Politics Briefing newsletter: NDP leadership race enters final stretch

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Good morning,

I don't know about you, but the summer feels like it's just flying by. And it's not the only thing: in the political world, we are rapidly approaching the end of the NDP leadership race. In fact, this week the campaign reaches one of its most important milestones: the deadline for signing up new members to the New Democratic Party. If you want to vote in the leadership race, you have until Thursday to join the party.

As the NDP leadership race enters its final stretch, four candidates remain: Jagmeet Singh, a member of the Ontario legislature from the western part of the Greater Toronto Area; Manitoba MP Niki Ashton, who also ran in the 2012 leadership race; Charlie Angus, the former rock-and-roller and Northern Ontario MP; and Guy Caron, Quebec MP and former economist. The shape of the race is hard to tell so far. Mr. Singh appears to have run away with fundraising, but polls (which are often unreliable in leadership elections) suggest Mr. Angus and Ms. Ashton have the most support in the party. Mr. Singh has won the most endorsements, though Mr. Angus just received one yesterday from David Suzuki.

This is the daily Politics Briefing newsletter, written by Chris Hannay in Ottawa and Eleanor Davidson in Toronto. 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. Let us know what you think.

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NAFTA UPDATE

Happy NAFTA-eve. With talks scheduled to begin tomorrow, Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland outlined Canada's priorities for the renegotiations of the North American free trade agreement. One of the most ambitious goals is to prevent any member country from weakening environmental protections to attract investment. Ms. Freeland also said Canada wants to reform NAFTA's investor-state dispute-settlement process. The U.S. has said it wants to eliminate these binding mechanisms in NAFTA's Chapter 19, which allow governments to challenge measures taken by other member governments. Canada is a staunch defender of Chapter 19, and has said U.S. plans to remove the dispute mechanism would be a "red line" in the renegotiations.

Campbell Calrk (The Globe and Mail) on Canada's cheerful approach to NAFTA: "Ottawa's negotiators are not heading into talks on the North American free-trade agreement this week because Canadian officials had nifty ideas to make a 23-year-old deal, as Ms. Freeland said, 'even better.' It is happening because Donald Trump campaigned for the U.S. presidency asserting that NAFTA caused many of the ills affecting U.S. workers. He promised a better deal for Americans, or to tear it up. NAFTA advocates came up with the word 'modernization' to try to deflect him into something all three partners can accept. But we got here because of what the Americans want." (For subscribers)

Andrew Coyne (National Post) on Canada's NAFTA leverage: "Canada survived for 120 years without a free trade agreement with the United States. It can survive without one in the future, if it has to. The first principle guiding Canada's negotiators, then, as they begin talks with the United States and Mexico on 'improving' NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement (successor to the original 1987 Canada-US FTA), must be a willingness to walk away from the bargaining table, if need be. And by walking away, I mean being willing to risk the United States abrogating the entire treaty in response."

CANADIAN HEADLINES

An Ontario judge has freed a man after 17 months in a maximum security prison after "Kafkaesque" charges against the refugee claimant. "As with Kafka's protagonist Joseph K, no one knows why he is detained," Ontario Superior Court Justice Edward Morgan wrote in his ruling.

A former Bloc Québécois MP is facing charges of sex assault.

The Association of Municipalities of Ontario says the province's sales tax should go up to 1 percentage point to pay for local infrastructure. The Ontario Liberals, who are facing re-election next year, said they would not do so.

And one of the cofounders of The Rebel Media has left, saying he can no longer tolerate the media organization's associations with white nationalist groups. "What anyone from The Rebel was doing at a so-called 'unite the right' rally that was really an anti-Semitic white power rally is beyond me," journalist Brian Lilley wrote in a statement.

Lorna Dueck (The Globe and Mail) on the pastor freed from North Korean prison: "Rev. Lim lost almost a third of his body weight, dropping from 90 to 67 kg in two months, but on Sunday he smiled and he joked with his congregation about the deprivation weight-loss program. He seemed chagrined that despite a rigorous examination by a Canadian doctor sent with his government rescue, no diagnosable ailment could be found."

Tasha Kheiriddin (iPolitics) on Charlottesville's Canadian ramifications: "As black Americans ask themselves whether they feel safe in the United States, many people who are not yet citizens there are answering in the negative — and voting with their feet. Canada is seeing a surge of illegal immigration from its southern neighbour, made up of people who were hoping to make the United States their home, who now say that because of their skin colour, country of origin or religion, they don't feel welcome there. Some have had their refugee claims or citizenship requests denied in the U.S. Others fear they will be turned down; some simply would rather simply leave and try their luck elsewhere."

INTERNATIONAL HEADLINES

After days of criticism from allies and opponents alike, U.S. President Donald Trump sought to calm the storm on Monday, by denouncing "the KKK, neo-Nazis, white supremacists and other hate groups." But it remains to be seen whether Mr. Trump's statement will be enough to persuade critics that he is not an enabler of the white supremacists who wreaked havoc in Charlottesville, Virginia this weekend. Presidential scholar Barbara Perry described Mr. Trump's words as "too little, too late." After a weekend of violence, white-power groups announced Monday that they are planning more rallies in Virginia and Texas in the coming months.

Donald Trump's words are not just causing domestic turmoil. After the president's threat of possible armed intervention in Venezuela, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro called for military exercises to prepare for an "imperialist" invasion. U.S. Vice President Mike Pence sought to calm concerns in the region, and promised a peaceful solution to Venezuela's "collapse into dictatorship." Mr. Maduro used Mr. Trump's comments to re-affirm long-standing accusations that Washington is preparing a military attack against Venezuela. "Everyone has to join the defence plan, millions of men and women," Mr. Maduro told supporters on Monday. "Let's see how the American imperialists like it."

Two Canadians were among the 18 killed in a suspected Islamic extremist attack in Burkina Faso's capital this weekend. Tammy Chen of Ontario, pregnant and recently married, was working on her PhD at the University of Cambridge, and Bilel Diffalah was a volunteer for Montreal-based Centre for International Studies and Cooperation.

And Kenyans largely ignored an opposition call to strike on Monday, as they shrugged off demands for demonstrations against the reelection of President Uhuru Kenyatta. Opposition leader Raila Odinga's allegations that last week's vote was fraudulent spurred violent protests across the country in recent days. But the muted reaction to Monday's call for a strike caused hope for a return to normalcy. Traffic came back to the streets of the capital, Nairobi on Monday and the local stock market rose 2.5 per cent.

The Globe and Mail editorial board on Trump protecting fascists: We are far wiser to judge the man we know, not the one in recovery mode on Monday who urged citizens to "rediscover the bonds of love and loyalty that bring us together as Americans" – bonds that he himself has tried to break apart. "Racism is evil," said the real-estate developer who gained early political notoriety by spreading the racist lie that former president Barack Obama was born in Kenya. "Racism is evil," said the man who has sought to ban Muslims from entering the U.S., called Mexican immigrants "rapists" and criminals, and who wants to build a wall the length of his country's southern border. "Racism is evil," said the man who had to be talked into denouncing the support of the former head of the KKK during his election campaign, and who as a landlord in New York took steps to keep black people out of his family's apartment buildings.

Harry Leslie Smith (The Guardian) on the eerie familiarity of 2017: "This August resembles too much that of 1939; the last summer of peace until 1945. Then aged 16 and still wet behind the ears, I'd go to pictures with my mates and we'd laugh at the newsreels of Hitler and other fascist monsters that lived beyond what we thought was our reach. Little did we know in that August 1939, life without peace, without carnage, without air raids, without the blitz, could be measured in days. I did not hear the thundering approach of war, but as an old man I hear it now for my grandchildren's generation. I hope I am wrong. But I am petrified for them."

Read more about this 94-year-old veteran who has his own podcast.

The New York Times Editorial Board on the Iran deal: "Critics often ignore the fact that the deal was intended to keep Iran from producing a nuclear weapon, a crucial and necessary goal. They also ignore the fact that the deal is working, as the International Atomic Energy Agency, which rigorously monitors Iran's activities, and even Mr. Trump's own State Department have certified. One can imagine the challenges the United States could be facing if the deal did not exist and this administration were grappling with two nuclear-armed adversaries at once. But it is not."