Hello,
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has lost control of his country’s Parliament over objections to the possibility of a no-deal Brexit. Mr. Johnson will now push for a snap election, although he needs to rally two-thirds of MPs behind him to trigger one – a vote made even more challenging by the fact that he has expelled from caucus 21 Conservative MPs who voted against him.
Mr. Johnson did win one victory today, though: a Scottish court said his move to prorogue Parliament was legally sound.
This is the daily Politics Briefing newsletter, written by Chris Hannay. It is available exclusively to our digital subscribers. If you’re reading this on the web, subscribers can sign up for the Politics newsletter and more than 20 others on our newsletter signup page. Have any feedback? Let us know what you think.
Editor’s note: There have been some recent changes in the team covering federal politics in The Globe and Mail’s Ottawa bureau. This summer, veteran journalists Gloria Galloway and Shawn McCarthy retired after long and distinguished careers. We are very happy to welcome Kristy Kirkup (recently of the Canadian Press) and Marieke Walsh (recently of iPolitics) to The Globe and Mail’s team. You will begin to see their bylines on our stories, particularly as we head into the fall campaign.
TODAY’S HEADLINES
Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam has withdrawn the extradition bill that triggered the wave of pro-democracy protests earlier this year. However, the protests have snowballed to such a degree over the last few months that it’s not clear whether they will end just because the bill has been pulled.
Former prime minister Joe Clark is touring Africa this week to stump for Canada’s campaign to win a seat on the United Nations Security Council next year. Former Quebec premier Jean Charest is doing the same in the Caribbean this week.
The U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement appears to be no closer to getting ratified by the U.S. Congress, even after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi talked yesterday to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
The Bank of Canada has left its key interest rate unchanged at 1.75 per cent this morning. However, the bank warned of economic headwinds to come. “As the U.S-China conflict has escalated, world trade has contracted and business investment has weakened,” the central bank said in a statement.
A fiscal review commissioned by Alberta Premier Jason Kenney said the provincial government should slash its spending, including closing some hospitals, in order to balance the budget.
A group representing Canadian manufacturers says the federal parties need to state during the campaign what they plan to do about labour shortages in the skilled trades.
Women are on track to make up a historic number of the candidates running in this fall’s election. But how many will actually be elected? A CBC/Radio-Canada analysis of candidates who ran in the 2008, 2011 and 2015 federal elections points to systemic gender bias in determining where male and female candidates run. The analysis found that so-called stronghold ridings – ones in which a party raised a lot of funds and was nearly guaranteed a win – were overwhelmingly represented by men. Female candidates were more likely to run in ridings where they didn’t have as much of a chance of winning.
The New Democrats, who have nominated only a little over half of their slate of candidates for the election, say all the remaining nominations will be wrapped up in the next week and a half. Also, the party unveiled a new video ad in Quebec this week that depicts leader Jagmeet Singh with his hair down, an attempt to address any concern Quebeckers have with the fact that Mr. Singh wears a turban as part of his Sikh faith.
And Green Party Leader Elizabeth May says that, in the event she held the balance of power in a hung parliament, she would not support other parties if their emission-reduction plans are not up to snuff. (At the moment, she says, they are not.)
Denise Balkissoon (The Globe and Mail) on Justin Trudeau’s appearance on Patriot Act: “The PM seemed unprepared to spar with a graduate of the no-holds-barred Daily Show. Although the intro set him up as gregarious and charismatic, the incumbent Prime Minister came across as humourless and inflexible, as well as surprised at the sharpness of the host’s jabs.”
Lawrence Martin (The Globe and Mail) on the U.S.-China trade war: “Over recent months, the global giants seemed to be edging closer to a new trade accord. With so much at stake, there was confidence it would happen. But the sides have grown further apart, and the conflict is reaching the stage where it will be harder to pull back. The question is: which side will blink? The fear is that neither will.”
John Ibbitson (The Globe and Mail) on the behaviour of political leaders: “Politics is a rough business, and Twitter is a home for extreme views. But no leader of a Canadian political party has gone as far as [Maxime] Bernier in demonizing his opponents. Why is he doing it? Because it works. Trashing unwritten rules and constitutional conventions is all the rage these days.”
Murray Mandryk (Saskatoon StarPhoenix) on political mud-slinging: “Maybe it only seems worse because today’s world is fuelled by incendiary social media. Confined to its own echo chambers, it made dangerous bombs waiting to explode. Whatever the case, it was discontentment for the sake of discontentment. We deserved better from our politicians.”
Max Fawcett (Maclean’s) on why more Albertans should vote for non-Conservative parties, too: “Asking an Albertan to vote for Trudeau in 2019 is a bit like asking an ardent Hillary Clinton supporter to vote for Donald Trump in 2020. But as long as Albertans reflexively vote Conservative at the federal level, they are inviting said federal Conservatives to take their votes for granted and focus on winning the ones in relatively vote-rich Quebec and Ontario.”
Got a news tip that you’d like us to look into? E-mail us at tips@globeandmail.com. Need to share documents securely? Reach out via SecureDrop
Chris Hannay