Good evening, let’s start with today’s top stories:
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the threats to Canada’s national security from last winter’s convoy protests were both economic and violent and before he invoked the Emergencies Act the premiers were unable to suggest any alternative to using the sweeping powers to end the protracted demonstrations.
On Friday, the Prime Minister was the final witness to testify at the inquiry studying the act’s use. Mr. Trudeau made the ultimate decision to invoke the never-before-used act on his own on Feb. 14, with the goal of ending protests that gridlocked the capital and jammed several border crossings across Canada. “I am absolutely, absolutely serene and confident that I made the right choice,” Mr. Trudeau said.
He testified that before he made the decision there was consensus to invoke the act from senior cabinet ministers and top security and civil service advisers. He called a memo from the country’s top bureaucrat in favour of triggering the powers “essential” to his decision – even though that memo lacked a threat assessment. And he told the inquiry that despite the two most serious border blockades resolving, it was his understanding that overall the protests were escalating, not dissipating.
Read more:
- Emergencies Act inquiry live updates from Nov. 25, 2022
- It is the legal question, not the political one, that Trudeau must answer
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau testifies at the Public Order Emergency Commission in Ottawa, Nov. 25, 2022.Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press
Stronach-owned company donated to Florida politicians backing anti-LGBTQ laws
When Florida Republicans cruised to victory earlier this month largely on a culture-war platform, vowing to censor classroom discussions of racism and LGBTQ issues, they had help from a company owned by the Stronach Group.
Gulfstream Park, the Miami-area horse track and casino, bankrolled at least 41 candidates and campaign groups that support the Parental Rights in Education Act – labelled by opponents as “Don’t Say Gay” – and what is known as the Stop Woke law, a Globe and Mail review of state records reveals. The contributions totalled more than US$300,000 over two years.
The anti-LGBTQ law restricts discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity in schools, including an absolute ban on those topics up to the third grade. Stop Woke prohibits teachings on structural racism in classrooms, universities and corporate training programs. The laws were a major part of Governor Ron DeSantis’s re-election campaign, which on Nov. 8 delivered him a 19-point landslide and expanded his Republicans’ majority in the state legislature.
A new billboard welcoming visitors to "Florida: The Sunshine 'Don't Say Gay or Trans' State is seen April 21, 2022, in Orlando, Fla., part of an advertising campaign launched by the Human Rights Campaign.John Raoux/The Associated Press
The soccer has started, but political controversies around Qatar’s World Cup aren’t going away
Fans from multiple Western countries who spoke to The Globe and Mail in Qatar expressed feelings of disquiet in being at the World Cup, James Griffiths reports.
Since it began on Nov. 25, Griffiths notes a strange sense of unpreparedness around this competition, despite Qatar having spent 12 years and tens of billions of dollars to get ready for the World Cup. Some fans have struggled with ticketing issues, and half-finished construction is a common sight around fan zones and accommodation, much of which will be torn down at the end of the tournament.
One thing the Qataris should have been ready for was the criticism, over migrant worker rights and the emirate’s criminalization of homosexuality, which has dominated World Cup coverage from the day the Gulf state secured hosting rights in 2010. But that, too, seems to have taken authorities in Doha aback, especially as the clamour has continued beyond the first game, defying FIFA president Gianni Infantino’s prediction that “as soon as the ball rolls, people will concentrate on that because that’s what people want.”
Read more:
- Iran’s World Cup team mouths along to national anthem ahead of Wales match
- You want booze in Qatar? Be prepared for red tape, high prices and razor wire
People gather around the official countdown clock showing remaining time until the kick-off of the World Cup 2022, in Doha, Qatar, Nov. 25, 2021.Darko Bandic/The Associated Press
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ALSO ON OUR RADAR
New Ontario law makes hospital admission the only route to securing a long-term care bed, advocates say: A new law that allows Ontario hospitals to send certain patients to long-term care facilities without their consent will only worsen the existing bed shortage in hospitals, experts and advocates say, because it is making a hospital admission the only route to securing a care-home bed.
Afghans who worked on Canadian-funded projects feel abandoned waiting for refuge in Pakistan: A group of Afghans who worked on Canadian-funded projects intended to promote the rights of women and girls in Afghanistan say they are now stuck in neighbouring Pakistan and running out of money for food and rent, more than a year after they thought they would be resettled in Canada.
Alexander Mair, who looked after Gordon Lightfoot’s business affairs and co-founded Canada’s Attic Records, dies at 82: This summer, Canadian music business titan Alexander Mair was appointed to the Order of Canada as a Companion Member. On Tuesday, Ontario Lieutenant-Governor Elizabeth Dowdeswell awarded him the medal in his room at Sunnybrook Hospital. On Friday, Mair died of cancer. He was 82.
The lifeblood of Montreal’s downtown core used to be office workers. Now they’re missing: Foot traffic downtown has largely returned to pre-pandemic levels, but the number of professionals returning to the office remains small.
B.C. residents priced out of housing market flock to Salmo, a sleepy village of 1,000: Once known as a rural B.C. outpost, Salmo has become a refuge for people looking to buy for affordable housing, and prices are starting to rise as a result.
MARKET WATCH
Canada’s main stock index was up at the close Friday with mixed results across sectors, while U.S. markets were also mixed with an early close.
The S&P/TSX composite index was up 39.70 points at 20,383.77, down from mid-morning highs above 100 points.
In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average was up 152.97 points at 34,347.03. The S&P 500 index was down 1.14 points at 4,026.12, while the Nasdaq composite was down 58.96 points at 11,226.36.
The Canadian dollar traded for 74.76 cents UScompared with 74.97 cents US on Thursday.
The January crude contract was down US$1.66 at US$76.28 per barreland the January natural gas contract was down 38 cents at US$7.33 per mmBTU.
The December gold contract was up US$8.40 at US$1,754.00 an ounce and the December copper contract was up just less than a penny at US$3.63 a pound.
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TALKING POINTS
The horrors of the Holodomor are being repeated in Ukraine
“Since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the brazen stealing of grain and destruction of agriculture infrastructure has reawakened within me and others memories of the Holodomor – the man-made famine of 1932-33 ordered by Stalin in which at least four million Ukrainians died.” – Michael Bociurkiw
How Facebook, and friends of friends, brought democracy down
“There are three assumptions implicit in everything Facebook says and does: First, that more information is better; second, that faster information is better; third, that the bad – lies, hate speech, conspiracy theories, disinformation, targeted attacks, information operations – should be tolerated in service of Facebook’s larger goals.” – Maria Ressa
I was a journalist in Mexico. What I saw makes me fear for the free press in the rest of North America
“What I saw and lived as a journalist in Mexico made me fear not for myself, but for the free press in the rest of North America, where physical attacks, detentions and vitriol toward journalists are growing by the day. The same sowing of fear and intimidation by the leaders, criminals and special interests in Mexico, an emerging democracy with weak rule of law, is now happening in Canada and the United States. The press is corrupt. The press lies. The press is the enemy of the people.” – Katherine Corcoran
LIVING BETTER
A step-by-step guide to choosing the right clothes for cold weather
There are two kinds of people: those who can’t wait to run outside into that first snowfall – and everyone else. Regardless of which camp you fall into, tobogganing, skating, skiing and snowshoeing are just a few of the activities that can make winter special – but only if you’re properly dressed for them. After all, as the Danish saying goes, “There is no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing.” To get the most out of the snowy season, ensure you feel toasty from top to toe with these six winter dressing tips.
TODAY’S LONG READ
The little bookstores that could: Why independent shops are showing resilience among the behemoths
Martha Sharpe, left, owner of Flying Books, speaks with employee Ally Shap, centre, and customer Hadiya Roderique at the store’s location on College Street in Toronto, Oct. 28, 2022.Galit Rodan/The Globe and Mail
To writer Naomi Skwarna, the air inside an independent bookstore can seem slightly pressurized. Perhaps it is the knotted anxiety of looking face-to-face at the bookseller upon entry, uncertain of what to say. You may wipe your palms before lifting a book from a display table, raising it to your thoughtful visage. “Why yes,” the pose says, “I do know how to read.”
Unlike the big chain bookstores – Chapters and Indigo in Canada, Barnes & Noble in the U.S. – local indie bookshops are unavoidably human spaces. No walkie-talkies or headsets, no escalators and nary a loungewear section to lose yourself in. There are few places to hide inside a small bookshop, and every item seems meaningful in its placement. “The writer Michael Hingston always says that a good independent bookstore is like looking into the owner’s psyche,” says Jason Purcell, a writer, musician and co-owner of Edmonton’s Glass Bookshop.
In 1995, the appearance of Amazon.com decimated the indie bookstore population, writes Harvard Business School professor Ryan Raffaelli in a 2020 paper on the subject, and the sector’s demise was widely predicted. The landscape in our cities changed, with many small bookstores disappearing, and the bigger ones like Indigo in Canada becoming ever more homogenized and mall-like to compete with Amazon.
Now, when so many of our needs are unified and algorithm-prompted by online retail, independent bookstores offer person-to-person customization. Something, Skwarna writes, that we are craving despite the ease of online shopping.
Evening Update is written by Emerald Bensadoun. 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.