Good morning,
The Ontario Provincial Police’s intelligence efforts during the convoy protests included preparing “person of interest” profiles of a provincial politician who was advocating against pandemic restrictions, along with a former RCMP sniper, a far-right group, several convoy organizers and others, newly released documents show.
The politician, Randy Hillier, was at the time a member of the Ontario Legislature. The OPP profiled him about a week after hundreds of big rigs, pickup trucks and other vehicles streamed into downtown Ottawa, where protesters opposed to the federal government and pandemic mandates entrenched themselves for more than three weeks.
Police hang off a truck as authorities work to end a protest against COVID-19 measures on Feb. 19, 2022.COLE BURSTON/The Canadian Press
This is the daily Morning Update newsletter. If you’re reading this on the web, or it was forwarded to you from someone else, you can sign up for Morning Update and more than 20 other Globe newsletters on our newsletter signup page.
Lula defeats incumbent Bolsonaro to clinch Brazil’s presidency
Brazil’s former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of the leftist Workers’ Party defeated incumbent Jair Bolsonaro to become the country’s next president, making a stunning comeback after he was imprisoned over a corruption scandal.
Da Silva – who served as president from 2003-2010 – has promised to restore the country’s more prosperous past yet faces headwinds in a polarized society.
South Korea launches investigation into deadly Halloween crowd crush
South Koreans are demanding answers after more than 150 people in Seoul were crushed to death in a crowd surge during Halloween festivities, one of the country’s worst peacetime disasters.
Sunday marked the start of an official period of mourning, as authorities were still trying to identify those killed. At least 22 of the victims were foreigners, including two Americans, while others were teenagers still too young to carry ID cards.
Among the dozens of injured was at least one Canadian, Ottawa said.
- Explainer: How and why crowd surges turn deadly
B.C.’s next premier David Eby sets sights on ‘the world of the possible’
David Eby has yet to be sworn in as British Columbia’s next premier but he plans to introduce legislation in the coming weeks to address the biggest issues facing the province: a health care system coming apart at the seams, and a crisis of confidence in public safety.
What’s not on his immediate agenda is seeking a fresh mandate. He takes some lessons from the recent municipal elections across B.C., in which incumbent mayors found themselves tossed out by voters.
Got a news tip that you’d like us to look into? E-mail us at tips@globeandmail.com. Need to share documents securely? Reach out via SecureDrop
Also on our radar
Russia launches wave of strikes on Ukraine, hitting power stations: After days of relative calm, Russia launched a series of missiles strikes across Ukraine Monday morning, including in Kyiv, where a major power station was hit, knocking out electricity and water supplies across part of the city. Over the weekend, Western leaders and experts condemned Russia’s withdrawal from Ukraine grain shipment deal, saying the Kremlin’s decision will push up global food prices for poor countries already facing famine.
Analysis: What Xi Jinping’s third term could mean for Canada-China relations: As the federal government prepares to unveil a long-awaited Indo-Pacific strategy, it’s unclear how Canada will respond to an increasingly assertive and powerful China. A senior government official says its yet-to-be finalized strategy will stress that Canada intends to keep working with China because of its global stature.
Small Cape Town company wants to stand up to Big Pharma: Afrigen Biologics & Vaccines is hoping to start manufacturing its own made-in-Africa mRNA vaccines to help protect the continent against future COVID-19 waves, a potentially historic step toward challenging pharmaceutical monopolies.
Co-working spaces operated by federal government grow in popularity: Federal public servants are flocking to the suburbs of Ottawa to work from government-operated co-working spaces after some departments urged employees to return to the office.
Pumpkin-growing champion smashes all competitors: Dave Chan, 77, says with a little luck, hard work – and according to his wife, a bit of an obsession – he was able to smash B.C.’s provincial record last year with a 1,911-pound, or 867-kilogram pumpkin.
Morning markets
Markets await Fed: World stock markets were mixed on Monday ahead of what is expected to be a Federal Reserve decision this week to raise interest rates again amid investor hopes the U.S. central bank will scale back plans for more increases. Just before 6 a.m. ET, Britain’s FTSE 100 was up 0.05 per cent. Germany’s DAX added 0.20 per cent while France’s CAC 40 lost 0.16 per cent. Japan’s Nikkei rose 1.78 per cent. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng finished down 1.18 per cent. New York futures were modestly lower. The Canadian dollar was weaker at 73.35 US cents.
What everyone’s talking about
The catastrophic threat of thawing permafrost hangs over us all
“Like other dangerous climate forcings, the permafrost threat is so dispersed that no single jurisdiction can claim or exercise responsibility. Scientists, distributed among many institutions – and many countries – tend to work in isolation and, in Canada certainly, funding agencies prioritize short-term capital-intensive research projects, resisting long-term or operating grants. As a result, the Canadian permafrost research community has been relying on what University of Montreal geographer Oliver Sonnentag calls ‘a coalition of the willing,’ in which ‘co-ordination is not funded and every person, every project is disconnected.’ ” - Richard Littlemore
Decline of the Liberal empire in Canada
“Justin Trudeau ... has decoupled the Liberal Party from some of its historical moorings, and is paying the political consequences. These moorings – patriotism and respect for Canada’s past; a balance of fiscal prudence and social priorities; defence of a strong central government; a bridge between English and French speakers – defined the Liberals in a positive way for millions of Canadians.” - Jeffrey Simpson
Today’s editorial cartoon
David Parkins/The Globe and Mail
Moment in time: The Jack-o’-lantern
A little girl in a cowgirl costume sits beside a carved Jack-o'-lantern.John Boyd/The Globe and Mail
For more than 100 years, photographers and photo editors working for The Globe and Mail have preserved an extraordinary collection of news photography. Every Monday, The Globe features one of these images. This month, it’s pumpkins.
The jack-o’-lantern hasn’t always been a pumpkin. Originally the term was used to describe night watchmen in Ireland, and then came to refer to spooky (and possibly apocryphal) flares of light over darkened swamps. An Irish legend made mention of Stingy Jack, a drunkard who tries to dupe Satan and as punishment is forced to roam the Earth with nothing but a turnip lantern to light his way. These turnip lanterns were adopted as a tradition that, upon arriving in the New World, was upsized. On All Hallows Eve, when the souls of the dead are said to revisit the earthly realm, the faces carved into pumpkins are supposed to ward off bad spirits. By the time this cowgirl sat for a photo by John Boyd in 1962, children had been trick or treating in North America for over half a century, with the first recorded instance in Kingston, Ont., in 1911. Lisan Jutras
Subscribers and registered users of globeandmail.com can dig deeper into our News Photo Archive at tgam.ca/newsphotoarchive
Read today's horoscopes. Enjoy today's puzzles.
If you’d like to receive this newsletter by e-mail every weekday morning, go here to sign up. If you have any feedback, send us a note.