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These are the top stories:
The Senate has passed the Liberal government’s contentious environmental assessment bill
By a vote of 57-37, the Senate voted late Thursday to pass the Liberal government’s contentious Bill C-69, which overhauls the way Ottawa reviews major resource projects.
The legislation has been a flash point for Western anger over the Liberals’ handling of the resource economy. Alberta Premier Jason Kenney has vowed to launch a constitutional challenge arguing the legislation infringes on provincial rights, will drive away investment and make it impossible to get new pipelines approved.
The Liberals have argued the legislation will protect the environment and the rights of Indigenous communities while ensuring good resource projects receive approval in a predictable review process.
Independent Senator Paula Simons, from Edmonton, voted in favor of C-69, noting the government had accepted 99 amendments from the independents. Those changes to the bill “improved it hugely,” Senator Simons said on Twitter.
The family of a Danforth shooting victim relives the terror briefly at Toronto Raptors parade
Ken Price and Claire Smith, whose daughter Samantha was injured in the Danforth shooting. (Christopher Katsarov/The Globe and Mail)Christopher Katsarov
They almost lost their daughter last summer during the Danforth shooting − she is still recovering from a shattered hip. They briefly relived that horror when their daughter Samantha, 18, started texting and calling them as someone fired a gun at the Toronto Raptors parade.
Ever since the night of July 22 on the Danforth, when a gunman opened fire on a crowd in the city’s Greektown neighbourhood, shooting survivors and their families have been calling upon the federal government to start seizing or buying back the handguns and assault weapons circulating in Canada.
Ottawa has officially ruled out a countrywide ban on handguns. The Conservative Party will be campaigning against a ban on specific kinds of assault weapons in the next election, after the Liberals announced they will be running in the next federal election on a plan to prohibit and buy back some military-style assault weapons that are currently legal in Canada.
Conservative Party members will decide Britain’s next prime minister and Boris Johnson is in the lead
Johnson has pulled away in the race to become the next leader despite growing questions about how he would get the country out of the European Union.
He won the last in a series of votes among fellow Tory MPs on Thursday that reduced the number of candidates to replace Theresa May as Conservative leader and prime minister from 10 to two.
Johnson took 160 out of 313 votes in the final ballot, and will face the second-place finisher, Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt, who had the support of 77 MPs. Polls show Johnson with about 70-per-cent support among members compared with 26 per cent for Hunt.
The winner is expected to take over from May in late July.
Trump vows to press Chinese President Xi Jinping on Canada’s behalf at next week’s G20 summit
In an Oval Office meeting Thursday with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, U.S. President Donald Trump said he would help Ottawa in a dispute primarily over Beijing’s detention of two Canadians. The detentions are in apparent retaliation for Ottawa’s arrest of a Chinese telecom executive, Meng Wanzhou.
It is also widely assumed that China is punishing Canada economically. China strengthened inspections for the residue in all pork imports from Canada. China had also created an indefinite ban on Canadian canola seed imports and put restrictions on various other products, which leaves Canadian farmers as collateral damage..
The visit was Trudeau’s third to Trump’s White House, in a relationship that has vacillated wildly with the whims of the President, who has insulted Trudeau for being “weak” in the past. He was asked if he would raise the Canadian detainees with Xi. “I will, absolutely,” he said. “I’ll represent him well, I will tell you.”
But in the opinion of John Ibbitson, this could also mean the success or failure of key elements of Trudeau’s foreign policy rest in the hands of an erratic, unpredictable American President.
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ALSO ON OUR RADAR
Trump approved strikes on Iran but then pulled back: The U.S. President approved the strikes on a handful of targets as retaliation for the downing of a U.S. surveillance drone, but the action was abruptly called off, the New York Times reports.
Elections Canada cancels influencer campaign after discovering partisan comments: After cancelling the $650,000 social-media campaign, 13 influencers were identified, one of whom had called in 2015 for Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper to be voted out of office.
Desjardins Group is trying to reassure customers after a rogue employee leaked the personal information of 2.9 million members: It stressed that account access information such as passwords, personal identification numbers and identity-confirmation questions were not leaked.
Studies show the number of Canadian teens who regularly vape nearly doubled in one year: The surveys found that the number of teens who reported vaping in the past week rose to 9.3 per cent in 2018 from 5.2 per cent in 2017.
B.C. imposes interim resource-development moratorium to protect caribou: Forest-industry representatives worry that a halt on new activity in the area will lead to further job losses in an industry already hard hit.
GFL lines up investment banks for IPO, seeks to raise up to $1.98-billion: The company hired a syndicate of investment banks to advise on the offering, with Royal Bank of Canada and Bank of Montreal doing the Canadian side of the deal and J.P. Morgan Chase and Co. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. handling the U.S. side.
MORNING MARKETS
Stocks down
Global stocks fell on Friday, as worries about a threatened U.S. military strike against Iran and a global trade conflict took the edge off a central bank-induced rally from earlier in the week. Tokyo’s Nikkei was down 0.9 per cent while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng was off 0.2 per cent. The Shanghai Composite was slightly higher at 0.5 per cent. In Europe, London’s FTSE 100 and Germany’s DAX were flat, while the Paris CAC 40 was up 0.2 per cent at 6 a.m. ET. New York futures were down. The Canadian dollar was at 75.81 US cents.
WHAT EVERYONE’S TALKING ABOUT
Why Doug Ford’s cabinet shuffle could put more pressure on the Premier himself
Adam Radwanski: “Sometimes, the Premier himself seems caught off guard by what his government is doing, struggling to defend spending cuts and in some cases climbing down from them.”
Trump’s enemies could help him win again in 2020
Konrad Yakabuski: “Here’s some breaking news for the tabulators of Mr. Trump’s untruths: No one cares but you.”
Joy, pain and basketball: I love the Warriors, but my country loves the Raptors
Pasha Malla: “Because there’s a new storyline in its early, formative phases, and it goes something like this: Kevin Durant and Klay Thompson, both free agents, will re-sign with Golden State and emerge better than ever from rehab, rejoining a team that, having scratched its way into the playoffs, will tear through the Western Conference en route to the Finals – maybe against Toronto.” Malla is the co-editor of Best Canadian Sportswriting and the author of, most recently, the novel Fugue States.
TODAY’S EDITORIAL CARTOON
Brian GableBrian Gable/The Globe and Mail
LIVING BETTER
Film Friday: Here’s what’s opening this weekend
It is easy to read the Toy Story films as paeans to the power of imagination, or love letters to the pure innocence of childhood. Toy Story 4 introduces a new character, Forky, to the series. Don’t worry, Sheriff Woody, Buzz Lightyear, Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head, Slinky Dog are all still around. Opens June 21. (3 stars)
In Wild Rose, Jessie Buckley makes her big screen debut as a single mother who wants to grace the stages of Nashville. The problem is that she drinks too much and can’t afford a way out of country music-averse Glasgow. Opens June 21 in Toronto before expanding to other Canadian cities on July 5. (3 stars)
Pixar once taught us how to empathize with everything from Mr. Potato Head to lamps, and the newest Chucky has only taken it further with Child’s Play. Ironically, or not, the psychopathic doll movie is opening the same week as Toy Story. Opens June 21. (3 stars)
MOMENT IN TIME
First Nation dancers gather during a pow wow at the National Aboriginal Day celebrations at Trout Lake in Vancouver, British Columbia, Thursday, June 21, 2018. Rafal Gerszak/The Globe and MailRafal Gerszak/The Globe and Mail
June 21, 1996
On the day when the sun is highest in the sky, Canadians across the country celebrate Indigenous people. But the annual event did not begin as an act of friendship between cultures. An angry resolution passed in 1982 by the National Indian Brotherhood, the precursor to the Assembly of First Nations (AFN), accused the Crown of betraying a trust by transferring its Indigenous obligations to the federal government, “which wishes to dominate and control our land and our people.” Rather than observe the Queen’s birthday on May 24, it said First Nations would hold a National Aboriginal Solidarity Day every June 21. Thirteen years later, a conference hosted by First Nations rights leader Elijah Harper called for a national holiday to celebrate Indigenous achievements. The federal government supported the concept. And, in 1996, Governor-General Roméo LeBlanc declared National Aboriginal Day would “honour the native peoples who first brought humanity to this great land.” The AFN initially accused the government of diluting the intention of June 21. But sentiments softened. And, when the name was changed in 2017 to National Indigenous Peoples Day, the AFN embraced the “peaceful and joyous” event for “people from all walks of life.” Gloria Galloway
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