Good morning,
What once was a trickle of people flowing across the Canada-U.S. border at irregular points of entry is slowly growing to a torrent.
More than 7,000 people have walked across the border so far this year, multiple times more than did last year, and are seeking asylum in Canada.
The federal government says more than 90 per cent of them do not fit the criteria for refugee status and will be taken out of the country. “ Coming across the border in a way that seeks to circumvent our procedures is no free ticket to Canada,” Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale said.
Most of the claimants this year appear to be Nigerian nationals, who have stopped in the United States on visitor visas on their way into Canada. Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen, who was born in Somalia and came to Canada as a refugee when he was a teenager, is flying to Nigeria to dissuade more people from attempting the journey.
This is the daily Politics Briefing newsletter, written by Chris Hannay in Ottawa, Mayaz Alam i n 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.
TODAY’S HEADLINES
A government investigation that cleared Saudi Arabia’s use of Canadian armoured vehicles over allegations of human-rights violations relied, in part, on what the Saudi government told investigators.
A group of veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder is taking the government to court over limits on the amount of medical marijuana they were given.
Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer says he did smoke marijuana more than once in university, but he still thinks the Liberals’ marijuana legalization bill is a bad plan.
In the first debate of the Ontario election, Progressive Conservative Leader Doug Ford said he would eliminate billions in spending, Liberal Leader Kathleen Wynne said Mr. Ford could cut teachers and nurses, and NDP Leader Andrea Horwath said her party could provide the province with something new.
Alberta’s Opposition leader, Jason Kenney, says his United Conservative Party will join Saskatchewan’s legal challenge of the federal carbon pricing system. Mr. Kenney says the federal plan is an unconstitutional intrusion into provincial matters.
British Columbia’s NDP government has set new targets to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, with an aim to reduce emissions to 40 per cent below 2007 levels over the next 12 years.
The B.C. government is also calling on Ottawa to step up regulation of fish farms after a new study suggested farmed salmon could be endangering wild salmon stocks. The study follows decades of debate about the impact of fish farms and whether they contributed to a collapse of wild salmon.
And within her first few minutes at a parliamentary committee, new RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki was asked by a male MP how “a lady” would tell “the guys” in the police force how to behave. “ I’ve been called worse,” she quipped to reporters afterwards.
Campbell Clark (The Globe and Mail) on Jason Kenney: “He is tapping into a deep vein of frustration and resentment, vowing to defend his province against the outsiders. He has clearly decided that will move Albertans more than simply comparing his program to that of the Premier.”
The Globe and Mail Editorial Board on the challenges for Mr. Kenney: “He can get away with that now – polls suggest his party will romp to power next year. Rebuffing the grassroots on controversial social issues carries few consequences at this point. But it will be interesting to see how Mr. Kenney copes with having to say no when the polls are closer, or during a tighter-than-expected election.”
Benjamin Dachis (The Globe and Mail) on a public stake in the Trans Mountain pipeline: “Governments should not be in the pipeline business. Adding political involvement to daily operating and building decisions will bog down the project. Nor should government support be unlimited.”
Leonard Waverman and Gordon Pitts (The Globe and Mail) on Canada’s economic dysfunction: “So to break the logjam on interprovincial trade, we need a battering ram – and the tool could be a serious court challenge.”
Shachi Kurl (Ottawa Citizen) on border crossing: “How did we get here? Didn’t Trudeau proclaim that ‘diversity is our strength?’ Wasn’t the popularity of his stance on accepting 25,000 Syrian refugees part of what convinced centre and centre-left voters to spur the Liberals to a majority? The thing is, feel-good rhetoric is easier to accept when a complex issue isn’t staring you right in the eyeballs.”
Chantal Hébert (Toronto Star) on Andrew Scheer and Quebec: “For most Quebec voters, a social conservative federal leader is almost as exotic as one wearing a turban.”
Adam Radwanski (The Globe and Mail) on the Ontario election debate: “[NDP Leader Andrea] Horwath’s aim, in the election that officially begins on Wednesday, is to present herself as a ray of sunshine opposite two darker options. In that moment and others, she executed it well enough to suggest that – as per a pair of polls released earlier in the day showing the NDP pulling ahead of or even with the Liberals for second place behind the Tories – she may be able to turn this campaign on its head.”
Paul Wells (Maclean’s) on the Ontario election debate: “ Monday’s debate wasn’t anyone’s last chance, and the three leading candidates for the job of premier were correspondingly cheerful. And at the risk of getting kicked out of the cranky pundits’ guild, they were all quite appealing.”
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