came too late.” – Andrea Macko, former journalist and columnist from St. Marys
LIVING BETTER
How to have your pasta, and eat it, too
Many people crave comfort foods once the weather gets colder, but you might want to stay away from eating traditional pasta on a regular basis. On the plus side, there are plenty of alternatives that will save you calories and carbohydrates. Shirataki noodles, spaghetti squash, spiralized vegetables and bean pastas are all good bets.
MOMENT IN TIME
Arthur Currie and staff cross the Rhine
For more than 100 years, photographers, photo editors and photo librarians working for The Globe and Mail have amassed and preserved an extraordinary collection of 20th-century news photography. Every Monday, The Globe features one of these images. In November, we’re commemorating 100 years since the end of the First World War.
(Canadian Army Photo)Canadian Army Photo
After the war, Canadian soldiers joined the Allied forces in occupying Germany. On a rainy day in late 1918, General Sir Arthur Currie, seen here on horseback, second from the left, led his men across the Rhine River at Bonn, Germany, to set up headquarters. During the war, Currie insisted Canadian troops fight together under his command instead of being placed under British oversight and had won a series of promotions for his tactical ingenuity. He still had detractors – who argued his strategy involved nothing more than hoping the Germans ran out of bullets before he ran out of men – but he rode high after the war was won. Canadians remained at their posts until early 1919, performing light duties such as guarding bridges and overseeing the movement of people and distribution of food. – Ken Carriere
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Arik Ligeti