Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks at the George Brown College Casa Loma campus in Toronto, on March 23, 2017.FRED THORNHILL/Reuters
CANADIAN NEWS YOU SHOULD KNOW
Canada's national carbon price -- set to rise to $50 a tonne by 2022 -- must rise substantially, perhaps to $220 a tonne, to meet Canada's emission-reduction targets, two leading environmental economists say in a new report.
Justin Trudeau is in the Toronto neighbourhoods of Etobicoke and Scarborough today to continue to promote last week's budget. Yesterday, the Prime Minister defended government aid to Bombardier, even after the company paid executives massive bonuses while laying off workers.
Liberal Members of Parliament have accepted travel sponsored by outside groups -- an apparent conflict with the Prime Minister's ethics code that bars parliamentary secretaries from doing so.
The federal government, still suffering from issues with the Phoenix payment system, is asking public servants to take time off instead of cash payouts.
And Justin Trudeau could learn a thing or two from British Prime Minister Theresa May's marathon question-period session, CBC's Aaron Wherry writes.
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QUOTABLE
"This measure has not excited much interest in the House or in the country." British MP John Bright in 1867, as his colleagues debated letting Canada form its own country with much disinterest.
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WHAT EVERYONE'S TALKING ABOUT
Barrie McKenna (Globe and Mail): "There is plenty in the Trump [NAFTA] wish-list that suggests he's seeking a fundamental overhaul of the rules governing Canada's dominant trade relationship, and the aim is not to make the deal work better for Canadian companies and workers."
Brian Lee Crowley (Globe and Mail): "Many of the same people who find [Kevin] O'Leary's idea of withholding federal transfers from provinces over economic policy disagreements risible are the very people who leap to the barricades to defend Ottawa's unilateral right – nay, duty – to withhold those very transfers should a province dare to contravene the Canada Health Act. Yet health care is indubitably a provincial jurisdiction, while the power to create and sustain a national economy that generates national prosperity properly belongs in Ottawa."
Ashley Csanady (National Post): "The notion that men are unable to contain themselves sexually around women is born of the Biblical fallen and lascivious woman; Until the late 18th century it was actually thought women were the over-sexed gender, and would prey on men, then the Romantic and Victorian eras flipped the script, but to much the same result. Centuries later, we still live in a culture that produces vice-presidents who ardently believe women are a wellspring of possible sin."
Robert Smol (CBC): "We Canadians have what can only be described as a 'colonial mentality' when it comes to defence. This means that we inherently expect the U.S. to make up for the ever-increasing gaps in our military capabilities. And, like the classic enabler, the U.S. unwittingly continues to allow Canada to live its traditional 'middle power' delusion of global significance, while carrying the burden of our defence."
Pamela Palmater (Now Toronto): "This year, the federal government plans to spend half a billion dollars on events marking Canada's 150th anniversary. Meanwhile, essential social services for First Nations people to alleviate crisis-level socio-economic conditions go chronically underfunded. Not only is Canada refusing to share the bounty of its own piracy; it's using that same bounty to celebrate its good fortune. Arguably, every firework, hot dog and piece of birthday cake in Canada's 150th celebration will be paid for by the genocide of Indigenous peoples and cultures."
Lorrie Goldstein (Sun): "l believe we should have open debates in Parliament, and in universities, on these issues, as opposed to demanding resignations and preventing people from speaking if we don't agree with them. Why? Because it will result in better public policy."
Written by Chris Hannay.