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These are the top stories:
Federal election: Our Jagmeet Singh profile, Tory election ads, campaign commentary
Reporter Ann Hui sits down with the NDP Leader and delves into his unsinkable optimism in a campaign that’s laid bare issues of race and diversity in Canada.
Hui writes: “Singh has to answer the same question over and over again, a question none of his opponents has ever had to contemplate: ‘Is Canada ready for a prime minister who looks like you?’ Singh says the answer is yes. But with an election less than two weeks away, it’s not clear even he believes it.”
And despite strides Singh has appeared to make in recent weeks, his party has struggled to make up for plummeting fundraising and disorganization as it looks to win back progressive votes.
Jagmeet Singh makes a campaign stop in Barrie on Sept. 18, 2019. (Fred Lum/The Globe and Mail)Fred Lum
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In other campaign news: A company with ties to the Tories is producing election ads for the party and an oil group
One Persuades, which was co-founded by Andrew Scheer’s campaign manager, has received four payments totalling $15,404 from the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers to produce election ads. The company is also doing advertising work for the Conservative Party in this campaign, but didn’t provide a dollar value.
One Persuades said Hamish Marshall took a temporary leave to run the campaign and that there have been no communications between them on business activities; It’s against the law for a political party to collude with a registered third party in areas like advertising.
Election commentary
Campbell Clark says the Liberals and Tories are finally working together – by lying about their opponents: “A pox on both your houses. That’s the houses of Justin Trudeau and Andrew Scheer, for bringing down the tone of this campaign with outright falsehoods.”
Gary Mason says the English-language debate was a mess: “This debate has to be considered the worst ever held. It was Twitter come to life, with all the attendant personal attacks and partisan talking points.”
Alberta is relaxing truck-driver safety requirements put in place after the Humboldt crash
The move will allow hundreds of drivers to bypass training and testing standards, nixing stricter road and knowledge tests for rookie operators who already received licences before the new rules took effect earlier this year.
The changes – which the government says was prompted by a shortage of driving examiners – come as a Globe investigation revealed how some trucking companies are hiring untrained temporary foreign workers in exchange for cash payments before sending them on the road without proper training.
Statistics Canada is recalling data after a court ordered it disclosed to tobacco companies
The data from a major national health survey helps provide crucial insights into smoking trends and risk factors in diabetes – and researchers say loss of the data could disrupt hundreds of projects and affect decision making at public-health bodies.
The data release was ordered in New Brunswick after the provincial government took big tobacco companies to court in a bid to recoup costs from treating smoking-related illnesses. A judge there said the information must be released to assess health-care cost estimates.
The U.S. imposed visa sanctions on Chinese officials over Xinjiang internment camps
Washington called on China to “immediately end its campaign of repression in Xinjiang,” pointing to the arbitrary detention of Muslim minorities in detention camps.
That followed a fresh round of sanctions levelled Monday against Chinese companies, including surveillance firm Hikvision, over the camps. (The Globe has reported on a number of Canadian pension investors with multimillion-dollar stakes in Hikvision.)
Beijing slammed the Xinjiang action and urged the Trump administration to remove sanctions on Chinese companies ahead of trade talks in Washington this week.
Meanwhile, Stephen Harper became the first former Canadian prime minister to visit Taiwan, where he made a series of thinly veiled criticisms of China’s economic model.
And on the Hong Kong front, a Canadian man says he’s “in hiding” elsewhere in Asia after posting a video of protests that prompted threats from demonstrators and positive coverage from Chinese state media.
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ALSO ON OUR RADAR
Outrage over Newfoundland dead-salmon dump: The decomposing remains of as many as 1.8 million farmed salmon – cleanup crews call it salmon butter – have been dumped into the shores of Fortune Bay. Fisheries unions are raising concerns about the impact of local wild stock. That’s not to mention the “absolutely awful smell.”
The salmon butter expelled into Fortune Bay. (Bill Bryden)Atlantic Salmon Federation/Bill Bryden/The Globe and Mail
Canadian lobbyist in Tunisian election storm: A leading contender for Tunisia’s presidency, who is campaigning from jail after money-laundering charges, is denying the existence of a lobbying contract even as Canadian Ari Ben-Menashe says the US$1-million deal is valid.
The Canadian-born Nobel winner: James Peebles, an 84-year-old, Manitoba-born, Princeton University professor, is the winner of one half of this year’s $1.2-million Nobel Prize in Physics. His work includes research related to a radio signal emanating from the early universe, as well as the role of dark matter and dark energy. On Thursday, the Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to John B. Goodenough of the University of Texas; M. Stanley Whittingham of the State University of New York at Binghamton; and Akira Yoshino of Asahi Kasei Corporation and Meijo University in Japan for their work in developing lithium-ion batteries.
Report says B.C. official lied about spending scandal: Gary Lenz didn’t tell the truth about the spending scandal that resulted in his suspension from his post as the B.C. Legislature’s Sergeant-at-Arms, an independent investigation has found. Lenz, who announced his retirement last week, said he disputes the findings.
Toronto Syrian restaurant shutters after threats: Soufi’s, a restaurant lauded as a refugee success story, said it was closing its doors after the owner’s son was assaulted and death threats were levelled at him and his family. Those incidents came after a video of an altercation between the owner’s son and Maxime Bernier supporters went viral.
MORNING MARKETS
World stocks struggle as hopes fade for trade and Brexit deals: European stocks steadied on Wednesday, but sentiment remained fragile as negotiations for a Brexit withdrawal deal seemed all but dead and the U.S.-China trade dispute triggered another round of selling. London’s FTSE 100, Germany’s DAX and the Paris CAC 40 were up by between 0.1 and 0.7 per cent by about 4:30 a.m. ET. In Asia, Tokyo’s Nikkei lost 0.6 per cent, and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng shed 0.8 per cent, while the Shanghai Composite gained 0.4 per cent. New York futures were up. The Canadian dollar was just above 75 US cents.
WHAT EVERYONE’S TALKING ABOUT
Donald Trump and the shredding of American diplomacy
Lawrence Martin: “The Ukraine debacle offers just one of so many examples of how the foreign policy establishment has been neutered, how traditional American diplomacy has been shredded by Trump’s contempt for conformity. Foreign policy has now been reduced to whatever the swarm of wasps in his brain happen to come up with.”
In praise of Facebook groups, the last bastion of civility on the internet
Cliff Lee: “Facebook groups ... have become my digital lifeline in a sea of utter trash. Outside a very short list of trustworthy institutions, the online media we consume is littered with awfulness.”
TODAY’S EDITORIAL CARTOON
(Brian Gable/The Globe and Mail)Brian Gable/The Globe and Mail
LIVING BETTER
Golden rules for travelling with friends
Travel editor Domini Clark offers five tips, including a reminder that you don’t have to do everything together: “Yes, you likely are on this adventure because you enjoy each other’s company. But that doesn’t mean you share a mutual interest in 18th-century oil paintings of fat cats. Decide how much time you want to spend together each day, then give each other breathing room as necessary.”
MOMENT IN TIME
Malala Yousafzai is shot by the Taliban at the age of 15
(Susan Walsh/Associated Press)Susan Walsh/The Associated Press
Oct. 9, 2012: “I am upset because the schools are still closed here in Swat.” So began one of Malala Yousafzai’s anonymous blog posts for BBC Urdu, chronicling her life as a seventh-grader in Taliban-controlled territory in northwestern Pakistan. As a child she became a well-known advocate for education as the Taliban moved to close schools and prevent girls from attending classes. She became the subject of a documentary and rose to international fame for her activism. But on this day in 2012, while on a bus after taking an exam, a Taliban gunman shot her and two other girls in an assassination attempt on the 15 year old. Yousafzai suffered a bullet wound to her head and was in critical condition. Within a week she was flown to Birmingham, England, where she soon came out of a coma. She underwent several major surgeries and by early the next year she was released from hospital. Two years after surviving the attempted killing, she became the youngest Nobel laureate, co-winning the Peace Prize for her work advocating for education and girls’ rights. She also became the youngest person to address Canada’s House of Commons, which granted her honorary citizenship. Now 22 years old, Yousafzai is studying at Oxford University. – Iain Boekhoff
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