Hello,
The second impeachment trial of Donald Trump is now under way.
The House of Representatives impeached Mr. Trump last month, just before his term as president ran up.
Mr. Trump, who will not testify at the Senate trial, is facing charges that he stoked the violent insurrection on Capitol Hill in January.
If convicted, Mr. Trump could be barred from running for office again. However, a two-thirds vote of senators is required to convict him, and only a handful of Republicans are expected to vote against him.
The trial is expected to continue into next week.
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TODAY’S HEADLINES
Two updates today from the Canadian government in the fight against COVID-19: first, Canadians returning to the country by land will soon be required to show a recent negative test or face a fine; and Health Canada has approved a measure that will allow extraction of six doses from each vial of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine instead of the current five.
The federal government also says it will no longer require self-employed Canadians to pay back their Canada Emergency Response Benefit money if they were caught up in the confusion over gross versus net income.
The Conservatives, NDP and security experts say Canada should review or cancel its contract with a Beijing-police-owned company to handle visa applications in China.
Air Canada is continuing layoffs and route suspensions.
And Clerk of the Privy Council Ian Shugart, Canada’s top bureaucrat, is on leave as he receives treatment for cancer.
Jillian Kohler (The Globe and Mail) on how vaccinations play out internationally: “What we are witnessing is hardly a global collective effort to ensure we advance equity of access to COVID-19 vaccines, particularly for the poorest and most vulnerable nations. Instead, the ugly glare of a ‘my-nation-first’ approach does not seem to be dimming any time soon, with clear winners and losers in the global race for COVID-19 vaccine deployment.”
André Picard (The Globe and Mail) on Canada having fewer COVID-19 vaccinations and also fewer COVID-19 deaths: “Canada’s overall pandemic performance has been mediocre – not horrible, not great – and we’re continuing that pattern with vaccination. If nothing else, we’re consistent.”
Chantal Bernier and Rohinton P. Medhora (The Globe and Mail) on the Liberals’ privacy bill: “C-11, instead, restricts the disclosure of such “de-identified” information without knowledge or consent exclusively to a few specified public institutions or an organization mandated by such an institution, for a ‘socially beneficial purpose.’ This essentially cuts out the Canadian private sector from the use of de-identified data for socially beneficial purposes, even with governance structures, such as data trusts, established to address residual privacy risk.”
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Chris Hannay