Good morning,
Today’s the day: the Ontario election campaign begins with the expected dropping of the writ. (OK, “drawing up the writ” if you want to be more precise.) It will no doubt be a turbulent five weeks until Ontario voters head to the polls on June 7.
In one odd side story, the Ontario Progressive Conservatives admit one local campaign hired actors to pretend to be supporters of Doug Ford for Monday’s debate.
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
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says the Canadian government will formally apologize for turning away a ship of Jewish refugees in 1939. “An apology in the House of Commons will not rewrite this shameful chapter of our history. It will not bring back those who perished or repair the lives shattered by tragedy. But it is our hope that this long overdue apology will bring awareness to our failings, as we vow to never let history repeat itself,” he said last night.
Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland insists NAFTA talks are making “constant progress.”
Ms. Freeland also says Canada regrets that the United States has pulled out of the nuclear deal with Iran.
After spending nearly a year and a half trying to find a new chief electoral officer, the Liberal government has decided that the best person for the job is the one currently doing it. Stéphane Perrault, the interim chief electoral officer, has been nominated to fill the permanent post. The next federal election is scheduled for October, 2019.
NDP MP Christine Moore, who brought allegations against MP Erin Weir to light that ultimately cost him his spot in caucus, is herself now being investigated for harassment.
An environmental group that was suing the federal government over habitat protection says it will end the legal challenge after Ottawa announced plans to increase oversight for threatened species on provincial land.
B.C.’s NDP government has set new targets for greenhouse gas emissions, revising previous goals that the BC Liberal government had failed to meet. But the government will face pressure from environmentalists and the Green party about plans to pursue the liquefied natural gas industry. The government insists it can do both by imposing strict targets for LNG terminals.
The Alberta government is facing a potential strike from legal aid lawyers, who say they will pull their services until the province increases funding.
A court case over whether a French Impressionist painting should be kept in Canada because it could be “nationally important” has opened a rare window into the country’s cultural export control regime. The issue came up last month during the National Gallery’s controversial sale of a Marc Chagall work.
And Members of Parliament say the recent death of Conservative MP Gord Brown has them reflecting on their own health. MPs tell The Hill Times that factors that contribute to ill health are the long hours, pressure, being away from family for long periods of time, easy access to bad food and alcohol, and loneliness.
Campbell Clark (The Globe and Mail) on Trudeau and the Iran deal: “U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw from a nuclear deal with Iran drove a wedge between Canada’s major allies, but Justin Trudeau’s reaction was muted. This Prime Minister, it is fair to say, wasn’t looking to get mixed up in an international argument over the Middle East.”
Simon Palamar (The Globe and Mail) on North Korea and the Iran deal: “Mr. Trump’s decision therefore raises the question: Is there anything Iran could have done – short of reinventing its foreign policy to appease Washington – that would have prevented this week’s events? If abiding by the JCPOA is not enough to preserve the agreement, what is? This is a question that will loom in the mind of Pyongyang’s negotiators if and when they meet their American counterparts later this year.”
Marcus Gee (The Globe and Mail) on the Ontario election: “Ontario voters can no longer choose between reasonably sensible parties of centre-left and centre-right. Neither is on offer in this election. Instead, they must choose between a right-wing populist in the mould of Donald Trump and a left-wing Liberal who has out-NDPed the NDP, leaving the NDP itself to carve out territory even farther to the left. The political centre has vanished like a puddle in the sun.”
David Reevely (Ottawa Citizen) on Ontario Progressive Conservative Leader Doug Ford: “Education is the second-biggest item in the provincial budget and it’s at least as delicate, complex and important as health. Education determines Ontario’s future. If you want decisions on how we do it based on grievances, some of them imaginary, here you go.”
Christie Blatchford (National Post) on NDP MP Christine Moore: “Until Tuesday, Moore might have appeared the feminist conscience on Parliament Hill, a job to which she appointed herself.”
Help The Globe monitor political ads on Facebook: During an election campaign, you can expect to see a lot of political ads. But Facebook ads, unlike traditional media, can be targeted to specific users and only be seen by certain subsets of users, making the ads almost impossible to track. The Globe and Mail wants to report on how these ads are used, but we need to see the same ads Facebook users are seeing. Here is how you can help.
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