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These are the top stories:
Mark Norman is returning to active duty after the Crown said his actions were ‘inappropriate,’ not criminal
And the Vice-Admiral says he has more to say about his ordeal: “I have an important story to tell that Canadians will want and need to hear. It is my intention in the coming days to tell that story, not to lay blame, but to ensure that we all learn from this experience.”
Norman’s lawyer Marie Henein praised the Crown for its independence while criticizing Ottawa for blocking access to documents: “No person in this country should ever walk into a courtroom and feel like they are fighting their elected government or any sort of political factors at all.”
Norman was suspended from his position as second-in-command of the military in 2017, and was charged with breach of trust last year for allegedly leaking secrets to influence a decision on a shipbuilding contract.
Chief of Defence Staff General Jonathan Vance said he looks forward to welcoming Norman back to the military “as soon as possible.”
The view from our columnists
Konrad Yakabuski: “Trudeau needs to take responsibility for his government’s failures, instead of constantly seeking to pass the buck. Apologizing to Vice-Adm. Norman would be a good start.” (for subscribers)
Campbell Clark: “The whole business should never have gone to trial. It’s a mess. But there’s no evidence that this is another SNC-Lavalin affair.” (for subscribers)
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The U.S. House judiciary committee voted to hold Attorney-General William Barr in contempt
Democrats said they were left with no choice after President Donald Trump took the rare step of invoking executive privilege to block the release of the full, unredacted Mueller report. Committee chairman Jerry Nadler said the White House’s refusal to provide the Russia report to Congress represents a “constitutional crisis.”
What could come next: The Democrat-controlled House of Representatives will vote on contempt resolution, in turn setting up a court battle with the Trump administration. Democrats could then refer the finding to a Justice Department official, but they’d likely defend Barr. Another option is to file a lawsuit, which may not get resolved before the 2020 election.
ANC projected to win South African election with reduced majority
The long-ruling African National Congress is projected to win about 57 per cent of the vote in South Africa’s latest election, a sharp decline from the last national election and its worst result in a national election since the end of apartheid a quarter century ago. The result, projected by analysts from partial results in Wednesday’s voting, will be enough to keep the ANC in power nationally but could trigger new factional feuds within the government, Geoffrey York reports.
Asia Bibi, a Pakistani Christian woman cleared of blasphemy charges, has found refuge in Canada
Bibi had spent eight years on death row and continued to face death threats from Islamists after Pakistan’s Supreme Court overturned the charges. She had been convicted in 2009 for allegedly insulting Islam – a crime punishable by death – during a dispute with two workers who refused to drink from the same water as a Christian.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had said in November that Ottawa was in talks with helping Bibi, whose two daughters live in Canada. “I think she will be able to enjoy her life now,” Bibi’s lawyer, Saiful Malook, said.
Opinion contributor Sheema Khan offers this take: “Canadian Muslims are blessed to live in a country that honours religious freedoms. We are living proof that, given an opportunity to live where our rights and freedoms are protected, we thrive. We must, then, offer our full support to Bibi. And we must engage with our Pakistani brethren to demonstrate the importance of protecting minority rights.”
The waiting time for donating blood has been reduced to three months for men who have sex with men
However, the nine-month drop in deferral time will still bar most gay men from donating blood. Canadian Blood Services is describing the move as an incremental step as it continues to conduct research confirming it’s safe to eliminate the waiting period altogether. The waiting period for men who have sex with men was first reduced to 12 months from five years in 2016.
Gary Lacasse, executive director of the Canadian AIDS Society, welcomed the decrease to three months but said: “It should be based on behaviour. It’s extremely stigmatizing to be excluded from giving blood when the risk levels are not that different from any other population.”
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ALSO ON OUR RADAR
Meng Wanzhou’s extradition proceedings have been delayed until after a separate hearing at the end of September. The Huawei executive’s legal team argued that the Canadian government is withholding key evidence about her arrest at Vancouver International Airport in December.
Retiring Supreme Court of Canada Justice Clément Gascon was found safe after being reported missing in Ottawa yesterday afternoon. Last month, the top court said Gascon would step down in September for “personal and family reasons” after five years on the bench.
General Motors will keep its Oshawa, Ont., plant alive as a spare-parts maker, employing 300 people. The auto maker had planned to eliminate 2,600 union jobs in Oshawa when it stops production of the Chevrolet Impala and Cadillac XTS by the end of the year. Some of those employees will now be offered work at the transformed plant. (for subscribers)
MORNING MARKETS
Stocks fall
Global shares tumbled for a fourth day running on Thursday after a warning from U.S. President Donald Trump that a long-worked-on trade deal with China was in serious danger. Tokyo’s Nikkei lost 0.9 per cent, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng 2.4 per cent, and the Shanghai Composite 1.5 per cent. In Europe, London’s FTSE 100, Germany’s DAX and the Paris CAC 40 were down by between 0.3 and 1.2 per cent by about 6:45 a.m ET. New York futures were down. The Canadian dollar was just above 74 US cents.
WHAT EVERYONE’S TALKING ABOUT
Canada needs to stop being dirty money’s 24-hour laundromat
Globe editorial: “Money laundering may be invisible but, like a punch you never saw coming, it hurts. When Canadian real estate is used as an international dirty-money laundromat, it harms law-abiding Canadians by artificially pushing up housing prices.”
Bank of Canada’s Poloz’s housing musings speak to the bank’s biggest risk factor
David Parkinson: “The evolution of the economy will inevitably dictate what the Bank of Canada does with interest rates – and the most likely direction, over the next few years, is upward. Those changes are both unavoidable and desirable for the broader economy. But the heightened state of the country’s housing sector and household debt means that the fallout may be substantial, and Mr. Poloz knows it.” (for subscribers)
Canada’s trade reality: stuck between a rock and a hard place
Pedro Antunes: “We seem to be getting the brunt of retaliation for our role in the extradition of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou, even if the request for extradition originated in the United States. Many Canadian exporters are truly caught between a rock and a hard place – what will this mean for Canada’s near-term economic outlook?” Pedro Antunes is chief economist at the Conference Board of Canada. (for subscribers)
TODAY’S EDITORIAL CARTOON
(David Parkins/The Globe and Mail)David Parkins/The Globe and Mail
LIVING BETTER
A research centre is being launched in Ontario to help boost immunization rates and counter anti-vaccine sentiments. The Centre for Vaccine Preventable Diseases will be the first academic centre of its kind in Canada to tackle public perception of vaccines at a time of rising measles outbreaks worldwide.
MOMENT IN TIME
Boat carrying Enigma machine captured
An Enigma cipher machine is displayed in New York in 2018. The pictured machine isn't the exact device discovered by British forces in the German submarine U-110 in 1941. (Don Emmert/AFP/Getty Images)DON EMMERT/AFP/Getty Images
May 9, 1941: When a pair of depth charges forced German submarine U-110 to the surface, the crew thought they were about to be rammed by a British destroyer. The officers and sailors abandoned ship, leaving behind a prize of incalculable worth: an Enigma machine and its code books. The box, resembling a typewriter, was “plugged in and as though it was in actual use when abandoned,” recalled Sub-Lieutenant David Balme, who led the British boarding party from HMS Bulldog. The German Navy used Enigma machines to code and decode messages sent by Morse code. By capturing a machine and its codebooks, the British acquired a key to help decipher the German Navy’s secret language. The machine and codebooks were sent to Bletchley Park in England where codebreakers, led by Alan Turing, cracked the German naval cipher in the summer of 1941. The British could now listen in to orders being sent to U-boat wolf packs hunting Allied shipping in the North Atlantic. By early 1942, the Allies’ increased success against submarines led the Germans to suspect their code had been broken. Enigma machines were upgraded and new ciphers were introduced. These new Enigma codes were not broken again until the fall of 1942, after a second U-boat was captured. – Mark Rendell
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