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WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW
Liberal MP says Wilson-Raybould might have lost justice post because she doesn’t speak French
Anthony Housefather, the Liberal MP who will chair hearings into the Jody Wilson-Raybould affair, told a Montreal radio station today that Ms. Wilson-Raybould might have been moved out of the roles of attorney general and justice minister because she does not speak French. As Steven Chase reports this afternoon, Mr. Housefather was addressing allegations that Ms. Wilson-Raybould was moved out of the justice portfolio over her refusal to shelve a prosecution against Montreal construction giant SNC-Lavalin. He said Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has the right to choose who is in what cabinet post and there could be several reasons why people are shuffled. “For example ... there’s a lot of legal issues coming up in Quebec and the Prime Minister may well have decided he needed a justice minister that could speak French,” Mr. Housefather said.
Meanwhile, also out of The Globe’s Ottawa bureau, Bill Curry reports that eight Indigenous senators have released a joint letter of support for Jody Wilson-Raybould following her resignation. Six of the eight senators were appointed by Mr. Trudeau, who reiterated yesterday that he was “puzzled” as to why Ms. Wilson-Raybould resigned from cabinet.
Also on the file today, columnist Elizabeth Renzetti wonders what happened to our “feminist” Prime Minister, writing that the Trudeau government, “which branded itself as women’s champions ... made a colossal error in hanging out to dry the first Indigenous woman to be named justice minister.”
This story continues to develop. For all of the background and context you’ll need to understand the myriad threads, read our explainer: SNC-Lavalin, Jody Wilson-Raybould and Trudeau’s PMO: The story so far. It lays out why SNC-Lavalin is facing prosecution, what happened to Ms. Wilson-Raybould and what the reaction has been so far.
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Senate leader says Trump will sign funding bill but will also declare a national emergency
U.S. news organizations are reporting that President Donald Trump intends to sign a funding bill that will ensure the U.S. government does not shut down on Friday, but will also declare a national emergency so that he can access money and labour to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.
Federal lawyer tells carbon tax hearing greenhouse gases don’t have borders
The federal government presented arguments in Regina where the province of Saskatchewan has asked the Appeal Court to rule whether a federal carbon tax is constitutional. The province argues it is not because the tax isn’t being applied equally across the country, the Canadian Press reports. A lawyer for the Attorney General of Canada argued the federal carbon tax is a benchmark against which provinces establish their own carbon-pricing plan.
Saskatchewan, New Brunswick, Ontario and Manitoba do not have their own carbon-pricing plan and will be subject to Ottawa’s tax starting in April. The federal government’s carbon price starts at a minimum at $20 a tonne and rises $10 each year until 2022. The federal government says it can levy a carbon tax because climate change and greenhouse gas emissions affect everyone in Canada and are a national concern.
Escape from New York: Amazon abandons plans to build HQ2 in Queens
Vocal opposition from local politicians, including newly elected congressional representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, over the planned US$2.8-billion in incentives promised to Amazon has forced the company to change plans. The online retailer issued a statement today saying it will not move forward with a plan, negotiated by New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, to build a headquarters in New York. The company said it does not plan to reopen the search process and instead will focus on its 17 corporate offices and tech hubs in the United States and Canada.
Frank Stronach’s granddaughter joins family feud, files suit against aunt Belinda
Eighteen-year-old Selena Stronach has filed suit against her aunt Belinda Stronach, who is currently running the family’s billion-dollar businesses. As Andrew Willis reports, the younger Ms. Stronach went to court last week with a suit aimed at maintaining a jet-set lifestyle and limiting the role of her aunt. She asked the Ontario Superior Court of Justice to ensure that Belinda Stronach “pay or reimburse Selena for personal expenses that have historically been paid or reimbursed on her behalf through the trusts and/or The Stronach Group.”
Telus warns of ‘material’ risk if Ottawa bans Huawei
Telecom company Telus Corp. filed its fourth quarter financial results today and warned that if the federal government’s cybersecurity review ends up banning Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. from 5G networks in Canada, it could have “a material, non-recurring, incremental increase in the cost of Telus’ 5G network deployment and, potentially, the timing of such deployment.” That means it’s going to hurt. As reported by The Globe’s telecom reporter Christine Dobby, almost all of the company’s radio access network relies on Huawei gear. The filing stated that if there is a ban, “there is a risk that the Canadian telecom market would undergo a structural change,” because the players in the market will be reduced to two European global suppliers, Nokia and Ericsson, which are both more expensive than Huawei.
MARKET WATCH
But while the Dow and S&P 500 closed lower on Wall Street, Canada’s stock market rose, powered by unexpectedly strong earnings results from several large cap companies. The Toronto Stock Exchange’s S&P/TSX rose 69.25 points, or 0.44 percent, to 15,695.98. The TSX is now up 9.6 percent for the year. Leading the index were Bombardier Inc, up 23.0 percent, Precision Drilling Corp, up 14.8 percent, and Constellation Software Inc, higher by 14.2 percent.
On Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 103.88 points, or 0.41 percent, to 25,439.39, the S&P 500 lost 7.3 points, or 0.27 percent, to 2,745.73 and the Nasdaq Composite added 6.58 points, or 0.09 percent, to 7,426.96.
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WHAT’S POPULAR WITH READERS
MAAT, the Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology in Lisbon, Portugal.FG+FS / Courtesy EDP Foundation
Everybody is visiting Portugal: Here’s a new way to see it
The Globe’s architecture critic Alex Bozikovic is travelling in Portugal with Canadian curator Esther Shipman, whose service Culture Viewfinder is offering small architectural tours of Portugal. Alex writes that Ms. Shipman, who is a design curator by trade, has a passionate interest in the country of 10 million. It swings far above its weight, pointing out that the most prestigious international architecture award, the Pritzker Prize, has gone to Portuguese architects twice – once to Eduardo Souto de Moura and once to Alvaro Siza. The piece is replete with images from Alex’s Instagram account.
TALKING POINTS
The utter symbolic failure of Bruce McArthur’s light sentence
R.M. Vaughan: "Symbols and signs count. We know 25 years in prison is nobody’s idea of a good time, and we recognize Mr. McArthur, 67, is as unlikely to be paroled at 91 as he is to live to that age. And many of us in the LGBTQ community already have such low-to-zero expectations of the justice system that perhaps we ought not to be surprised he didn’t get consecutive life sentences, or at least a dangerous offender designation. R.M. Vaughan is a Canadian writer and video artist based in Toronto.
There are Canadian women fighting for Islamic State – and Ottawa needs a plan
Jessica Davis: As the Islamic State loses the last of its territory, media reports indicate that there may be as many as 21 Canadians detained by Kurdish forces. Interestingly, most of the adults are women, but we should not be surprised." ― Jessica Davis is the president and principle consultant at Threat Insight Intelligence, and author of Women in Modern Terrorism: From Liberation Wars to Global Jihad and the Islamic State
Will UNDRIP be Canada’s undoing – or our triumph?
Gary Mason: “Depending on who you believe, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples will be the end of the country as we know it, or a progressive new instrument that will end centuries of conflict and unlock peace and harmony in its wake. We’re about to find out.”
LIVING BETTER
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Take heart in being single on Valentine’s Day
February 14 remains a tough one for single people. Or is it? As the population of single people grows, there has been a gradual shift in the notion that Valentine’s Day is torture for the unattached, prompting calls to challenge cultural assumptions and public policy. Social psychologist Bella DePaulo, author of Singled Out: How Singles Are Stereotyped, Stigmatized and Ignored, and Still Live Happily Ever After, suggests “... the stereotyping and stigmatizing and discrimination (that I call singlism) needs to stop. Single people need to be respected.”
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What pairs with spaghetti carbonara or paella?
Beppi Crosariol, The Globe’s wine and spirits columnist, answers e-mailed wine pairing questions. This week’s asks: “I’m going to make either spaghetti carbonara or paella for a bunch of friends (a.k.a. my “chosen” family) on Family Day weekend. Can you suggest some pairings?” Beppi says to steer clear of cabernet sauvignon or shiraz bottles and suggests some crisper, lighter options.
LONG READS FOR A LONG COMMUTE
Betroffenheit, by Electric Company Theatre and Kidd Pivot, was a story of loss drawn from Jonathon Young's personal experience.Wendy D
Crystal Pite and Jonathon Young return to the stage with Revisor
Vancouver-based choreographer Crystal Pite and Toronto-based playwright Jonathon Young were praised for their 2015 production Betroffenheit, which is described as one of the most stunning, lauded pieces of theatre to come out of Canada in recent memory. The Globe review gave it four stars; international reviewers loved it. In Britain, it won a prestigious Olivier Award for best new dance production, and Mr. Young won the Critics’ Circle National Dance Award for outstanding performance in modern dance.
Now, Ms. Pite and Mr. Young return with Revisor, which has its world premiere in Vancouver on Feb. 20. As Marsha Lederman reports, Revisor is an entirely different sort of production inspired both by an essay in a Yale University theatre magazine and a Nikolai Gogol story, The Government Inspector, which is about a lowly civil servant who arrives in town and is mistaken for an important government inspector.
Evening Update is written by Michael Snider. If you’d like to receive this newsletter by e-mail every weekday evening, go here to sign up. If you have any feedback, send us a note.