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Acknowledging that Canadians face a housing crisis, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced yesterday in London, Ont., the first federal cash to come from the Housing Accelerator Fund. The city will get $74-million to fast track the construction of 2,000 housing units within three years.
Trudeau said the federal government would have more to say “very soon” about its plan to address housing affordability, but did not offer details and declined requests to respond to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation’s report that there is a 3.45-million-unit shortfall in housing.
The Liberals have repeatedly promised to do more to address the housing affordability crisis that is pushing many Canadians to the brink and driving down the government’s popularity in public-opinion polling.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau visits the construction site of an affordable housing project in London, Ont. on Wednesday, September 13, 2023.Nicole Osborne/The Canadian Press
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Calgary daycares reopen as number of E. coli cases crosses 300
Daycares in Calgary involved in a serious E. coli outbreak have been given permission to reopen as the number of confirmed cases tops 300, and health authorities continue to search for the source of the illness. A kitchen that supplies meals to the daycares is believed to be at the root of the outbreak.
A total of 310 confirmed cases of illness were connected to the outbreak as of yesterday, and 21 children were in hospital, according to Tania Principi, section chief of pediatric emergency medicine at the Alberta Children’s Hospital. This is one of the largest outbreaks of pediatric E. coli known to have occurred in Canada.
- Kelly Cryderman: Danielle Smith must uncover roots of E. coli crisis and ensure it doesn’t happen again
Chinese diplomats say it’s Michael Chong, not Beijing, meddling in foreign affairs
The Chinese embassy in Canada is accusing Conservative MP Michael Chong of hypocrisy a day after he testified before members of the U.S. Congress about being a target of Beijing’s interference.
The embassy said Chong’s history of criticizing China’s human-rights record is itself political interference. Chong has been a vocal critic of Beijing’s actions in Hong Kong and its treatment of Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang.
In May, the MP learned from The Globe and Mail that Beijing targeted him and his relatives in Hong Kong in the lead-up to the 2021 election, a revelation that led the federal government to expel a Chinese diplomat behind the effort. In July, the government informed Chong that he was almost certainly the target of a second disinformation campaign orchestrated by Beijing this year, around the same time Ottawa was expelling Chinese diplomat Zhao Wei.
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Also on our radar
Witness at London attack trial recalls victims being struck: The driver of a truck revved its engines and sped up toward a curb before striking and killing four members of a Muslim family in London, Ont., an eye witness testified yesterday. Crown prosecutors argue Nathaniel Veltman deliberately hit the Afzaal family because he was motivated by a white nationalist ideology.
Man who killed Indigenous woman released on parole: Brayden Bushby, who was given an eight-year prison sentence for killing Barbara Kentner when he threw a trailer hitch at her, has been released on day parole, two years after he was sentenced.
Searchers race to recover bodies in Libya: Search teams continued to look for bodies yesterday in the coastal Libyan city of Derna, where the collapse of two dams unleashed a massive flash flood that killed at least 5,100 people. The head of the World Meteorological Organization said on Thursday that casualties could have been avoided if the divided country had a functional weather service able to issue warnings.
Weather Network calls in RCMP to probe hack: Pelmorex Corp., the company that owns The Weather Network, says it has called the RCMP to investigate the cybersecurity incident that affected the network’s website and mobile app earlier this week. The company would not say whether the incident was a malware attack or whether any user data have been affected by it.
Morning markets
ECB rate announcement in focus: Europe’s markets were treading water in early trading on Thursday, as investors waited on a knife-edge decision from the European Central Bank on whether to ratchet up euro zone interest rates for a 10th straight meeting. Around 5:30 a.m. ET, Britain’s FTSE 100 was up 0.69 per cent. Germany’s DAX was flat and France’s CAC 40 edged up 0.03 per cent. In Asia, Japan’s Nikkei rose 1.41 per cent. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng added 0.21 per cent. New York futures were positive. The Canadian dollar was higher at 73.88 US cents.
What everyone’s talking about
Lawrence Martin: “A lot of it comes down to spin – to who’s winning the political communications war. The Poilievre team has been trouncing the Trudeau team on that front. It will continue to do so unless the Liberals quit being a party of patsies and start fighting fire with fire.”
Cathal Kelly: “Babcock took his biggest professional weakness and turned the situation so that the players are the ones refuting its validity. You say Mike Babcock’s a bully? The biggest names on the Columbus Blue Jackets just got bullied by him and they say different. That’s not hockey smart. That’s Machiavelli smart.”
Today’s editorial cartoon
Illustration by David Parkins
Living better
What you need to know about COVID this fall
The COVID-19 virus is surging again. But this year it’s different. Cases are rising again in Canada, reversing a trend from when cases were decreasing for most of 2023. And once again, there are new variants circulating. On this episode of The Decibel podcast, The Globe and Mail’s National Health Reporter Kelly Grant explains what you need to know about COVID-19 heading into fall.
Moment in time: Sept. 14, 1985
Estelle Getty as Sophia Petrillo, Rue McClanahan as Blanche Devereaux, Betty White As Rose Nylund, and Bea Arthur as Dorothy Petrillo Zbornak in the show Golden Girls.NBC/Getty Images
Golden Girls premieres
Before The Golden Girls premiered 38 years ago, it would’ve been hard to predict that a show about four women of a certain age living together would draw in a broad audience. And yet, in its pilot episode, the sitcom immediately upended anything you would expect from that elevator pitch. As Dorothy, Bea Arthur displayed some of the most risqué humour on TV, all with a deadpan delivery. “It’s a wonderful day in Miami,” she says in the first minutes. “All the single men under 80 are cocaine smugglers.” The lascivious Blanche, played by a breathy Rue McClanahan, contemplates whether to accept a suitor’s proposal after dating for one week and tells her roommates that “he’s still interested.” Betty White, as the agelessly naïve Rose, replies: “In what?” The show had its heartfelt moments, too, and the pilot ends with Blanche – whose suitor has been arrested for bigamy – speaking of the angst of growing old alone and the comfort that pals can offer. It was a sentiment that reached through the screen, as anyone who spent 180 episodes with these women can definitely look back and say, “Thank you for being a friend.” Micah Toub
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