Morning Update: University researchers seeking federal funds to face national-security risk assessments

Good morning,

Amid growing concerns that Canadian universities are giving Beijing – specifically its military and security apparatus – a leg up, the federal government is imposing new mandatory national-security risk assessments to protect Canadian intellectual property from being transferred to authoritarian governments.

Innovation Minister François-Philippe Champagne released guidelines yesterday that will require researchers applying for grants through the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) to complete the assessments. The council is responsible for spending $1.3-billion annually on funding research and training. The U15 Group of Canadian Research Universities, which represents Canada’s most research-intensive institutions, spends an additional $8.5-billion per year.

For now, however, the assessment will be applied only to NSERC grants. If a project is designated high risk, it will be subject to a national-security review by Canada’s security agencies and a team of scientists. Projects that are seen as too risky won’t receive government funding.

From the archives: How Canadian money and research are helping China become a global telecom superpower

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Haitian doctor with Canadian ties not mastermind behind assassination plot, says official

Haiti’s Elections Minister, Mathias Pierre, said Christian Emmanuel Sanon, the Florida-based doctor accused of orchestrating the plot to assassinate President Jovenel Moïse, was just a middleman between the real masterminds and the gunmen who executed the order.

Mr. Pierre alleged that the evidence will ultimately show that the murder of Moïse was bankrolled by the powerful families that control major industries in Haiti. “Moïse has been fighting what he called the oligarchs. He was trying to remove control from some powerful groups of interests in this country, and give more power to the government,” Mr. Pierre said.

Mr. Sanon, who was connected to a now-defunct Canadian NGO that was reportedly created to do development work in the Caribbean nation, was arrested over the weekend. Haitian officials have said that he planned to take the presidency for himself.

In the latest Decibel: How foreign aid to Haiti ended up doing more harm than good

Read more: Former U.S. drug agency informant arrested in Haiti assassination, DEA source says

Set up risk-assessment office to track potential outbreaks, says review into Canada’s pandemic-surveillance system

Ottawa should set up a risk-assessment office within the Public Health Agency of Canada that would work closely with the Global Public Health Intelligence Network (GPHIN), Canada’s pandemic early-warning system, according to an independent review.

The 82-page report was ordered by the federal government following a Globe and Mail investigation last year that explained why Canada repeatedly stated in the early months of the pandemic that COVID-19 posed a low risk to the country.

The review panel found that GPHIN had become isolated within the government and had been underutilized. “If GPHIN’s early signals are not being fully incorporated into the risk assessment [process], then its intelligence is not being fully leveraged,” the report says.

More on the COVID-19 pandemic:

• Canada to donate 17.7 million AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine doses and raise money for global vaccination
• All COVID-19 restrictions to lift in England next Monday despite surge in infections
• Countries should not order COVID-19 boosters while others still need vaccines, WHO says
• Waterloo Region, a provincial Delta-variant hot spot, ramps up COVID-19 vaccine rollout to change community’s fate

Subscribe to our Olympics newsletter: Tokyo Olympics Update features original stories from Globe reporters in Canada and Tokyo, will track Team Canada’s medal wins, and looks at past Olympic moments from iconic performances.

Got a news tip that you’d like us to look into? E-mail us at tips@globeandmail.com. Need to share documents securely? Reach out via SecureDrop.

ALSO ON OUR RADAR

In bid to tackle drug overdoses, B.C. to provide regulated substances under safe-supply directive: British Columbia is directing all health authorities to develop programs that provide pharmaceutical-grade opioids, stimulants and other addictive substances to street-drug users, as a way of curbing overdose deaths. Under the directive, the province requires that these substances be administered either in a setting created for the provision of safe supply or a similar health clinic.

Multiple people dead after collapse of construction crane: The head of a development company behind the residential tower under construction said there were “multiple” fatalities after a crane collapsed in Kelowna, B.C. Construction will resume after WorkSafeBC conducts an investigation into the cause of the incident.

Liberals filibuster opposition call for inquiry into parliamentary funds paid to PM’s close friend: Liberal MPs filibustered opposition parties’ efforts to summon Tom Pitfield, the founder of Data Sciences and a close friend of Justin Trudeau, to testify before the House ethics committee regarding constituency work that his company is being paid by taxpayers to conduct.

Porter to buy as many as 80 jets for $5.82-billion in bid to expand network: Porter’s move to acquire 80 Embraer jets puts it in direct competition with Air Canada and WestJet Airlines.

South Africa faces danger of food shortages after violence, looting ignited by Zuma arrest: Chaos has gripped South Africa , where looters and rioters have unleashed a wave of attacks that are putting the country at great risk of experiencing food and medicine shortages, said President Cyril Ramaphosa. The violence was sparked by the recent imprisonment of former president Jacob Zuma, who was sentenced to 15 months for contempt of court.

Privacy law applies to Google results, judge says, in victory for ‘right to be forgotten’ advocates: A federal judge ruled that Canada’s laws governing how personal information is handled by companies extend to Google search results. The decision marks a win for those calling for the “right to be forgotten” online.

MORNING MARKETS

World shares advance: Global shares pushed to a record high on Tuesday, buoyed by better than expected Chinese export data as markets awaited the release of U.S. inflation data for further clues about the global economic recovery. Just before 6 a.m. ET, Britain’s FTSE 100 was up 0.12 per cent. Germany’s Dax and France’s CAC 40 slid 0.13 per cent and 0.25 per cent, respectively. In Asia, Japan’s Nikkei gained 0.52 per cent. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng rose 1.63 per cent. New York futures were mixed. The Canadian dollar was trading at 80.16 US cents.

WHAT EVERYONE’S TALKING ABOUT

Green Party’s potential crumbles in small-time bickering

“What’s next? Surely, you would think, this group of small-time squabblers will pull back from the brink before they bring the whole thing down. Surely, the council will not stop its new leader, the first Black and Jewish woman leader, from taking the party into one election, no matter what mistakes she has made. Right?” - Campbell Clark

Coming back to the office this fall should be liberating, not restricting

“Returning to the office environment, we’ll see some of the clear advantages of being in closer proximity: being able to build workplace culture more systematically and supporting more informal collaboration (nothing yet beats the office coffee break or lunchroom for that). But we also should have done away with the false paradigm that working from home reduces productivity or lessens accountability.” - Eileen Dooley, talent and leadership development specialist

TODAY’S EDITORIAL CARTOON

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LIVING BETTER

What to eat – and drink – if you have kidney stones

Modifications to your diet are a must for preventing kidney stones once you’ve had one, according to dietitian Leslie Beck. Consuming too much salt, meat and sugar, and not drinking enough water, increases the level of risk. Staying hydrated helps dilute the chemicals in your urine, making it harder for stones to form.

MOMENT IN TIME: July 13, 1976

Montreal Mayor destroys art display before 1976 Olympics

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The night of July 13, 1976, has been described as the greatest single act of artistic censorship in Canadian history. The Corridart affair may have been largely forgotten, because it took place in the shadow of Canada’s first Olympics, but the dismantling of a kilometres-long series of art installations by the decree of Mayor Jean Drapeau epitomizes the missteps of Montreal ’76. The Corridart dans la rue Sherbrooke was meant to stitch together the city’s downtown and its working-class east end – site of the new, wildly overbudget Olympic Park – with a string of performances, photographs and sculptures along one of Montreal’s most prominent arteries. But just a week after its unveiling, and four days before the Games began, Drapeau, a leader with a reputation for autocratic decisions and a fondness for bulldozers, decided the oeuvres were “ugly” and ordered them removed. Police-escorted hardhats set about disassembling dozens of works without warning; many of the pieces were damaged or destroyed. A dozen artists sued and received a small settlement more than a decade later. Eric Andrew-Gee

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