Morning Update: Trump impeached again, charged with incitement of insurrection

Good morning,

U.S. President Donald Trump has been impeached an unprecedented second time, on this occasion charged with inciting last week’s deadly attack on the Capitol building as he sought to overturn his re-election defeat.

The House of Representatives passed a single article of impeachment, “incitement of insurrection,” with 10 Republicans breaking with the President to join all Democrats in voting for the measure.

Trump has just under a week left in his term, and legislators are hoping to bar him from ever holding federal office in the future. He will face trial in the Senate, which requires a two-thirds vote to convict.

• Analysis: No one can predict the effect of Trump’s second impeachment
• Impeachment 2: The unravelling of the Trump Republicans

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Foreign affairs

China: Canada and Britain are acting out a “farce” in taking action against forced labour in China, a government spokesman in Beijing said. The Chinese embassy in Ottawa echoed the statements and said Canada is “simply not qualified to being a human-rights preacher,” pointing to the country’s “bad record” in its treatment of Indigenous people.

Hong Kong: Canada has granted asylum to 14 Hong Kong pro-democracy activists fleeing Beijing’s crackdown, according to a Canadian group supporting dozens of refugee claimants. These developments are a sign Canada is opening its doors to those targeted by the Chinese government.

• Also: China agrees to increase consular, family access for Spavor and Kovrig and allows a phone call with family
• Konrad Yakabuski: Can Marc Garneau bring some much-needed substance to Canadian foreign policy?
• John Ibbitson: It’s time to restructure the Department of Foreign Affairs

Energy firms misled Alberta regulators on cleanup of well sites

Close to 60 natural gas well sites in southern Alberta, are supposed to have been shut down, cleaned up and the land returned to its natural state. Instead, an Alberta Energy Regulator (AER) investigation found scattered equipment, holes in the earth, and dead vegetation. It found one company had submitted site photos that weren’t of the wells being reclaimed, and signed off on cleanups at many sites despite holes in the ground and various infrastructure left behind.

But the companies will not face financial penalties, despite the breadth and seriousness of their contraventions of Alberta’s Environmental Protection and Enhancement Act. Instead, each company received a warning letter from AER, calling the matter “very serious.”

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Pandemic news

Ontario Premier Doug Ford called critics of his COVID-19 stay-at-home order irresponsible, but police said they had not seen the order and could not say how it would be enforced. There is still confusion in the province, including from Toronto Mayor John Tory, who is asking for more clarity.

Alberta and British Columbia have exhausted almost all of their vaccine inventory this week, as the supply begins to fall short of demand and the provinces’ capacities to deliver them. Meanwhile, vaccine rollout has begun in First Nations communities in Manitoba as active cases on reserves across Canada have reached a high point.

• Husband of Quebec doctor who took her own life shines light on pandemic burnout
• Italy plunged into fresh political crisis during darkest days of the pandemic

Coming up: Join us for a live conversation about what Canadian schools are doing during the second wave of the coronavirus, and what the broader community needs to do to help.

• When: Jan. 14 at 1:30 p.m. EST
• Where: The Globe and Mail’s Facebook page
• Send questions to audience@globeandmail.com

ALSO ON OUR RADAR

Federal debt could be manageable: Reducing interprovincial trade barriers and introducing programs such as universal daycare may be the best way to manage ballooning government debts, former Bank of Canada governor Stephen Poloz says.

First Nations youth services: Indigenous Services Minister Marc Miller pledged to implement orders from a human-rights tribunal on services for First Nations children despite a decision by his government to seek a judicial review of findings from the quasi-judicial body.

Air Canada slashing seat capacity 25 per cent, laying off 1,700 staff: Air Canada has laid off or furloughed about 20,000 people – almost half its work force – since the onset of pandemic restrictions in March.

MORNING MARKETS

World markets focus on U.S. stimulus plan: Investors shrugged off U.S. President Donald Trump’s record second impeachment and focused instead on reports on Thursday that his replacement, Joe Biden, will lay out a new US$2-trillion stimulus program later. Just before 6 a.m. ET, Britain’s FTSE 100 rose 0.62 per cent. Germany’s DAX and France’s CAC 40 advanced 0.35 per cent and 0.26 per cent, respectively. In Asia, Japan’s Nikkei rose 0.85 per cent. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng gained 0.93 per cent. New York futures were mixed. The Canadian dollar was trading at 78.91 US cents.

WHAT EVERYONE’S TALKING ABOUT

Hockey’s back, and the pandemic has put Canada in a league of its own

Editorial: “The serious illness or death of just one of them would raise retrospective doubts about the wisdom of going ahead with the season; anything worse could be a disaster for the NHL.”

TODAY’S EDITORIAL CARTOON

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LIVING BETTER

Ward off winter’s chill with these nine wines

Forecasts suggesting cold air from the Arctic is set to descend into parts of Canada further south than normal inspired a search for wines that could wake up one’s taste buds.

For Christopher Waters, red wines are more suited to warding off winter’s chill, so the recommendations feature a mix of mostly full-bodied merlots with some blends and a richly concentrated shiraz added for good measure. There’s also a couple of whites that made an impression during recent tastings.

MOMENT IN TIME: Jan. 14, 1989

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The Satanic Verses is set ablaze at British protest

Hundreds of angry demonstrators cheered on this day in 1989 when a copy of Salman Rushdie’s Whitbread Award-winning novel The Satanic Verses was set on fire outside the city hall in Bradford, in northern England. Many Muslims believed the book, partly inspired by the life of the Prophet Mohammed, was blasphemous. One main objection was that dream sequences in the novel appeared to challenge central tenets of the religion. Almost immediately upon its publication in 1988, it sparked protests around the world, including violent ones in Pakistan and India, which both banned the book. Then came counter-demonstrations protesting against censorship. A month after the Bradford book-burning, Iran’s Ayatollah Khomaini issued a fatwa calling on Muslims to murder Rushdie and anyone else involved in the book’s publication. Other book burnings followed and bookstores were bombed. Dozens of people lost their lives, including protesters and the Japanese translator of The Satanic Verses, Hitoshi Igarashi, who was stabbed to death. Rushdie went into hiding for nearly a decade before the Iranian government said in 1998 it no longer supported the call for his death. The novelist went on to serve as president of the writers organization American PEN and to speak out for free speech. The fatwa remains in place. Danielle Adams

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