Politics Briefing: House of Commons votes on China genocide motion

Hello,

The House of Commons is set to declare China’s persecution of the Uyghur minority a genocide today, a move that Conservatives say will send a strong message to Beijing.

However, the Liberal cabinet is expected to abstain or not be present for the vote.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has said he is reluctant to use the politically charged term of “genocide” without more investigation, though he acknowledges that there are human rights abuses in Xinjiang province.

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TODAY’S HEADLINES

Mr. Trudeau and U.S. President Joe Biden will hold their first official bilateral meeting on Tuesday by videoconference. Among other things, the Canadian government is sure to press the Biden administration on improving access to American-made COVID-19 vaccines and possibly reconsidering the opposition to the Keystone XL pipeline, neither of which file has gone Canada’s way.

Canada is set to receive its largest shipment of COVID-19 vaccines yet – 640,000 – this week after a dry few weeks.

The Ontario government is set to introduce new legislation to fight human trafficking, including new obligations for businesses that come into contact with possible victims. A new report released Monday shows the extent to which human trafficking continues in Canada under the radar.

As the House of Commmons defence committee begins to look at allegations of sexual misconduct by General Jonathan Vance, the former top soldier, Major Kellie Brennan told Global News that she had a sexual relationship with him while he was her superior. Gen. Vance has acknowledged he had a relationship with Maj. Brennan early in his career, but said it ended when he was promoted up the ranks.

Time to polish up your résumé because the government is hiring for a new Supreme Court justice.

The U.S. Supreme Court rebuffed former president Donald Trump’s efforts to stop New York state investigators from obtaining his tax records, which have never been publicly disclosed.

And how Anita Anand, an accomplished Toronto-area law professor, rose from political unknown to one of the most important Liberal ministers during the pandemic.

Jillian Horton (The Globe and Mail) on how hard the pandemic has been on healthcare workers: “Health care workers use metaphors all the time, including the well-worn, ‘We’re drowning.’ Of course, we aren’t literally drowning. But there is a feeling that we are slowly descending beneath the surface of something dark and ominous, that things will not be the same when we surface. We have lost our sense of what is normal, our equilibrium. We have become unmoored.”

David Parkinson (The Globe and Mail) on why Alberta needs a sales tax: “But the problem is not just that resource royalties have shrunk; they are also notoriously unstable, and always were. As the report notes, most years in the past two decades, the province’s royalty revenue swung up or down more than $1-billion; eight times in those 20 years, the swing has been more than $3-billion. That’s dreadful for fiscal planning – particularly for a government that says it wants a long-term investment strategy to foster economic growth, as Mr. Kenney talks about.”

Rita Trichur (The Globe and Mail) on what Ottawa can do to fight financial crime: “Safe-harbour provisions are useful because they provide clarity to banks about what types of information can be lawfully shared about their clients. Currently, that type of protected information sharing is extremely limited in Canada. The Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act provides a safe harbour for information sharing in cases of fraud and terrorism. Oddly, though, those same protections do not apply in instances of money laundering, human trafficking and child exploitation. Even stranger: The federal government still hasn’t committed to making those changes even though it is updating our aging privacy law.”

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