Good morning,
Here’s a look at the key moments in the English-language leaders’ debate
(Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press)Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press
The only official English-language debate of the election was a chaotic one, with all leaders talking over each other in a push for air time.
Target Trudeau: The Liberal Leader was attacked from all sides, as Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer called him a “phony” and a “fraud,” while other leaders took aim at his climate policies and handling of the SNC-Lavalin affair.
On climate: Justin Trudeau struggled to defend climate targets that government numbers show will fall short. Scheer attacked the carbon tax while NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh responded by saying voters “don’t have to choose between Mr. Delay and Mr. Deny.”
On abortion: Trudeau raised Scheer’s pro-life stance, which prompted the Tory Leader to repeat his pledge not to reopen the issue. Green Leader Elizabeth May said it has been interesting hearing men argue about what women’s rights should be.
Bernier’s presence: The People’s Party Leader was criticized by Scheer, who said Maxime Bernier had once been a responsible politician. Singh said Bernier didn’t “deserve a platform” because his “ideas are hurtful to Canada.”
Opinion and analysis
John Ibbitson says Scheer’s attacks on Trudeau appeared to work, with Trudeau coming across as “almost passive in his responses.” But it was Singh, he writes, who owned the night with “a pitch-perfect positive message while somehow managing to shut down every voice raised against him.”
Our editorial board writes that the debate format “left little room for anything more than sound bites and talking points. For undecided voters, the decision will have to come down to meatier stuff – each party’s platform, and its record.”
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A widening Swedish probe of Bombardier now alleges money laundering
Prosecutors have expanded a criminal probe of the Canadian transportation giant’s business in Azerbaijan, alleging tens of millions of dollars were siphoned off a 2013 deal to install rail-signalling equipment.
The development comes after prosecutors won a court battle to access Swiss bank records associated with shell companies controlled by Russian businessmen who partnered with Bombardier on the project.
Among the shell companies is Multiserv Overseas, a Bombardier Transportation partner that The Globe discovered in 2016 had no apparent business purpose.
For its part, Bombardier said it was not aware of any new charges and could not comment on the Swiss court proceedings.
Republicans are slamming Trump for his decision to abandon Kurds in Syria
The U.S. President said U.S. troops would step aside for an expected attack by Turkey against Kurdish fighters – a move Republican Senator Lindsey Graham called a “shot in the arm to the bad guys.”
Trump nevertheless offered mixed messaging, saying he would punish the Turkish economy “if they do anything outside of what we would think is humane.”
The Kurds have fought alongside the U.S. for years in an effort to take down the Islamic State. But Turkey views the Kurdish fighters as a threat.
Bessma Momani offers this view: “This shock could serve as the wake-up call that the international community needs, to look straight into the eye of what desperately requires our attention: an international grand bargain on Syria and its many problems.”
The widow of Quadriga’s founder has reached a settlement to help repay cryptocurrency users
Jennifer Robertson has agreed to hand over about $12-million in assets, including real estate, a boat and an airplane, to the trustee overseeing Quadriga’s bankruptcy.
About 76,000 of the exchange’s users haven’t been able to access their funds since founder Gerald Cotten died on his honeymoon in India last December; the customers are owed $214.6-million in cash and cryptocurrency.
Cotten was the only one who knew the passwords to access the funds, and Ernst & Young has found that he made “substantial” transfers of customer funds into his own personal accounts.
How the NBA got caught up in the Hong Kong protests
Ahead of his team’s preseason games in Japan against the Toronto Raptors, Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey tweeted a slogan of the Hong Kong protest movement: “Fight for freedom; stand with Hong Kong.”
He deleted the tweet, and went into backtracking mode, as the NBA – which is pursuing a global expansion with an emphasis on China – put out a statement on the Chinese Weibo platform saying it was “extremely disappointed in the inappropriate comment.”
Despite the NBA’s bona fides as a league willing to support political activism, Cathal Kelly writes that “this is a good reminder of a basic truth about corporations – they aren’t your friends.”
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ALSO ON OUR RADAR
BC Green Leader to resign: Andrew Weaver said a health scare “reaffirmed” his decision to rethink his work-life balance. Weaver will keep his seat to preserve the province’s NDP government being supported by the Greens. His party will conduct a leadership contest next summer; the next provincial election is set for the fall of 2021.
Gender pay gap narrows: Women in their core working years earned on average 13.3 per cent less than men in 2018, an improvement from the 18.8-per-cent gap in 1998. In monetary terms, female employees earned $26.92 an hour versus $31.05 for male workers.
The GM strike and Canada: Economists say that the impact of the strike, which has already seen about 4,000 Canadian auto-sector workers laid off, could surface in Canadian labour data and may even affect overall fourth-quarter growth.
MORNING MARKETS
Wall Street futures slide, global stocks little changed: Wall Street futures slid into the red early Tuesday as investor sentiment remains fragile ahead of the high-level meetings later this week between U.S. and Chinese trade officials. World stocks were little changed after a two-day rally. In this country, futures were softer with crude prices wavering as unrest in Iraq outweighs concerns over the impact of global growth on demand. Tokyo’s Nikkei gained 1 per cent, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng and the Shanghai Composite each rose 0.3 per cent. In Europe, Britain’s FTSE 100 edged up 0.14 per cent. Germany’s DAX fell 0.44 per cent. France’s CAC 40 slid 0.41 per cent around 6 a.m. ET. The Canadian dollar was trading at 75.11 US cents.
WHAT EVERYONE’S TALKING ABOUT
We are running out of time to address long-term care for baby boomers
Bonnie-Jeanne MacDonald and Michael Wolfson: “There is little more than a decade before the first of the baby boomers reach the ages when they will begin to need higher levels of care. If we aren’t prepared, there will be spillover to other, more expensive, publicly funded health services – such as the already-problematic “hallway medicine” that hospitals and governments are facing.” Bonnie-Jeanne MacDonald is the Director of Financial Security Research at the National Institute on Ageing. Michael Wolfson is a former assistant chief statistician at Statistics Canada.
The relationship between anti-Semitism and Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement
Gil Troy: “when observed by the unacquainted, it can all seem strange and exclusionary. And, alas, unfamiliarity with behaviours by those who otherwise seem “just like us” often morphs into revulsion and hatred. Anti-Semites have long fed off the paradoxes within Judaism, acutely offended by the way Jews fit in so well yet choose to stand out so much.” Gil Troy is a distinguished scholar of American History at McGill University.
TODAY’S EDITORIAL CARTOON
(Brian Gable/The Globe and Mail)Brian Gable/The Globe and Mail
LIVING BETTER
A look at new books on #MeToo, populism and digital platforms
Globe reporter Robyn Doolittle’s Had It Coming: What’s Fair in the Age of #MeToo: “a decisive snapshot of this moment in history that considers where we were, and sets the stage for where we might go, and will no doubt be used to describe this moment long after we’ve move on to a new normal.”
John le Carré’s Agent Running in the Field: “a political manifesto, a call to everyone to do what they can to resist nationalism and populism, dressed up as a le Carré spy thriller. It also happens to be a great read.”
Andrew Marantz’s Anti-Social: A look at those “who created the online platforms, as well as the meme-makers, the Redditors, the disinformation artists and others who have exploited those platforms to sow chaos in the name of cynicism and profit.”
MOMENT IN TIME
Laurier delivers original Sunny Ways speech
(Raphael Tucks & Sons)Raphael Tucks & Sons
Oct. 8, 1895: “Sunny ways, my friends. Sunny ways,” a jubilant Justin Trudeau declared on election night 2015, when his Liberals secured a majority government. Very few would have caught the historical reference to a speech Wilfrid Laurier gave this day in 1895, in reference to the Manitoba schools question. As the relative numbers of francophone voters and students in the province declined, premier Thomas Greenway’s Liberal government had moved to cut public funding for Catholic and French-language schools. The Conservative government of Mackenzie Bowell threatened retaliation, but Liberal leader Laurier said he preferred “the sunny ways” of persuasion to the use of political force. “Do you not believe that there is more to be gained by appealing to the heart and soul of men rather than to compel them to do a thing?” he asked. After Laurier became prime minister in 1896, his government negotiated an agreement with Manitoba that largely abandoned francophone education rights. Ironically, despite his “sunny ways” proclamation, Trudeau as prime minister has imposed carbon taxes on provinces that refuse to implement their own. One of the recalcitrant provinces is Manitoba. – John Ibbitson
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