Cardinal George Pell speaks to reporters at the Vatican June 29, 2017Reuters
TOP STORIES
Australian police charge top Vatican cardinal with sex offences
Australian police charged a top Vatican cardinal on Thursday with multiple counts of historical sexual assault offences. Cardinal George Pell, Pope Francis' chief financial adviser and Australia's most senior Catholic, is the highest-ranking Vatican official to ever be charged in the church's long-running sexual abuse scandal. It is unclear what allegations the charges announced Thursday relate to, but two men, now in their 40s, have said that Pell touched them inappropriately at a swimming pool in the late 1970s, when Pell was a senior priest in Melbourne. The Catholic Archdiocese of Sydney issued a statement on behalf of Pell, saying the 76-year-old cardinal "strenuously denied all allegations" and would return to Australia to clear his name.
Canada's top court upholds worldwide Google injunction
It started when a small technology business in Burnaby, B.C., called Equustek Solutions Inc., launched a lawsuit; it ended with Google being ordered by the Supreme Court to remove certain websites from its search engine.
Equustek accused another firm of stealing its trade secrets, saying those individuals have fled B.C. and, from an unknown location, are now marketing the stolen technology globally on Google. Equustek then asked Google to de-index the websites of that company and Google refused. The case raised new questions about how much power Canadian courts have over the Internet and its global reach.
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Financial markets are banking on a July 12 rate hike from the Bank of Canada
Higher interest rates from the Bank of Canada may now be just two weeks away after Governor Stephen Poloz said two years of ultra-low rates have "done their job." The loonie moved up almost one cent on the news as financial markets are now pricing in better than two-thirds odds that the central bank will raise its overnight lending rate at its next rate-setting meeting on July 12. If the bank moves, it would be the first hike in seven years.
The B.C. confidence vote is today, and Christy Clark does not like the idea of a minority government
A pivotal confidence vote happens today in British Columbia. The premier, anticipating she will lose the vote of confidence in the House, says she will have no choice but to tell Lieutenant-Governor Judith Guichon that the minority government proposed by the NDP is unworkable.
Ms. Guichon could call another election in response to Clark's remarks, although Clark says she won't advise that. Alternatively, Ms. Guichon could invite NDP Leader John Horgan to form a government. A decision is expected Thursday night.
Ottawa fights to suspend solitary confinement lawsuits
Human-rights groups are putting up a stiff battle against Ottawa as the government fights to keep solitary confinement in federal prisons. The federal Liberal government is arguing its case on multiple legal fronts, including a stance that two landmark court challenges are moot in light of a federal Liberal bill tabled last week.
The B.C. lawsuit alleges that the Correctional Service Canada (CSC) practice of isolating inmates for up to 23 hours a day with no meaningful contact, referred to internally as administrative segregation, is unconstitutional. The trial phase of the suit is scheduled to begin next week.
Meanwhile in Toronto, federal government lawyers are seeking to adjourn a similar but unrelated case, which is scheduled to cross-examine witnesses this week. That lawsuit asserts that administrative segregation should be deemed illegal in several circumstances, including when it exceeds 15 days; when it isolates inmates under the age of 21 or suffering from mental illness; and when there is no independent arbiter.
MORNING MARKETS
The euro surged to its highest in over a year on Thursday, while bond yields and global shares also climbed, as a slew of hawkish comments from central banks signalled the era of easy money might be coming to an end for more than just the United States. Tokyo's Nikkei and the Shanghai composite each gained 0.5 per cent, while Hong Kong's Hang Seng climbed 1.1 per cent. In Europe, London's FTSE 100 was up 0.6 per cent by about 5:05 a.m. (ET), Germany's DAX was up marginally, and the Paris CAC 40 was down 0.4 per cent. New York futures were also up. Oil prices rose to a two-week high, extending a rally into a sixth straight session, after a decline in weekly U.S. production eased concerns about deepening oversupply.
WHAT EVERYONE'S TALKING ABOUT
Today's kids still feel the pressure of gender expectations
"While we've seen enormous social progress over the past couple of decades, including same-sex marriage and growing recognition of the rights of transgendered and gender variant people, in other ways we've become more conservative as a society when it comes to gender expectations and children. Consumerism is where you see this most clearly." – Leah McLaren
In America, the less you know, the cooler you are
"Newspapers keep publishing lists of the President's latest lies. In a speech Mr. Trump gave at an ego-stoking mass rally in Iowa last week, The New York Times found a dozen. Nobody cared. It was consistent with his batting average. Lies aren't news any more. Fiction is to be expected. Fiction wins." – Lawrence Martin
There's opportunity in the death of the oil industry's business model
"Over the past century, this globalization business model was great for Canada. When our basins were immature and Canadian companies were relatively small, foreign companies brought both expertise and capital. Even when the specialized nature of Canada's oil sands did not quite fit the model, foreign oil companies invested because the size of the resource was too good to pass up. Without international investment, our oil industry would have developed at a much slower pace. Unfortunately, Lord Strathcona's business model started to get sick about six years ago and officially died on Jan. 17, 2017." – Adam Waterous, managing partner and CEO of Waterous Energy Fund in Calgary
HEALTH PRIMER
Is organic food elitist?
"Like any good businessperson, I want to charge as much as I can for what I'm selling, especially since what I'm selling is both rare and valuable. You can't find the kind of organic greens we produce on our farm just anywhere. But one of the most common criticisms of organic food is that it's too expensive – that it's elitist and unaffordable. I think this argument is bogus. Canadians spend less of their income on food than anyone else on the planet and a big portion of their food budget goes to things such as brewed coffee and soft drinks that they could easily do without. And why should I charge less for my products than the market will bear? Everyone on our farm works very hard and we deserve to be rewarded for our skill and effort." – Brent Preston
MOMENT IN TIME
Canada learns about the death of the long-form census June 29, 2010: It may be the first ever nationwide scandal about … our census. On this day – three days after the decision was made by the government – the first media report surfaced that Stephen Harper's Conservative government had cancelled Canada's mandatory long-form census. The rationale at the time was that the long form was too intrusive. Instead, it was replaced with a voluntary national household survey. The move prompted an outcry from researchers and policy makers concerned about the loss of data quality, and worries that Canada would no longer be able to tell its own story. It sparked the high-profile resignation of Statistics Canada's chief statistician Munir Sheikh and one academic to call the replacement "garbage." On Nov. 5, 2015, the newly elected Liberal government, in its first order of business, reinstated the mandatory long form, the results of which are being rolled out this year – Tavia Grant
Morning Update is written by Megan Marrelli. If you'd like to receive this newsletter by e-mail every weekday morning, go here to sign up. If you have any feedback, send us a note.