Hello,
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will address the nation in an broadcast tomorrow night. The address will follow the Speech from the Throne, which will be delivered by Governor-General Julie Payette on Wednesday afternoon and will lay out the federal government’s plans for dealing with the immediate and longer-term impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Broadcasters are also making arrangements for Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole to speak, following Mr. Trudeau.
The speeches come as public-health officers are warning that there is a sudden surge in cases of the novel coronavirus in many places across the country.
Speaking of COVID-19, the NDP says it isn’t right for MPs to have access to private testing while regular Canadians have to wait in long lines for publicly funded tests.
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TODAY’S HEADLINES
Today is the first day of Supreme Court hearings on the constitutionality of the federal carbon-pricing system. The first questions to provincial lawyers from the judges pushed back on the question of how the country can fight climate change if individual provinces can opt out.
Canada is accused of violating domestic and international law for exporting targetting systems to the Turkish military, which is currently carrying out air strikes that are killing some civilians.
Canada’s ambassador to China, Dominic Barton, says that despite recent difficulties in relations between the two countries, there are still a lot of opportunities for Canadian businesses in China.
Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, the Canadian government handed out $18-million in emergency loans to help stranded Canadians get home – and, six months later, the government is coming to collect.
The federal government has backed up the Mi’kmaq First Nation’s treaty rights to fish in their traditional territory. Non-Indigenous fishermen have been protesting the lobster fishing in St. Marys Bay, N.S.
The Alberta government is urging the federal government to make the RCMP fulfill Clare’s Law, legislation passed in some provinces that allows police to warn those at high risk of domestic abuse about an offender’s history.
The federal and Ontario governments are working with Ford and Unifor to get new funding for auto plants in Windsor and Oakville.
The pandemic is making it more difficult to play a state funeral for former prime minister John Turner.
Independent senators want their new way of working enshrined into law.
And meet the man behind the colourful “Canadian Armed Forces working in the United States” Twitter account.
Adam Radwanski (The Globe and Mail) on the federal carbon tax, the compromises and the court case: “The problem is also that this latest compromise, and some of the messaging that comes with it in [Environment Minister Jonathan] Wilkinson’s letter and other federal channels, adds to the instability that impedes the economic upside that carbon pricing is supposed to have.”
John Ibbitson (The Globe and Mail) on demographics and the increasing challenge of balancing the budget: “This means that, over the coming decades, federal spending on pensions and other supports for seniors will steadily increase, even as the working-age share of the population – the share that pays most of the taxes – falls from 67 per cent today to below 60 per cent by 2068.”
Shachi Kurl (Ottawa Citizen) on how the WE controversy has affected Canada’s charity sector: “There has never been a worse time for a national embarrassment such as the now-cancelled deal between the Trudeau government and WE to sow doubt in the minds of donors. 2020 has already resulted in a devastating double hit to charities. At a time when the health, economic and emotional effects of the pandemic have arguably increased the need for the help they provide more than ever, the coronavirus has badly blunted Canadians' ability to give.”
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Chris Hannay