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Jody Wilson-Raybould and Jane Philpott reflect on the SNC-Lavalin affair
In their first one-on-one interviews since being expelled from the Liberal caucus, the former star cabinet ministers pulled no punches. Here’s what Wilson-Raybould and Philpott told The Globe’s Robert Fife and Laura Stone, respectively. (for subscribers)
Wilson-Raybould: “I do regret that the Prime Minister never took responsibility. I do regret that the Prime Minister never apologized to Canadians or never listened or looked at the evidence that was presented. If the Prime Minister had accepted responsibility and apologized to Canadians, we would not be in the situation we are in.”
The former attorney-general also addressed Justin Trudeau’s initial denial of The Globe’s original Feb. 7 report that the Prime Minister’s Office had put pressure on her to help SNC-Lavalin avoid criminal prosecution. Trudeau’s response was “not consistent with the truth,” Wilson-Raybould said.
She also said she “didn’t have an endgame” when she opted to resign from cabinet and testify. “I literally was just doing my job and I believe was penalized for doing my job.”
Philpott: “There is a potential that this could backfire, in a way that may not make Liberals happy.”
The former Treasury Board president said she believed Trudeau’s decision to expel her was “a mistake” that doesn’t “necessarily reflect well on the party.”
Philpott also reiterated her belief in Wilson-Raybould’s view of the PMO pressure, and said she was disappointed by the “inadequate opportunity to discuss alternative views on really important topics.”
Still, Philpott said she supports Trudeau, his government and his policies except for the way the SNC affair has been handled. And she said she still considers Trudeau a feminist, saying: “He has fought very hard for women’s rights, and he deserves credit for that.”
On that front, Trudeau was met with protest in the House of Commons yesterday. Roughly 50 women in attendance as part of a program to boost female leadership in politics stood and turned their backs on the Prime Minister as he spoke. “I believe that to be a feminist you need to have actions behind your words,” delegate Megan Metz told reporters.
For his part, the Prime Minister defended his feminist credentials, telling the House that “diversity only works if there is trust, and within a team when that trust gets broken we have to figure out how to move forward.”
And in SNC news, Canada’s federal export agency has retained legal counsel to review an insurance policy it underwrote on SNC’s behalf in 2011. The CBC reported that an SNC employee alleged portions of loans the Quebec firm received from the Crown corporation were intended to pay bribes.
In the opinion section
The Globe’s editorial board says the effort by Trudeau’s camp to make the SNC affair all about Wilson-Raybould misses the point: “If the rule of law means anything, politicians, political staff and even the Prime Minister cannot have a hand in deciding who gets charged and who doesn’t, or who gets a plea agreement and who goes to trial. It’s hard to overstate how important this is. It’s deeper than the Charter of Rights, and far older. It’s foundational.”
And Campbell Clark offers this view: “Trudeau is the politician known for his EQ – emotional intelligence. He emotes. He has empathy. But the SNC-Lavalin affair underlined his surprising weakness in handling key relationships – the professional relationships with his own ministers.” (for subscribers)
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Uyghur activists are calling on Ottawa to impose sanctions on Chinese officials
Representatives from the World Uyghur Congress want the federal government to take a tougher stand against China over its detention of as many as one million members of minority groups in internment camps.
“There is some kind of fear … that we have in Canada because our relationship with China is not that rosy,” said Mehmet Tohti, referring to the rift over the arrest of Huawei’s Meng Wanzhou that’s seen two Canadians jailed in China since December.
“What we [Canada] are doing right now is exactly how the Chinese government wants us to act − in fear, without making any move, just totally taken hostage by the Chinese detention of these Canadians,” Tohti said.
Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland wouldn’t say whether Canada would consider imposing sanctions on Chinese human-rights abusers. Canada has previously raised concerns about China’s treatment of ethnic minorities, but most of those efforts took place before Meng’s arrest.
Ethiopian Max 8 suffered persistent nose-diving, report says
Despite following all of Boeing’s recommended procedures, Ethiopian Airlines pilots were unable to prevent the “persistence” of “nose diving” by the Boeing Max 8 airplane that crashed and killed 157 people last month, according to newly released summaries of a preliminary investigation, The Globe’s Geoffrey York reports.
The airline and the Ethiopian government, both citing the latest report by safety investigators, said the air crew had repeatedly struggled to control the aircraft and had fully complied with all of the emergency procedures provided by Boeing and approved by U.S. regulators, yet had been unable to halt the persistent diving by the Boeing 737 Max 8 aircraft.
The cost of your phone bill: Major carriers are sparring with the Competition Bureau
The Competition Bureau wants big players like Rogers and Telus to hand over detailed information about revenue, subscribers, market share and profitability. But carriers are pushing back, complaining about the volume of the data requested. (for subscribers)
The request comes as the CRTC gets ready to examine measures to promote competition and reduce consumer costs. The telecom regulator has already offered an initial view that major carriers should be forced to rent network access to smaller companies who could then resell the service, a move that could help bring prices down.
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ALSO ON OUR RADAR
Alberta’s United Conservative Party Leader Jason Kenney has opted to keep a candidate who made homophobic comments on the ballot in this month’s provincial election. Kenney said Mark Smith’s 2013 comments were “offensive” but that he has apologized. Smith had said, among other things, that TV portrayals of LGBTQ relationships as “good love” are problematic. (Interested in more news about the Alberta election? Sign up for our Western Canada newsletter)
Joe Biden has responded to complaints about inappropriate touching at political events, saying he’ll be “more mindful about respecting personal space in the future.” Several women have alleged that Biden, who’s heavily rumoured to be putting his name in the hat for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, made them feel uncomfortable with actions they said included a kiss on the head.
The Southeast Asian country of Brunei has imposed new laws that punish gay sex and adultery by stoning offenders to death. Celebrities including George Clooney and Ellen DeGeneres have called for a boycott of hotels in the U.S. and Europe with ties to the Sultan of the nation, home to 430,000 people.
MORNING MARKETS
Markets mixed
European and Asian shares stepped back from eight-month highs on Thursday, as investors took money off the table amid fresh concerns about U.S.-China trade talks and as dire data from Germany signalled trouble for Europe. Tokyo’s Nikkei was flat while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng was down 0.1 per cent. The Shanghai Composite was 0.9 per cent higher. In Europe, London’s FTSE 100 was down 0.5 per cent at about 6:30 a.m. ET, with Germany’s DAX marginally higher and the Paris CAC 40 down 0.2 per cent. New York futures were down. The Canadian dollar was at 74.88 US cents.
WHAT EVERYONE’S TALKING ABOUT
Overdose-prevention sites are a matter of life or death. Ontario’s government has made its choice
Carlyn Zwarenstein: “The Ford government is effectively privatizing a life-saving service during a public-health emergency by forcing caring Ontarians to crowd-fund to keep it going – and in Alberta, United Conservative Party Leader Jason Kenney appears to be watching closely. It looks a tiny bit like gutting public-health services, starting with Ontario’s most marginalized.” Carlyn Zwarenstein is the author of Opium Eater: The New Confessions and a Toronto writer.
Climate change is more expensive than the carbon tax
Denise Balkissoon: “A scenario in which we don’t pay to slow down climate change, and also don’t pay to deal with its effects, is imaginary. Stabilizing the climate means reducing the amount of carbon that humans pump into the atmosphere and oceans, a complicated process that won’t be free. That said, it doesn’t have to be ruinous. There’s even money to be made, but the longer we wait, the more expensive it’s all going to get.” (for subscribers)
Women’s sport needs time to carve out a niche. The CWHL didn’t get a fair shot
M. Ann Hall: “The naysayers jumped right in with unhelpful suggestions, the gist of which was that women’s hockey was an inferior product, probably no better than the hockey played in rinks across the country by teenage boys. Women’s hockey generated little public interest because it simply was not entertaining. We’ve heard this narrative before. But there are examples that when women’s professional sports are given a chance to flourish, they can become both an economic success and a hit with fans.” M. Ann Hall is the author of several books about the history of women’s sport including The Girl and the Game: A History of Women’s Sport in Canada.
TODAY’S EDITORIAL CARTOON
(Brian Gable/The Globe and Mail)Brian Gable/The Globe and Mail
LIVING BETTER
What to watch: Veep, Hanna and ReMastered
Critic John Doyle praises Veep, the political satire starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus currently in its seventh and final season. Full of crassness, cynicism and blistering humour, it’s the best and most relevant comedy on TV.
Hanna, a new series from Amazon Prime Video, is very entertaining, Doyle writes. But it’s also ridiculously uneven, an example of the wobbly quality of many series on streaming services.
At the heart of the Brexit mess is the fate of the Irish border. And a new Netflix documentary, ReMastered: The Miami Showband Massacre, looks back at how that border was part of a murderous plan concocted by British intelligence in 1975.
(for subscribers)
MOMENT IN TIME
World Trade Center opens in New York
(Dmitri Kessel/The LIFE Images Collection/Getty Images)Dmitri Kessel/The LIFE Images Collection/Getty Images
April 4 1973: They went up, 1,350 feet to the clouds. The two spires of the World Trade Center were bold gestures toward the future – some kind of future, for an ailing city whose industry was eroding. At the ribbon-cutting, on a rainy Wednesday, New York’s governor Nelson Rockefeller said the complex would “enable the Port of New York to retain its accustomed place as the major capital of world commerce.” That failed: The longshoremen would not return. But the towers would acquire their own symbolic power. The design by architect Minoru Yamasaki embodied a strange duality. From a distance, the towers were monolithic; they loomed on the skyline with none of the playfulness or flair of the Empire State Building. And yet up close, they revealed an ornate aluminum skin that drifted down into tree-like forms at the street. The New York Times critic Ada Louise Huxtable described them as “the daintiest big buildings in the world.” As such, they became awkward but steady symbols of the city. Symbols that would be profoundly transformed, less than 30 years later, when they would so brutally and suddenly come down. – Alex Bozikovic
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Arik Ligeti