Hello,
More than 150,000 federal public servants are set to go on strike on Wednesday if a deal is not reached with Ottawa by Tuesday night.
The strike by members of the Public Service Alliance of Canada could have a significant impact on public services across the country, including immigration and passport processing, employment insurance claims and tax filings – just as the April 30 deadline to file approaches.
“We are still too far apart on key issues, including wages, job security and remote work language,” union president Chris Aylward told a Monday news conference.
Mr. Aylward said that if no deal is reached by 9 p.m. ET Tuesday, the union will authorize a national general strike involving all its members starting Wednesday at 12:01 a.m.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Monday, soon after Mr. Aylward’s announcement, he was optimistic about an agreement with PSAC, noting talks have been under way for weeks.
“There have been constructive advances and offers and we’re very hopeful that we’re going to be able to resolve this, but it’s at the bargaining table that these things happen, and we will continue to be there in good faith and work on trying to resolve this for all Canadians,” Mr. Trudeau said.
There have been two general strikes by PSAC workers over the last three decades. The first was in 1991, where a strike of 70,000 public sector workers caused delays to flights, cross-border travel and grain shipments. They were legislated back to work by former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney after three weeks.
In 2004, PSAC workers in federal offices, ports, and tax filing centres set up hundreds of picket lines before a deal was reached a few days later.
Vanmala Subramaniam reports here. Meanwhile, there’s a Globe and Mail explainer here on services that would be affected in a strike.
This is the daily Politics Briefing newsletter, written by Ian Bailey. 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.
TODAY'S HEADLINES
OLIVIA CHOW ENTERS TORONTO MAYORAL RACE - Former councillor and three-term Member of Parliament Olivia Chow announced Monday that she was running for mayor of Toronto, saying that her experience in Ottawa would help her secure money for the city from the federal government. Story here.
CBC PAUSES TWITTER USE AFTER BEING TAGGED AS “GOVERNMENT-FUNDED MEDIA” - The day after one of CBC’s Twitter accounts was labelled as “Government-funded Media”, the public broadcaster says it is pausing its use of Twitter. Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre had asked the social media company to add the label to accounts that promote “news-related” content from CBC English but did not ask the same for its French counterpart. Story here.
DONATION TO P.E.T. FOUNDATION DRAWS SCRUTINY TO CHINESE BUSINESSMAN - Zhang Bin, a wealthy Chinese businessman, finds himself in the middle of a controversial 2016 donation to the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation that The Globe and Mail has reported was linked to the Chinese government, allegedly part of Beijing’s meddling in Canadian democratic processes. Story here.
FEDS RESUME HOCKEY CANADA FUNDING - The federal government has resumed funding to Hockey Canada, saying the organization has met reform requirements after facing a series of allegations about players accused of sexual assault and secretive funds to settle sexual-assault claims. Story here.
ELECTIONS CANADA CALLS ON PARTIES TO ADVERTISE LOCATIONS OF FUNDRAISING EVENTS - Elections Canada is insisting that regulated fundraising events be publicly advertised with their precise locations, despite safety concerns raised by the Liberal government and Conservative Opposition. Story here from CBC.
GOVERNMENT URGED TO TAKE SECURITY AND DEFENCE MORE SERIOUSLY - More than 60 of this country’s former top security officials, military commanders and politicians — along with a former top Supreme Court justice — have signed an open letter imploring the Liberal government to take national security and defence more seriously. Story here from CBC.
VANCOUVER FAMILIES USE DUMPSTER DIVING AS FOOD SOURCE - In Vancouver, some families are resorting to dumpster diving to combat high food prices. One proponent of dumpster diving has launched a Facebook group called Dumpster Diving in Metro Vancouver that has more than 2,000 followers and holds regular in-person meet-ups. Story here.
CONCERNS RAISED ABOUT MILITARY GRAVES, CEMETERIES - An internal report by Veterans Affairs Canada is raising red flags over the country’s military graves and cemeteries, warning that more permanent funding is needed to keep them from falling into disrepair. Story here.
ONTARIO LIBERALS TO PICK NEW LEADER IN DECEMBER - The Ontario Liberal Party is set to announce its new leader on Dec. 2. Story here.
THIS AND THAT
TODAY IN THE COMMONS – Projected Order of Business at the House of Commons, April 17 accessible here.
POLITICAL FORECAST - THE WEEK AHEAD - The House of Commons has resumed sitting after a two-week break, meaning MPs are largely back in Ottawa. The House of Commons is now sitting through to May 19, followed by a one-week break. For the record, the Commons breaks for the summer on June 23.
Among the high-profile bills in play is Bill C-11 on online streaming, which would make YouTube and streaming platforms such as Netflix and Disney Plus promote Canadian content (e.g. music, TV and film) and contribute financially to their production. Ottawa Reporter Marie Woolf writes about the legislation here. The bill is now before the Senate.
There will be some high-profile participants in a busy week of committees. Witnesses at a Monday evening session of the standing committee on agriculture and agri-food on the subject of food inflation include Pierre Riel, executive vice-president and chief operating officer of Costco Wholesale International and Canada. (Details here.) On Tuesday, Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem will be at a hearing of the standing committee on finance dealing with a bank report on monetary policy. (Details here.) Google executives Kent Walker, the global affairs president, and Richard Gingras, executive vice-president of news, will be at a Thursday meeting of the Canadian Heritage standing committee on Bill C-18, which would require tech companies like Google and Meta to compensate Canadian news organizations for the content that appears on their platforms. There’s a C-18 Explainer here. The details of Thursday’s hearing, including video link information, are here.
DION PAUSES AID OFFER - Former federal ethics commissioner Mario Dion is having second thoughts about offering mentorship for aspiring senior managers in the federal public service. After five years as commissioner, the veteran public servant stepped down, in February, for health reasons. Since then, he has been posting lively tweets - his account is here - on politics, including his offer of advice. But he has removed the tweet. “Although I was in leadership positions for 35 years, I realize a lot has changed over the years,” he wrote in a social media exchange with the newsletter on Monday. “That’s why I have removed it.” In addition to being ethics commissioner, Mr. Dion’s career included senior posts at Corrections Canada, the justice department, and a chair’s post at the National Parole Board. Still, Mr. Dion wrote on Monday that he is keeping an open mind about the situation. “We will see what happens. I just want to help younger, talented people to succeed.”
MINISTERS ON THE ROAD - International Trade Minister Harjit Sajjan, in Vancouver, also minster responsible for the Pacific Economic Development Agency of Canada, announced funding to help Vancouver organizations enhance tourism experiences and attract visitors. Official Languages Minister Ginette Petitpas Taylor, also minister responsible for the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency , in Riverview, N.B., with New Brunswick Health Minister Bruce Fitch, and Regional Development Corporation Minister Réjean Savoie made an infrastructure announcement.
PRIME MINISTER’S DAY
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, in the Ottawa region, held private meetings, and, with Innovation Minister François-Philippe Champagne, and International Trade Minister Mary Ng announced that the federal government will support an Ericsson Canada project to advance research and development toward next-generation 5G and 6G networks. Later, Mr. Trudeau had a personal commitment in Montreal, his office said.
LEADERS
Jonathan Pedneault, deputy leader of the Green Party of Canada, is in Ukraine, as of Monday, for a seven-day visit to various locations. He is scheduled to meet with Green Party of Ukraine members as well as with local officials, humanitarian workers and human rights activists.
NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh, in Ottawa, held a news conference before attending Question Period. Mr. Singh was scheduled to virtually meet with represenatives of the Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs attend the NDP Northwest Territories nomination meeting, the first NDP nomination meeting this year.
No schedules released for other party leaders.
THE DECIBEL
On Monday’s edition of The Globe and Mail podcast, investigative reporter Tavia Grant talks about going to Peru to look into the effects of missing Canadian oversight. In 2018, Ottawa announced a new watchdog to probe alleged abuses by multinationals. It has yet to complete a single investigation. The Decibel is here.
OPINION
The Globe and Mail Editorial Board on how the tide is turning, but the war on drug overdoses is far from over: “For years, political leaders moved too slowly to grapple with overdose deaths. In the past year, however, after the terrible spike of deaths in the pandemic propelled by an increasingly toxic supply of street drugs, there’s been a renewed policy and funding push, led by B.C. and Alberta. The end goal has to be the successful treatment of individuals who are trapped in the grip of substance-use disorders. It’s a difficult goal, and a long journey for a person to get off dangerous drugs and the merciless grip of strong opioids. But successful treatment – requiring a major investment of public money and health care resources – means one less person exposed to a potential deadly overdose.”
Marcus Gee (The Globe and Mail) on one thing the Ontario government of Doug Ford is doing right: “But there is a second, less-noticed prong of its housing policy. The government is pressing hard to build density around subway, light-rail and GO Transit stations. That makes all kinds of sense. Ontario is in the midst of a huge, multibillion-dollar buildout of its mass transit system. The GO network of regional trains and buses is raising its service levels all the time. New light-rail lines on Eglinton and Finch avenues are nearing completion. Construction is well under way on the government’s signature project, the Ontario Line, a major crosstown subway.”
Abdullah Al Imran (Contributed to The Globe and Mail) on breaking the silence about the 1971 Bangladesh genocide: “More than 50 years after my country was born in blood and repression, it is time for Canada to acknowledge what happened in Bangladesh as the crime against humanity that it was. The Canadian government has formally recognized five instances of genocide abroad: the Armenian genocide, which began during the First World War; the forced famine of Soviet Ukraine, known as the Holodomor, which lasted from 1932 to 1933; the massacre of Jews during the Holocaust; the Rwandan genocide of 1994; and the ethnic cleansing in Bosnia during the 1992-1995 war.”
Janine Benedet and Isabel Grant (Contributed to The Globe and Mail) on how Canada’s permissive assisted-dying culture is devaluing people with disabilities: “When MAID was legalized in 2016, Canadians were assured that the law would protect vulnerable people from outside pressure, including from family members, and that it would be limited to those who could express a settled, informed choice to die after exhausting other options at the end of their lives. We were told MAID would protect against the possibility that individuals claiming to be acting out of mercy would take matters into their own hands. But by expanding MAID to those whose death is not imminent, with few safeguards and only a façade of monitoring, we have reached the point that killing can now be passed off as an extension of caregiving in a Canadian court.”
Richard Fadden (Contributed to The Globe and Mail) on how Canadians need to worry more about defence and security: ”It is beyond reasonable debate that the international environment in which Canada operates is changing in ways that are largely negative. The rise of an increasingly assertive China, Russia acting in total disregard of international law, climate change, and the rise of extremism are but a few examples of how our environment, which many long perceived as comfortable and largely unchanging, has shifted. To what extent have Canadians and our governments acknowledged and reacted to these changes? Not so much.”
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Ian Bailey