Hello,
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today cleared the way for Florida’s first-in-the-country plan to import prescription drugs from Canada, a long-sought approach to accessing cheaper medications that follows decades of frustration with U.S. drug prices.
Republican Governor Ron DeSantis signed the plan into law in 2019, but it required federal review and approval by the FDA, which controls prescription-drug imports.
President Joe Biden has backed such programs as a way to lower prices, signing an executive order in 2021 that directed the FDA to work with states on imports.
The FDA is likely to face legal challenges over the decision, which the pharmaceutical industry’s trade group called “a serious danger to public health.”
“We are deeply concerned with the FDA’s reckless decision to approve Florida’s state importation plan,” Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America said in a statement Friday.
Many people already buy at least some of their medicines from pharmacies in Canada or Mexico, although technically it’s illegal to import them.
Full story here.
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TODAY’S HEADLINES
Liberals pick candidate for O’Toole by-election who first tried running for Tories - Robert Rock, the Liberal candidate in a pending by-election in the Ontario riding of Durham, praised the leadership of federal Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre less than a year ago when expressing interest in the Tory nomination contest that lawyer Jamil Jivani ultimately won.
Ottawa confirms a third of Accenture employees working on CEBA are based in Brazil - The situation comes despite the government earlier saying that nearly all of the employees were in Canada.
Initial foreign interference inquiry hearings to weigh confidentiality of information - In a public notice, the inquiry says the five days of hearings on national security and confidentiality of information, to begin Jan. 29, will help set the stage for the next public hearings, likely at the end of March.
Two New Brunswick men acquitted of 1983 murder after convictions were overturned - Last month, federal Justice Minister Arif Virani ordered a new trial for the two men, saying there’s “a reasonable basis to conclude that a miscarriage of justice likely occurred.” Story here.
Canada’s job growth stalls in December, while wages accelerate - The number of people employed was effectively unchanged in December as the unemployment rate remained steady at 5.8 per cent, Statistics Canada reported today.
Sentencing hearing continues today for man found guilty in attack on Muslim family - Nathaniel Veltman was found guilty of four counts of first-degree murder and one count of attempted murder for hitting the Afzaal family with his truck while they were out for a walk in 2021. Story here. On Thursday, relatives in the extended family said Veltman’s attack left them traumatized, depressed and fearful.
SIU investigating death of Thunder Bay woman after police fail to respond to 911 calls - Family members have identified the woman who died as 21-year-old Jenna Sapporah Ostberg, a member of Bearskin Lake First Nation and a recent graduate of the College Access Program at Confederation College.
Liberal Karina Gould thrives in political role as she prepares to embrace a domestic one - During a fall parliamentary sitting that often looked out of control, political insiders say Government House Leader Karina Gould was a steady thorn in her opponents’ sides.
Trudeau given free stay at $9,300-a-night luxury Jamaican villa over Christmas holidays - The resort is owned by the family of Peter Green, a businessman with ties to Justin Trudeau’s family, dating back to the 1970s through his late father, Pierre Elliott Trudeau. Story here.
Former BC cabinet minister looking to advocate for victims of gender-based violence - Katrina Chen, central to rolling out the BC NDP government’s affordable child-care program, ruled out cabinet promotion saying she was struggling with the trauma of gender-based violence, and is now not seeking re-election. Story here.
Can 22 Minutes’ Chris Wilson keep riding Canada’s love-hate relationship with Pierre Poilievre (and that Trudeau guy too) up the property ladder? - After a few years as a writer and featured performer on CBC’s This Hour Has 22 Minutes, the sketch comedian was elevated to full-time cast member this season – based in part on a pitch-perfect impression of Pierre Poilievre, the leader of the opposition.
THIS AND THAT
Commons and Senate on a break – The House of Commons is on a break until Jan. 29. The Senate sits again on Feb. 6.
Ministers on the Road - In the New Brunswick city of Dieppe, Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc and Veterans Affairs Minister Ginette Petitpas Taylor participated in an announcement to extend a boulevard with $42-million in federal, provincial and municipal spending.
A Nation’s Paper - Globe and Mail reporter at large John Ibbitson reports on the launch of a new Globe and Mail essay project:
Saturday will mark the debut of A Nation’s Paper, a collection of essays developed and written over two years, involving dozens of writers, editors and researchers, exploring the role this newspaper has played in the progress of our nation since George Brown founded The Globe 180 years ago.
The essays, which will appear over the course of this year, cover environmental and women’s issues, Indigenous issues, immigration, the LGBTQ community, the place of Quebec within Canada, foreign coverage, sports and arts coverage, and much more.
They will also be published as a book this fall by Signal/McClelland & Stewart: A Nation’s Paper: The Globe and Mail in the Life of Canada. Royalties will be donated to Journalists for Human Rights.
PRIME MINISTER'S DAY
Justin Trudeau is back in Ottawa after a vacation in Jamaica, but has no public events scheduled.
LEADERS
Green Party Leader Elizabeth May attended private meetings in Ottawa.
No schedules released for other party leaders.
THE DECIBEL
On today’s edition of The Globe and Mail podcast, the Globe’s Senior International Correspondent, Mark MacKinnon, explains what has happened in the Israel-Hamas war in the past week, with a focus on four events and how the war is ratcheting up geopolitical pressures. The Decibel is here.
TRIBUTE
Mary Dawson - Canada’s first federal ethics commissioner died late last month, aged 81. Obituary here.
John Godfrey - The former MP, cabinet minister and Financial Post editor - a few of many accomplishments - died in December, a day before his 81st birthday. Obituary here.
PUBLIC OPINION
2023 was a historically bad year for Justin Trudeau and the federal Liberals - Nik Nanos, chief data scientist at Nanos Research and the official pollster for The Globe and Mail and CTV News, takes a Data Dive on the issue here.
OPINION
The Globe and Mail Editorial Board on when protests become acts of intimidation: “Police and public officials have been remarkably tolerant of the demonstrators who have periodically occupied Avenue Road at Highway 401 in Toronto to protest the Israeli government’s attacks in Gaza against Hamas. They weren’t protesting in front of the Israeli consulate, some nine kilometres to the south, or at a familiar gathering place such as Nathan Phillips Square at City Hall. They chose to make themselves seen and heard in a prominent Jewish-Canadian neighbourhood. This is not protest. This is intimidation.”
Kelly Cryderman (The Globe and Mail) on how Ottawa has itself to blame for Saskatchewan’s outlawish threats: “Just three years after the Liberals’ carbon-pricing victory at the Supreme Court, the affordability crisis is hitting hard, and they’re losing hearts and minds. The fact is there are now two classes of home-heating payees in the country, based on a Liberal political calculation, and that will continue to tear away at the legitimacy of the policy. Even Canadians outside the province might look with indifference at, or even side with, roguish Saskatchewan on this one.”
Gary Mason (The Globe and Mail) on how Canada’s housing crisis is leaving many seniors out in the cold - literally: “The housing crisis we hear so much about focuses mostly on the need for affordable places for young families to live. What we hear about less is the effect that skyrocketing rents are having on our senior population. It’s a burgeoning crisis, if not a full-blown one already. B.C.’s seniors advocate, Isobel Mackenzie, said in a recent interview with The Canadian Press that the consequences of rising rents were “catastrophic” for a growing number of older people in the province, putting a number of them at risk of being homeless, if they were not already living outdoors or under tenuous circumstances. Many seniors who rent have been renters all their lives. But for most of those years, these folks did not have to endure the types of rent increases we are seeing today.”
Konrad Yakabuski (The Globe and Mail) on how the Liberals are running out of time to Poilievre-proof the CBC: “There is a still a solid case to be made for a public broadcaster that offers programming that private media will not or cannot provide. The Liberals could get behind an ad-free CBC that returned to its roots with programming that appealed to Canadians as citizens instead of going even further down market. There was a time when the CBC provided a forum for rich and spirited democratic debate, where experts and ordinary citizens holding diverse points of view could express them freely. Those days are long over. But a reimagined CBC could still play a unifying role in Canadian democracy.”
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Ian Bailey