Politics Briefing: Alberta, B.C. spat goes from oil to wine

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The fight between Alberta and British Columbia's NDP governments over oil pipelines has hit B.C.'s cherished wine industry.

Alberta Premier Rachel Notley has ordered the province's liquor regulator to halt imports of B.C. wine — the latest volley in an escalating trade war over the fate of Kinder Morgan's Trans Mountain pipeline. B.C. introduced regulations designed to block the project last week, prompting Alberta to walk away from talks over electricity sales.

Alberta has so far focused its retaliation on areas with relatively small economic impact on B.C.'s overall economy: B.C. sends about $70-million of wine to Alberta a year, which is less than half of one per cent of the province's total exports to its neighbour. But the wine industry is a Crown jewel for B.C., giving the new ban an outsized symbolic importance.

B.C. Premier John Horgan says the province will have a response, but he's not saying what that will look like — or whether it will involve trade restrictions against Alberta. The two provinces trade billions of dollars a year in products ranging from B.C. softwood to Alberta beef.

This is the daily Politics Briefing newsletter, written by Chris Hannay in Ottawa, Mayaz Alam in Toronto and James Keller in Vancouver. If you're reading this on the web or someone forwarded this email newsletter to you, you can sign up for Politics Briefing and all Globe newsletters here. Have any feedback? Let us know what you think.

CANADIAN HEADLINES

The federal government now says it could be late summer before marijuana is legalized – assuming the bill gets passed in the Senate – making it a slight delay from earlier predictions of July 1.

B.C.'s plan to regulate the sale of recreational marijuana when the drug is legal this summer could make it easier to crack down on illegal dispensaries, which have managed to stay open even while cannabis is prohibited.

A subsidiary of the Chinese construction giant that is trying to buy one of Canada's biggest firms has been blacklisted in Bangladesh for offering bribes. The Canadian purchase is currently undergoing a major review by the government.

Human rights activists are calling for an investigation of the activities of the Canadian embassy in Mexico, which they say supported a mining company accused of human-rights abuses.

A worker at the U.S. embassy in Ottawa has agreed to pay thousands of dollars to a landlord after trying to claim diplomatic immunity from paying rent.

The federal Fisheries Minister says changes to the Fisheries Act should show skeptics that Ottawa is serious about protecting the coast from potential oil spills. The government has proposed legislative amendments that would increase protections for fish habitat and change the way projects are assessed and approved.

Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne has declared a trade war with the state of New York over the "Buy American" law it enacted last year. Ms. Wynne says she will be tabling legislation later this month that will allow Ontario to retaliate against New York and the bill will be crafted such that she can take the fight to any other state that chooses to follow similar legislation.

British Columbians will face caps on auto insurance claims as part of a series of reforms aimed at stopping losses at the province's Crown-owned auto insurer. But the province isn't switching the Insurance Corp. of B.C., which is facing a loss of $1.3-billion this year alone, to strict a no-fault system like ones already in place in other provinces.

When Tom Mulcair resigns from the House of Commons as expected this year, there will be a fierce contest between the Liberals and NDP for his Montreal seat.

And for all of you political history fans out there, The Canadian Press has the story of how Canada lost a potential 11th province – and got Dalhousie University instead in the aftermath of the War of 1812.

Campbell Clark (The Globe and Mail) on Canada-U.S. relations: "Good luck selling NAFTA in Chicago, Justin Trudeau. Another leader once tried to sell a trade deal here, but in the end nearly all the elected Chicago-area Democrats in Congress opposed it. That leader was Barack Obama."

Wesley Wark (The Globe and Mail) on Chinese investment in the construction industry: "It is difficult to imagine a bigger negative impact to the security of Canada's critical infrastructure than to have a Chinese state-owned enterprise, close to the Beijing government, deeply embedded in both military and civilian critical infrastructure projects in Canada, including nuclear power."

Martha Hall Findlay (The Globe and Mail) on Trudeau and Trans Mountain: "The federal government has said it supports the Trans Mountain expansion. But words alone are insufficient. It must act – and act now."

Globe and Mail editorial board on Indigenous child welfare: "Keeping native children close to their communities and their kin, and out of the hands of an underfunded system that can't even provide proper data on their numbers, seems like the best bet for ending a century-old vicious circle."

Benjamin Shinewald (The Globe and Mail) on repairs to 24 Sussex: "Successive governments made 24 Sussex Dr. a symbol of financial and environmental calamity. By contrast, a non-partisan, expert-led commission tasked with managing our official residences for our national benefit would turn 24 Sussex Dr. back into a symbol of financial and environmental excellence."

Piers Morgan (The Daily Mail) on Canada's Prime Minister: "In the new wave of modern feminism, the list of contenders for the coveted title of Chief [Politically Correct] Plonker is long and distinguished. But now a clear winner has emerged in the form of Trudeau, the handsome young politician publicly drooled over by many of the same women who claim to find male objectification of female flesh so demeaning. Trudeau - who is photographed topless far too often for it to be accident - knows his fanbase and thinks he knows what they want to hear."

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INTERNATIONAL HEADLINES

South Korean President Moon Jae-in is set to kick off the 2018 Winter Olympics in a matter of days, but controversy over the Pyeongchang games has already hit his office. More than 60 petitions have been filed complaining about the working and lodging conditions for the army of 15,000 volunteers slated to ensure that the Games go off without a hitch. "Even prison food is better than this," read the headline of one national daily newspaper, which quoted volunteers who called their experience like working for "Pyeongchang Jail." Mr. Moon's political opponents jumped on the issue and municipal elections are set to be held shortly after the Olympics end later this month.

For months, U.S. President Donald Trump has used the rising stock prices on Wall Street as an indicator of his own success in office. Since his inauguration he has tweeted about the stock market more than 50 times. Now, as U.S. financial markets tumble a new lesson has emerged: If you live by the stock market, you can also fall by the stock market.

There was a federal government shutdown in the U.S. last month. Mr. Trump says he'd "love to see a shutdown if we don't get this stuff taken care of," referring to immigration talks and the status of unprotected undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S. as children. Temporary spending is set to expire on Thursday.

South African President Jacob Zuma has cancelled his annual state of the nation speech as the ruling African National Congress debates his resignation. Mr. Zuma is unpopular in South Africa and is facing multiple corruption allegations and dwindling support from his party, The Globe's Geoffrey York reports.

Poland's President Andrzej Duda of the socially conservative and nationalist Law and Justice party signed into law a Holocaust bill, defying critics including Israel and the U.S. The legislation imposes a prison sentence of up to three years if someone uses the phrase "Polish death camps" and if they suggest that the Polish state was complicit in Germany's war crimes during the Second World War. Prior to the start of the war 3.2-million Jews lived in Poland, and more than three million of them were killed by the Nazis.

The president of the Maldives has declared a state of emergency after what he calls a "coup," raising alarms around the world about further repression in the authoritarian island state. We've built a guide to get you caught up on what's happening in the archipelago.

Rouhlat Ali (The Globe and Mail) on Kurdistan: "While powerful nations play a strategic game of morally-deficient diplomacy, civilians in Afrin pay the price. The United States and Canada continue to ride Kurdish coattails of bravery and success, but have not offered protection to civilians in Afrin, nor a clear and definitive stand against Turkish aggression. Turkey's invasion of Afrin is not a move for safety. It is not an effort to fight terrorism. These are easy answers being fed to a divided Turkish population that Mr. Erdogan desires to control by channelling a collective fear of the Kurds as an ethnic group. Mr. Erdogan has effectively silenced any Turkish dissent by branding any criticism of his attacks on Afrin as "terror propaganda" and arresting anyone who speaks out. Any leader who is afraid of criticism from his own citizens is not interested in safety, but in control. Canada must recognize this offensive for what it is – a desire to control a resource-rich section of Syria and a concerted effort to remove Kurds, no matter the price."

Lawrence Martin (The Globe and Mail) on the arms race: "One of the more comforting developments of modern times has been the decline in nuclear-arms stocks and the threat they constitute. Sanity among the superpowers has been evident for three decades – ever since Mikhail Gorbachev took the evil out of his empire and reached arms agreements with Ronald Reagan. But the run of prudent oversight is drawing to a close."

Slawomir Sierakowski (The Globe and Mail) on Poland and the Holocaust: "The ugly fact is that the new law was promulgated on the 73rd anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, and just before the 50th anniversary of the Polish communist government's anti-Semitic campaign of 1968, which resulted in an exodus of 20,000 Poles, depriving the country of some of its brightest minds. So far, there is one jarring similarity between these two events: Both gave Poland a black eye while stoking nationalist fervour among the 'patriotic electorate.' One hopes that this is where the similarities end."

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