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These are the top stories:
Jody Wilson-Raybould backed Manitoba’s Glenn Joyal for chief justice as part of a broader plan
As justice minister in 2017, Wilson-Raybould recommended appointing Joyal to the Supreme Court as chief justice, in turn clearing the way for the appointment of Canada’s first Indigenous chief justice of a superior court, a source said. But Prime Minister Justin Trudeau instead opted to elevate Richard Wagner from a seat on the top court to the position of Chief Justice. (for subscribers)
Wilson-Raybould’s plan would have seen Joyal become the first chief justice in more than a century to come from outside the top court, and also the first francophone outside Quebec to lead the Supreme Court. Trudeau picked Quebec’s Wagner, continuing a tradition of rotating between anglophone and francophone chief justices.
The process for judicial appointments is highly confidential to protect the reputations of sitting judges and other applicants. But the inner debates spilled out into public view on Monday after a leak from within the government.
Here’s John Ibbitson’s view of the leak: “At the root of [the SNC-Lavalin] scandal is the allegation that Trudeau and his advisers interfered in the rule of law ... Now the Prime Minister’s Office appears to have made that alleged interference so much worse, by apparently slinging mud at a political opponent by leaking a story about the Supreme Court selection process.”
Meanwhile, Liberal MPs again used their majority to vote down any further parliamentary inquiry into the SNC affair. Opposition parties had sought to get Wilson-Raybould to testify via the ethics committee, after the Liberal-dominated justice committee put an end to further hearings last week.
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The Canadian Red Cross has sent a team to Mozambique to battle a growing humanitarian crisis
Children play within the grounds of a compound set up for displaced people suspected to have cholera in Beira, Mozambique. (Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi/Associated Press)Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi/The Associated Press
The after-effects of the deadly Cyclone Idai are rippling through Mozambique, with fears of cholera outbreaks and rising malaria infections as a result of massive flooding stretching across 3,000 square kilometres of the country. Several hundred thousand people have lost their homes, with an estimated 1.8 million in need of urgent aid. Some cholera cases have been confirmed.
The Canadian Red Cross has dispatched an emergency field hospital to Beira, where the central hospital has been severely damaged. Twenty-five Canadian health workers have also been sent.
Cyclone Idai has killed more than 760 people in Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Malawi, with the death toll expected to rise after floodwaters recede and more bodies are found.
Quebec’s planned religious-symbols ban is facing fresh pushback
François Legault’s CAQ government plans to table a bill as soon as tomorrow which would bar authority figures in the public service from wearing Muslim headscarves and other religious symbols. And now, one of the province’s largest teachers’ federations has gone to court to prevent the government from doing a head count of teachers who wear religious symbols, a move it says infringes on educators’ fundamental rights.
The background: Amid a decade-plus debate over secularism and religious accommodation, the CAQ campaigned in last fall’s election to bar police officers, judges, prosecutors, prison guards and teachers from wearing religious symbols.
Is the plan legal? The government says it’s willing to invoke the notwithstanding clause to “protect” Quebec’s values and ensure the bill fends off possible court challenges. That clause would override the Quebec and Canadian charters of rights. But the head of the Quebec Human Rights Commission is warning that a religious-symbols ban risks violating basic freedoms and that the notwithstanding clause should only be used in exceptional circumstances.
Two of Canada’s AI leaders have won the world’s top computer science prize
Geoffrey Hinton of the University of Toronto and Yoshua Bengio of the University of Montreal will share the US$1-million Turing Award with Yann LeCun, a New York University professor. Together, their work developing the principles of machine learning have fuelled the AI boom worldwide.
But it wasn’t always clear that their research would have such a deep impact. Hinton, for example, started working in the 1980s with neural networks, which involves training computer programs to improve their problem-solving abilities through trial and error. In the past decade, rapid advancements in AI confirmed the importance of this year’s winners’ groundbreaking ideas.
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ALSO ON OUR RADAR
OxyContin maker Purdue reached a US$270-million settlement with Oklahoma after the state accused it of fuelling the opioid epidemic by playing down addiction risks and overstating benefits. It’s the first settlement to come from roughly 2,000 lawsuits filed against opioid manufacturers; B.C. is so far the only Canadian jurisdiction to sue pharma companies over the overdose crisis.
B.C.’s long absence of ride-hailing services like Uber will finally be rectified by the end of 2019, Premier John Horgan is vowing. During the 2017 provincial election, Horgan’s NDP campaigned on a promise to have those services in place by the end of that year.
A bid to revive the Montreal Expos is picking up steam, as businessman Stephen Bronfman works to persuade the federal government to sell a plot of land seen as the ideal site for a baseball stadium. (for subscribers)
MORNING MARKETS
Markets largely flat
Global equity markets were on the down side on Wednesday, but largely flat, hoping central bank action in the world’s biggest economies could temper some of the slowdown in world growth, even though bond yields continued to flag recessionary fears. Tokyo’s Nikkei lost 0.2 per cent, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng gained 0.6 per cent, and the Shanghai Composite moved up 0.9 per cent. In Europe, London’s FTSE 100, Germany’s DAX and the Paris CAC 40 were down by between 0.2 and 0.4 per cent by about 6:10 a.m. ET. New York futures were down. The Canadian dollar was above 74.5 US cents. Investors will be watching the Brexit saga closely, with more voting on the horizon today.
WHAT EVERYONE’S TALKING ABOUT
After Christchurch, does Canada need tougher gun laws?
Globe editorial: “This month, in the wake of the Christchurch massacre, the New Zealand government moved swiftly to ban semi-automatic military-style assault rifles that can accommodate large magazines. In Canada, the government is close to passing a bill that would stiffen some of the rules around legal gun ownership. But is that enough to limit opportunities for mass shootings? Does it reduce the likelihood of guns being used in other crimes?”
Britain is going to ban porn for kids under 18. It won’t work
Debra Soh: “Adults in favour of the porn ban fail to realize that sexualized images are ubiquitous today, permeating not only the internet, but also movies, music videos, magazines and video games. For those concerned about preserving the innocence of the young, education and open conversation will be more productive safeguards than censorship and willful ignorance.” Debra Soh holds a PhD in sexual neuroscience research from York University. She writes about the science and politics of sex.
Irish fighter Conor McGregor’s ‘retirement’ looks more like a PR smokescreen
Cathal Kelly: “On Tuesday afternoon, the New York Times reported McGregor was being investigated in connection with a sexual assault in Ireland, adding a darker tone to proceedings. This would be a new one: retirement as a PR smokescreen. … Nobody believes McGregor has retired, because nobody really retires in sports. What they do is deploy the nuclear professional option as means to some other end.”
TODAY’S EDITORIAL CARTOON
(Brian Gable/The Globe and Mail)TGAM
LIVING BETTER
The debate over eggs continues with the release of a new study
A higher intake of eggs is being linked to an increased risk of cardiovascular disease and premature death, if a new study is to be believed. But the findings come not long after the U.S. removed daily cholesterol limits, with a growing number of scientists saying that when cholesterol is in food, it has little effect on the amount of cholesterol in the bloodstream. So what should you do? Leslie Beck writes that if you eat two or more egg yolks a day, consider moderation.
MOMENT IN TIME
Elvis Stojko wins gold at World Figure Skating Championship
(Shizuo Kambayashi/Associated Press)SHIZUO KAMBAYA/The Canadian Press
March 27, 1994: The 1994 World Figure Skating Championships was billed as a showcase for a new generation of male skaters, and Ontario’s hockey-haired kung-fu master did not disappoint. At 22 years of age, Elvis Stojko had competed in four Worlds already. His results were impressive – bronze in 1992, silver in 1993 – but he toiled in the shadows of three legends of the sport: Brian Boitano, Viktor Petrenko and Kurt Browning. In 1994, all three had returned to the professional circuit, leaving Stojko as the favourite among a field of youngsters. Skating to the soundtrack of Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story, Stojko thrilled the audience in Chiba, Japan, with a martial-arts-influenced program featuring an attempt at a quadruple toe loop-triple toe loop combination. He would have been the first skater to land the difficult jump, but stepped out late in the triple. It didn’t matter. He soared on the rest of his jumps, overpowering the field. Skating judges who had long docked Stojko marks for a seeming lack of artistry lapped up the routine. One U.S. judge gave him a perfect 6.0 for technical merit. He would labour in the shadows no more. Elvis was king. – Patrick White
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