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Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s national security adviser and three deputy ministers were sent a July 2021 report outlining Chinese-state threats against Conservative MP Michael Chong, but it’s unclear if anyone read the top secret document prepared by Canada’s spy agency, MPs were told Thursday.
National-security adviser Jody Thomas, who was deputy minister of National Defence in 2021, was adamant that Trudeau was unaware of the threat to the MP until The Globe and Mail revealed that Chong was a target on May 1.
He was targeted by Chinese diplomat Zhao Wei, who was expelled from the country shortly after The Globe report. Beijing immediately retaliated, sending home a Canadian diplomat posted in Shanghai.
Jody Thomas, National Security and Intelligence Advisor, waits to appear as a witness before the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs investigating intimidation campaigns against MP Michael Chong and other Members at Parliament Hill in Ottawa, on June 1, 2023.Spencer Colby/The Canadian Press
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Ottawa pledges help for Nova Scotia to fight unprecedented wildfires
Federal Minister of Emergency Preparedness Bill Blair promised extensive support to Nova Scotia on Thursday, saying that the Canadian Armed Forces will provide co-ordination, fire equipment and firefighters to assist with the unprecedented wildfires in the province and relieve those who have been battling the blazes around the clock for the past week.
Four out of control wildfires have forced at least 21,000 people from their houses and burned 200 homes west of Halifax and in the southwestern part of the province, as the largest wildfire in Nova Scotia’s history continued to grow. The massive, unprecedented fire near Barrington Lake in Shelburne County grew to more than 200 square kilometres despite a constant attack of water and fire retardant from water bombers and air tankers.
More than 100 firefighters, many of whom are volunteers, have been battling two unconfined blazes in Shelburne County with little sleep for five days straight.
Read more:
An aircraft disperses a mix of water and fire retardant over a fire near Barrington Lake in Shelburne County, N.S., on May 31, 2023.HO/The Canadian Press
Two women and a child die in Kyiv after running to locked air-raid shelter
Two women and a child were killed by falling debris from a missile attack after running to an air-raid bomb shelter in Kyiv – only to find the door locked. The victims include a 33-year-old woman named Nataliya Belchenko, a nine-year-old girl and the girl’s mother.
Local residents told The Globe and Mail that when the door was finally opened, they found the guard with the key sleeping inside, apparently drunk. Ukrainian media reported that the guard was later arrested.
Fighting continued Friday, with the governor of Russia’s Belgorod region reporting that two people had been killed and two others injured when Ukrainian forces shelled a road in the town of Maslova Pristan near the Ukrainian border.
A woman reacts as she looks at the body of her daughter, who was killed during a Russian missile strike, in Kyiv, Ukraine, June 1, 2023.VALENTYN OGIRENKO/Reuters
Facebook to test blocking Canadians’ access to news in response to Ottawa’s online news bill
Facebook and Instagram will begin to test blocking Canadian users’ from seeing and sharing news on their platforms this month in response to Ottawa’s online news bill.
The tests, which Facebook says will affect randomly selected users and news organizations, raise the stakes over Bill C-18, which is now being examined in the Senate. The tests blocking access to news will affect between 1 and 5 per cent of Facebook’s 24 million users in Canada, as well as some users of Instagram, which is also owned by Meta.
The Facebook logo is seen on a mobile phone, Oct. 14, 2022, in Boston.Michael Dwyer/The Associated Press
Interim director of National Gallery Angela Cassie to depart
Angela Cassie is leaving her post as interim director of the National Gallery of Canada, where she has spent the last year leading a museum that has been undergoing a contentious reimagining.
The announcement comes just days before the gallery is expected to name a new permanent director, its third leader over the past four years of upheaval for both the institution and its staff. The museum announced her departure in a memo to staff this week, a few days after the results of a staff survey came out, which showed significant dissatisfaction, lack of confidence in management and even the perception of harassment among staff.
Angela Cassie is leaving her post as interim director of the National Gallery of Canada, just days before the gallery is expected to name a new permanent director.Handout
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Also on our radar
Ontario to cover one third of Stellantis subsidies, Ford says: Ontario Premier Doug Ford says the province has pledged to cover one-third of the total cost of additional subsidies for automaking giant Stellantis, as he urged Ottawa to secure a deal to prevent the company from moving construction of an electric-vehicle battery plant to the United States.
Ottawa backs $3-billion of debt for Trans Mountain pipeline: Ottawa has backstopped $3-billion more in debt for Crown-owned Trans Mountain Corp.’s delayed and overbudget oil pipeline expansion, but the government maintains its guarantees do not amount to public funding.
With just days to spare, Senate gives final approval to U.S. debt ceiling deal, sending it to Biden: Fending off a U.S. default, the Senate gave final approval late Thursday to a debt ceiling and budget cuts package, grinding into the night to wrap up work on the bipartisan deal and send it to President Joe Biden’s desk to become law before the fast-approaching deadline.
Leading Silicon Valley law firm hunts for Canadian talent: One of Silicon Valley’s largest law firms is on the hunt for Canadian lawyers with tech expertise for a planned Toronto office, the latest northern expansion by major U.S. partnerships.
Sudan peace talks collapse as violence worsens, triggering U.S. sanctions: Ceasefire talks have been suspended and U.S. sanctions have been imposed on military suppliers to both sides in Sudan’s worsening conflict as the fighting escalated to a new peak with scores of civilian casualties in a Khartoum market.
Morning markets
World stocks gain: Global stocks and commodities rose on Friday while the U.S. dollar headed for its biggest weekly drop since January, as sentiment was buoyed by signs the Fed will skip a rate hike at its next meeting and the approval of U.S. debt ceiling legislation. Around 5:30 a.m. ET, Britain’s FTSE 100 was up 0.98 per cent. Germany’s DAX and France’s CAC 40 gained 1.14 per cent and 1.23 per cent, respectively. In Asia, Japan’s Nikkei closed up 1.21 per cent. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng jumped 4.02 per cent. New York futures were positive. The Canadian dollar was higher at 74.55 US cents.
What everyone’s talking about
Drug shortages will happen, but we can avoid shortchanging kids when they do
“Preventing future drug shortages requires an understanding of why this happened to begin with. First and foremost: If you fail to prepare, prepare to fail. With the multitude of challenges during last year’s respiratory illness surge, drug supply simply could not meet demand. And the supply that did exist consisted of drugs that were not intended for children, who require smaller doses tailored to their age and weight and often cannot swallow pills.” – Jonathan Zipursky, Nathan Stall and Eyal Cohen
Ukraine’s right to self-defence is self-evident
“Our only feeble excuse for not backing Ukraine with everything we’ve got is the irrational fear of escalation, amplified worldwide by Moscow’s propaganda war machine – and the bad habits developed at Versailles in 1919, Yalta in 1945 and in countless fora since 1991, by which Moscow has been able to avoid accountability for its pattern of genocide, invasion and war crimes.” – Chris Alexander
Today’s editorial cartoon
Illustration by Brian Gable
Living better
Ten Father’s Day gift ideas for 2023
From a swish pickleball racket to custom hair care, here are 10 ways to spoil the father figures in your life.
Moment in time: June 2, 1983
Stan Rogers dies of smoke inhalation
Stan Rogers’s rich baritone was perfect for his lyrics. Or maybe his lyrics were meant for his voice. Born in Dundas at the west end of Lake Ontario, Mr. Rogers was the oldest son of transplanted Maritimers. Visits to his parents’ families in Nova Scotia instilled in him a love of the region and its rhythms, but most of all, ignited a passion for making music. From putting in another season’s promise in Field Behind the Plow to the hand of Franklin reaching for the Beaufort Sea in Northwest Passage, Mr. Rogers had an uncanny knack for telling textured stories. After performing in Texas, Mr. Rogers was returning home this day on Air Canada Flight 797. An electrical fire in a washroom filled the passenger cabin with toxic smoke and forced an emergency landing at the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky airport. The opening of the plane doors ignited a flash fire that roared through the interior. Mr. Rogers was among the 23 dead. He was 33. The tragedy brought about changes to make aircraft safer, including the installation of washroom smoke detectors, emergency floor lighting and better evacuation procedures. In 1997, the Stan Rogers Folk Festival was launched and runs annually in Canso, N.S. Bill Waiser.
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