Good morning,
These are the top stories:
Ontario plans to cut more than 3,400 teaching jobs
Memos sent to school-board directors indicate Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservative government would cut 3,475 positions over the next four years to save an estimated $292-million a year. The move is the first sign of the impact of Ontario’s plan to increase class sizes in elementary grades and in high schools. Thousands of students (including the one pictured above) walked out of class yesterday to protest against the changes, and teachers are planning their own rally over the weekend.
The class-size fight isn’t the only battle between the province and educators, as the government floats the idea of hard limits on wage increases for everyone from teachers to hospital workers. The province’s Treasury Board President said all options are being considered, including “legislative measures,” as it looks to reduce the provincial deficit.
Separately, the operators of supervised drug-use sites slated for closing in Toronto and Ottawa are urging the Ford government to reverse its funding decision, saying they’ve met all requirements for financial support. Ontario recently said it would fund 15 sites, but rejected applications from three, leaving them without the money they needed to continue providing services amid a surge in opioid-linked overdoses. (Our editorial board says Ford’s move “is almost guaranteed to lead to preventable deaths.”)
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Here’s what happened in Alberta’s only pre-election leaders’ debate
From left: The UCP's Jason Kenney, the Alberta Liberal Party's David Khan, the NDP's Rachel Notley and the Alberta Party's Stephen Mandel.CODIE MCLACHLAN/The Canadian Press
Pipelines were the big issue on the agenda as election front-runners Rachel Notley and Jason Kenney made the case for their respective plans last night. The UCP’s Kenney referred to a “Trudeau-Notley alliance” over the NDP’s move to implement a carbon tax in exchange for support for the stalled Trans Mountain pipeline. (Kenney wants to kill the tax.) Notley said Kenney’s promises would do little besides anger decision makers in Ottawa.
Notley and Alberta Party Leader Stephen Mandel took aim at a string of controversies that have prompted resignations and apologies by UCP candidates, criticisms Kenney dismissed as part of a “smear-and-fear” campaign.
Other details:
- Kenney defended his plan to roll back legislation on gay-straight alliances.
- Notley said she can’t name two MLAs facing allegations of sexual misconduct because the complainants want their identities protected.
- Kenney took aim at the NDP’s deficits and promised to balance the books.
- Notley slammed Kenney for his plan to cut corporate taxes while freezing social spending.
Here’s the view from our opinion section:
Gary Mason: “While our top scientists are telling us our problem is greater than we even imagined, Kenney is campaigning on killing the province’s carbon tax, getting rid of the cap on oil sands emissions, granting a stay of execution to coal plants and nuking subsidies to renewable-energy firms.” (for subscribers)
Max Fawcett, former editor of Alberta Oil magazine: “Yes, there are people in Alberta’s energy sector who would be thrilled by the idea of their provincial government adopting a more aggressive posture. But preaching to the choir is no way to grow the size of your congregation, much less win new converts to it. Jason Kenney, more than anyone else in Alberta politics today, should understand that.”
Jody Wilson-Raybould battled with another minister over an Indigenous rights framework
Last summer and fall, the then-justice minister had sought to take over leadership on the file from Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister Carolyn Bennett. The government was looking at implementing a framework on the rights of First Nations, and Wilson-Raybould believed those rights didn’t have to be negotiated because they are simply understood to exist. But Bennett wanted to consult broadly with Indigenous people first.
“I had framework documents, principles, governance toolkit dating back to when I was the regional chief [of the Assembly of First Nations],” Wilson-Raybould told The Globe, adding that “we need to start our relationship with Indigenous people based on the recognition of the rights.” But she ultimately lost the fight for jurisdiction and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau left Bennett in charge.
Bennett’s consultations haven’t gone smoothly, with Indigenous experts asking for the process to be “reset” over concerns that it would still be up to the government to decide whether Indigenous rights should be recognized.
In British Columbia: A look at gas prices, transit and cycling
As gas prices hit a record of nearly $1.64 a litre in Metro Vancouver, Premier John Horgan says his government will consider “some relief” for drivers. B.C. is currently facing a shortage of gas as area refineries operate at reduced rates; Horgan said he would wait until the summer before making a decision.
Horgan says “some municipal councils want to have it both ways” – for the province to provide funding for new transit lines but “not make the sane choices” about building housing along those transportation corridors. Vancouver’s chief planner has said the city doesn’t need to boost density along a planned subway line; Surrey’s new mayor also wants a major $2.9-billion line built there.
Horgan also took aim at Maple Ridge, which is resisting a provincial plan to build temporary modular housing despite a major homeless tent city that’s caused public uproar. Tent cities in Nanaimo and Surrey were shut down, with residents moved into modular housing.
Canada-U.S. trade tensions: A look at where things stand
Democrats are calling for changes to the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement. Ottawa says it won’t reopen trade talks. Donald Trump is threatening tariffs on Mexican-made cars. Canada may refuse to ratify the deal if steel and aluminum tariffs aren’t lifted. Oh, and there’s still no end in sight for those softwood-lumber tariffs. (for subscribers)
Tensions are boiling over in Washington and Ottawa as fresh demands threaten to derail the already shaky USMCA deal, which was agreed to last year but still needs approval from the Democratic-led U.S. Congress.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi wants the agreement reopened to toughen labour and environmental rules as well as a rollback of pharmaceutical patent protections. But Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland says “Canada’s view is: We’ve done our deal.” (for subscribers)
In this column, John Ibbitson writes: “The new NAFTA. NAFTA 2.0. USMCA. CUSMA. Call it what you will, the trade agreement involving Canada, the United States and Mexico will almost certainly not be ratified this year, if ever.” (for subscribers)
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MORNING MARKETS
Stocks rise
Cautious optimism over Sino-U.S. trade talks underpinned global stocks on Friday, benchmark bond yields ground higher and the dollar reached a three-week high against the yen before U.S. job data. Tokyo’s Nikkei gained 0.4 per cent, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng lost 0.2 per cent and the Shanghai Composite rose 0.9 per cent. In Europe, London’s FTSE 100 and the Paris CAC 40 were each up 0.2 per cent by about 7:05 a.m. ET, with Germany’s DAX flat. New York futures were up. The Canadian dollar was below 75 US cents.
WHAT EVERYONE’S TALKING ABOUT
Brexit is a triumph of diplomacy and planning – just not for Britain
Doug Saunders: “The Brexit experience has reshaped the attitudes of Europe’s 500 million citizens. Polls taken in recent months have found that two-thirds of European voters now believe the EU is a force for the good – the highest level of voter support the EU has enjoyed since the early 1980s.” (for subscribers)
Our messed-up housing policy is killing the Canadian dream
Konrad Yakabuski: "The First-Time Home Buyer’s Incentive, which can’t be implemented until [Finance Minister Bill] Morneau’s budget becomes law, fits a pattern of demand-side policy initiatives that avoid having to take on powerful NIMBYs and municipal governments blocking zoning changes that might disrupt, however minimally, their idyllic neighbourhoods or affect property values near them. (for subscribers)
Quebec’s religious-symbols ban is stranger than fiction – but the pushback from society must be real
Sheema Khan: “While it may be civil servants and employees in positions of authority today, who will it be tomorrow? Doctors providing service? Students at public schools, as was the case in France? Will the private sector follow the government’s lead? Finally, what other encroachments will there be on religious freedoms? Will Muslim students be barred from fasting during Ramadan, as was proposed by certain Quebec schools in 1995?”
TODAY’S EDITORIAL CARTOON
(Brian Gable/The Globe and Mail)Brian Gable/The Globe and Mail
LIVING BETTER
Three very different new books to add to your library
In her memoir A Mind Spread out on the Ground, Tuscarora writer Alicia Elliott infuses “intimate details of her own life with sociopolitical analysis and biting wit. In Elliott’s deft hands, eating chocolate-chip cookies becomes a political act, as the deeply colonial and classist nature of the food pyramid is unravelled.”
Leanne Shapton’s Guestbook is filled with thirty-plus entries of atypical ghost stories, including one which follows a tennis star named Billy Byron who “loses his edge after ‘Walter,’ his invisible coach/friend, is expunged from his life by an experimental psychologist.”
And on the comics front, try out Michael DeForge’s Leaving Richard’s Valley, a tale about a “ramshackle gang of urban wildlife – a raccoon, squirrel, dog and spider, all bizarrely swollen – comb Toronto for affordable housing, after their exodus from a cult led by health-nut Richard.”
(for subscribers)
MOMENT IN TIME
Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain ends his life
(Frank Micelotta/MTV/The New York Times)FRANK MICELOTTA/MTV/The New York Times
April 5, 1994: Kurt Cobain was 27 and at the top of his musical game, with all the fame, money and adoration he could have ever imagined – plus a wife and one-year-old daughter, Frances Bean. He also had a heroin addiction and depression. Cobain crafted exquisite lyrics about pain and gloom, but to the millions of fans who sang along to Nirvana’s angsty grunge, it seemed unthinkable that Cobain’s demons would drive him to suicide. His body was found in the greenhouse over the detached garage of his Seattle mansion on April 8, 1994. It was determined that he died on April 5, shooting himself in the head. There was a lot of heroin in his system; he had escaped from rehab. As word spread, shattered fans bearing candles headed for the little park next to the house. Two days later, a vigil drew some 7,000 people. A recording of his wife, Courtney Love, reading his suicide note held the crowd in stunned silence. It included a line from Neil Young’s Hey Hey, My My: “It’s better to burn out than to fade away.” Gone 25 years, Cobain’s complicated magnificence remains frozen in time, never having had the chance to fade away. – Marsha Lederman
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