Good morning,
These are the top stories:
Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou is suing, alleging her constitutional rights were violated
Meng is alleging that members of the RCMP and Canada Border Services Agency co-ordinated to “detain, search and interrogate” upon her arrival at Vancouver’s airport. The suit says she was held and questioned for three hours without being advised of her rights and CBSA officers unlawfully searched her electronic devices.
The civil claim was filed on Friday, the same day Canada gave the go-ahead for her extradition hearing to proceed. Meng is facing fraud charges in the United States related to alleged attempts to circumvent U.S. sanctions on Iran.
Meng is seeking a declaration that her Charter rights were infringed during the airport encounter, along with unspecified damages.
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How Canadians feel about the charges against SNC-Lavalin
Fifty-five per cent of Canadians say fraud and corruption charges against the engineering and construction giant should go to criminal trial, according to a Nanos poll. Of the 750 respondents, 35 per cent said they favoured a negotiated settlement, otherwise known as a deferred prosecution agreement. The remaining 10 per cent were unsure. But in Quebec, where SNC is based, only 41 per cent support a trial while 48 per cent want a settlement.
The poll was done in the wake of former attorney-general Jody Wilson-Raybould’s testimony last week, during which she alleged “consistent and sustained” political pressure by Justin Trudeau and top officials to shelve prosecution of SNC.
Following her testimony, Trudeau’s former principal secretary Gerald Butts said he would appear before the justice committee to tell his version of the events. But John Ibbitson argues that he’s likely to make a bad situation worse: “In the absence of doing the right thing – calling an election to let the people decide this issue – the smart thing for the Liberals is to do nothing that will prolong the agony of this scandal.” (for subscribers)
Separately, retired journalist Barbara Yaffe writes that the SNC saga has been blown out of proportion: “when all is said and done, history will record that Wilson-Raybould stood firm, telling those who nagged her to buzz off. And her decision stands. Trudeau et al. have not overruled her. In the end, SNC-Lavalin is still facing criminal prosecution. Some scandal.”
Facebook demanded a hands-off data policy in early talks to a build new centre in Canada
In 2013, Facebook floated the possibility of a new data centre in Canada. And documents reveal that it sought a letter guaranteeing Stephen Harper’s government wouldn’t seek authority over data on non-Canadians.
An internal memo says chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg “took a firm approach” with then-industry minister Christian Paradis and “outlined that a decision on the data centre was imminent. She emphasized that if we could not get comfort from the Canadian government on the jurisdiction issue we had other options.” Paradis said he would send the letter later that day, according to British news reports.
While Facebook ended up building the data centre in Iowa, the case highlights the lengths the company went to as it tried to get its way, as well as Canada’s willingness to offer legal protections in exchange for the prospect of new jobs.
Provinces are being told to expand coverage for one of the world’s most expensive drugs
A new report says provinces should pay for an expensive drug that treats a rare neuromuscular disorder – but only for children aged 12 and under. Scientific evidence for Spinraza was too weak and inconclusive to justify public funding for teenagers and adults, according to the expert committee that advises most provinces on whether to pay for new drugs.
Spinraza costs $708,000 in the first year and $354,000 every year thereafter. It’s designed to treat those with spinal muscular atrophy, a genetic disease that is fatal in some cases and debilitating in others.
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ALSO ON OUR RADAR
The federal government has spent at least $60,000 to fight a veteran’s $25,000 defamation suit. And Ottawa is expected to spend much more as it defends Seamus O’Regan against Sean Bruyea’s claim that the former veterans affairs minister damaged his reputation in a war of words over a new pensions program for veterans.
Amid mass protests, Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika said he would step down within a year if he’s re-elected this April. The 82-year-old Bouteflika has been in power for 20 years and only communicates to the public via letters after suffering a stroke in 2013. The recent round of protests over corruption and high unemployment have been the largest since 2011’s Arab Spring.
Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist Yannis Behrakis died at the age of 58 after a battle with cancer. Over a 30-year career with Reuters, Behrakis covered conflicts in Afghanistan, the former Yugoslavia, Egypt’s 2011 uprising and beyond. He was part of the team that won a Pulitzer in 2016 for coverage of the recent refugee crisis. Here’s a look at a few of his photos:
A Syrian refugee carries his daughter through a rainstorm toward Greece's border with Macedonia in September, 2015.YANNIS BEHRAKIS/Reuters
Kurdish refugees reach for a loaf of bread during a humanitarian aid distribution at the Iraqi-Turkish border in April, 1991.YANNIS BEHRAKIS/Reuters
Yannis Behrakis takes a self portrait after surviving a rebel ambush in Sierra Leone in May, 2000.YANNIS BEHRAKIS/Reuters
MORNING MARKETS
Stocks rise
Global shares rose on Monday amid growing optimism the United States and China will reach a trade agreement as soon as this month. U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping might seal a formal trade deal around March 27, given progress in talks between the two countries, reports say. Tokyo’s Nikkei and the Shanghai Composite each gained more than 1 per cent, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng rose 0.5 per cent. In Europe, London’s FTSE 100 and the Paris CAC 40 were each up 0.5 per cent by about 6:15 a.m. ET, with Germany’s DAX up marginally. New York futures were up. The Canadian dollar was at 75.12 US cents.
WHAT EVERYONE’S TALKING ABOUT
The grimmest of tales: Testimony that Michael Jackson was an abuser
John Doyle: “Leaving Neverland (Monday, Crave/HB0, 10 p.m.) is grim viewing. It is deeply unsettling and you are left shocked and exhausted by it. (It should be said that the program is best avoided by anyone triggered or perturbed by discussions of sexual abuse.) You are asked to judge the veracity of the story told and you must remember that the Michael Jackson estate denies all of it.” (for subscribers)
Age of distinction: Don’t believe the ageist myths. We only get better in our golden years
Ashton Applewhite: “The possibility that life could become more fun in your eighties had never crossed my mind. Nor that growing a little shorter of breath each year would fail to terrify. Nor that an ever more circumscribed life could be an ever greater source of personal growth and specific pleasures. Nor that such joyful clarity would be rooted in awareness – not denial – that time was short and therefore to be savoured.” Ashton Applewhite is the author of This Chair Rocks: A Manifesto Against Ageism.
Scrapping the mortgage stress test is a bad idea
Barrie McKenna: “The federal government’s mortgage stress test was designed to ensure borrowers and lenders would be okay in a world of higher interest rates. The test, introduced Jan. 1, 2018, is both a simple and sensible way to temper risky behaviour. … And yet in the real estate industry, the stress test has become a scapegoat for everything bad happening in the housing market – from slowing sales and soaring rents, to first-time buyers being shut out of the market.” (for subscribers)
TODAY’S EDITORIAL CARTOON
(David Parkins/The Globe and Mail)
LIVING BETTER
How a Canadian-made app is aiming to help Alzheimer’s patients improve their lives
You can call it a memory prosthetic: Toronto researchers have built an app called Hippocamera that allows Alzheimer’s patients to record their daily activities. Users then replay the footage at high speed along with audio describing the event playing over top. The team is now testing the app to see if it improves memory function – and whether it can stave off further decline.
MOMENT IN TIME
Globe compositors lay out pages in 1912
(The Globe and Mail)
For more than 100 years, photographers and photo librarians working for The Globe and Mail have preserved an extraordinary collection of 20th-century news photography. Every Monday, The Globe features one of these images. To commemorate our 175th anniversary in March, we’re looking back at The Globe through the ages.
Although this photo of The Globe’s make-up (or composing) room was taken in 1912, had it been taken 60 years later, it would have looked almost identical, such was the unchanging technology of newspaper design. Creating a page was a painstaking process in which compositors laid out a page a letter at a time, all by hand, line by line, taking type of different fonts and sizes from innumerable trays around them. Developed in the 1850s, this method remained virtually the same until the dawn of the computing age. In fact, The Globe used the equipment in the foreground well into the 1970s – that very equipment, not replacements or later versions. Note, too, how the compositors, despite their hot, gruelling task, are nevertheless wearing dress shirts and ties. Common decency demanded nothing less. – Ken Carriere
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