Good morning,
These are the top stories:
Ontario has withdrawn support for resettling asylum seekers, escalating a provincial-federal battle
Premier Doug Ford announced Thursday that the Ontario government is revoking its support for refugees seeking asylum in the province. In a statement, Ford blamed Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s federal immigration policy for causing “a housing crisis” and threatening “the services that Ontario families depend on.” Ottawa has allotted $11-million to Ontario to handle added costs of asylum seekers, but the Ford government says Toronto alone, which is currently home to more than 3,000 refugees, could need $75-million. Trudeau responded by saying he doesn’t believe “the Premier was quite as aware of our international obligations to the UN Convention on Refugees as he might have been,” but expressed plans to work with the provincial government on the matter.
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The heat-related death toll in Quebec rose to 33, leaving mainly older, male victims
The seven-day heat wave in Quebec is expected to lift today after killing at least 33 people as of Thursday. The majority were men aged 53 to 85 living alone, with existing health conditions such as schizophrenia or heart disease. Most lived on upper floors of multistorey buildings, where heat rose, causing temperatures of up to 35 C. Most of these homes were located in “heat islands” or regions with vast expanses of concrete and very little green space. The extreme temperatures are expected to taper off today, but Horacio Arruda, Quebec’s director of public health, predicts that “with climate change, heat waves will probably be much more frequent, and we’ll have to adapt.”
Toronto trauma hospitals are responding to the increase in shooting victims coming through their doors
Toronto’s trauma hospitals are treating more and more shooting victims as a result of the spike in violence this year. According to Dr. Glen Bandiera, chief of emergency medicine at St. Michael’s hospital in Toronto, staff normally handle one shooting victim per month—this year, it’s become a weekly occurrence. The emergency department at St. Michael’s follows special protocol for handling shootings, knowing “this is one of the few situations in emergency medicine where time is absolutely critical, where mistakes will make the difference between life and death,” as Dr. Bandiera says. Victims are met by a specialized and highly trained trauma team, while the hospital locks down certain areas and stations police officers in and around the building as needed.
Trudeau acknowledged his role in the 2000 music festival interaction, said he apologized to the woman
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says he does not believe he acted inappropriately at a B.C. music festival 18 years ago, but that he understands the woman he’s alleged to have groped might have seen things differently. An unsigned editorial alleging that he had groped a woman at a B.C. music festival in 2000 surfaced on social media last month. Trudeau spoke publicly about the incident last weekend, but said he did not think anything “negative” happened that day. Speaking to reporters in Toronto on Thursday, Mr. Trudeau said he had reflected on the incident further and understands that the woman involved might have a different view of what happened. He went on to say that the lesson to be learned from the event is that “a man experiences an interaction as being benign or not inappropriate, and a woman, particularly in a professional context, can experience it differently.”
Norman Hardie Winery is facing an alcohol-licensing probe after sexual misconduct allegations
The Ontario winery at the centre of sexual misconduct allegations is under investigation by the Ontario Provincial Police to determine whether winemaker Norman Hardie has complied with alcohol licensing agreements in running his business. One of these agreements requires winemakers to behave “with honesty, integrity, and [the] ability to act in the public interest.” In a statement issued to The Globe and Mail, the vineyard said it remains “confident the regulator will find the business is a safe, harassment-free place to work.” The business also conducted an independent workplace culture audit several months ago – which did not find examples of sexual harassment in the workplace – after learning of The Globe’s investigation. Restaurants and retailers across the country have cut ties with the winery since the story broke.
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IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
More human remains were found at the property where alleged serial killer Bruce McArthur did landscaping work
Police discovered unidentified remains in the area around 4 p.m. on Wednesday, several months after finding the body parts of seven people McArthur has been charged with killing. Hank Idsinga, lead detective on the case, says he hopes the newly discovered remains are that of Majeed Kayhan, the eighth person McArthur has been charged with murdering. Police say they returned to the property in June after ceasing digging in January, when the earth was too cold to fully excavate.
MORNING MARKETS
Stocks mixed
The imposition of tariffs by the United States and China on billions of dollars of trade was absorbed calmly by markets on Friday with stocks edging higher but then turning lower and the euro climbing to a three-week peak, but concerns about the conflict escalating capped gains. Tokyo’s Nikkei gained 1.1 per cent, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng and the Shanghai Composite each rose 0.5 per cent. In Europe, London’s FTSE 100 was down 0.1 per cent by about 6:05 a.m., with Germany’s DAX and the Paris CAC 40 up by less than 0.1 per cent. New York futures were down, though investors are still awaiting the key U.S. jobs report later in the morning. The Canadian dollar is just above 76 US cents.
WHAT EVERYONE’S TALKING ABOUT
Hands off migrants’ DNA
“The government has no real plan for how to reunite the parents and children separated at its southern border. But it’s scrambling to meet a legal deadline to do so – which is why, on Thursday, Health Secretary Alex Azar announced that his agency is taking DNA samples from the kids, to try and match them up with their loved ones ... Collecting the most personal information possible from minors is an ethical non-starter. Genomic data have the potential to work miracles in medical care and law enforcement, but informed consent must be the bedrock of participation.” - Denise Balkissoon
Toronto can look to Vancouver area to see what’s sadly coming next in gun violence
“The truth is, there is often little the police can do about some of the biggest contributing factors to gang involvement. One, for instance, is family. If a kid lives in a home in which the father is physically abusive to the mother, it normalizes violence and shapes the child’s world view. ... But flooding the neighbourhoods with new recruits is unlikely to lead to any quick change. A couple of years ago, the RCMP put 100 new badges on the ground in Surrey to deal with the gang problem and shootings. The fresh recruits had little impact. Gang fighting needs experienced staff, training that takes years to accumulate. Also, swamping the roads with cop cars doesn’t get at the root of the problem. It doesn’t address those formative, early-life negative influences.” - Gary Mason
Why collaborative AI can become a legal minefield
“If Canada is to be a true leader in AI, it is imperative that the legal regime that underpins it provides clear protection for AI innovations and Canadian data that are flowing out of the country. Currently, IP law does not provide a clear answer to key questions: Does a party contributing data really own the data? Who owns the AI algorithms? What other data does the data set depend on and who owns those other data? What rights of use apply to those other data? Is there clear chain-of-title across all the sources of data to the final data set?” - Anthony de Fazekas and Maya Medeiros, intellectual-property partner and patent agents at Norton Rose Fulbright
FILM FRIDAY
Barry Hertz says Leave No Trace, starring Ben Foster and Thomasin McKenzie, is a quiet film with internal moments of profound change, certainly worthy of savouring (three and a half stars).
Johanna Schneller says The First Purge, starring Marisa Tomei, Y’lan Noel, and Lex Scott Davis, is filled with cardboard-thin film tropes, unnecessarily blasted with action every few minutes (two stars).
Brad Wheeler says Always at the Carlyle fails to get to the bottom of anything, a celebrative – rather than an investigative – look at where royalty and the 1 per cent stay (one star).
LIVING BETTER
Running isn’t just exercise, it’s time for me to think
“I’ve been running long distances for 20 years. Like many runners, I am drawn by the quiet, peaceful and rejuvenating aspects of the sport. I am a non-religious person; running is my spirituality. One of my regular routes in Kitchener-Waterloo, Ont., is a 13-kilometre out-and-back run with the turnaround point at the top of a local ski hill. It’s my go-to run when I need to clear my head, think through a difficult problem or just try to make peace with the world.” - Jonathan Finn
MOMENT IN TIME
Tragedy in Lac-Mégantic
Five years ago, the residents of Lac-Mégantic were enjoying the first warm evening of summer, drinking pints of beer on patios and getting lost in conversation when – at 1:15 a.m. – the ground began to shake and a thunderclap echoed through the quaint Quebec town. Thousands of tonnes of speeding locomotives and rail cars filled with oil derailed into the historic core. A fireball and wave of burning oil soon followed, killing 47 people and obliterating the downtown. It was the deadliest rail disaster since Confederation. Canada’s Transportation Safety Board found much had gone wrong that night: too few brakes were set by the one-man crew, the train was left unattended, the safety procedures and tank cars were antiquated. Some new rules on staffing have been implemented in response. The railway at the centre of the disaster went bankrupt, but has re-emerged under a new name. The only people to face charges after the derailment were acquitted in January. As the town continues its rebuilding, trains are once again rumbling through Lac-Mégantic, but Ottawa has pledged to build a bypass by 2022 that would take rail traffic away from the downtown area. – Justin Giovannetti
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