Good morning,
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has always been careful about how he talks about U.S. President Donald Trump. One point Mr. Trudeau has made repeatedly – most recently in an interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper – is that Mr. Trump is, if nothing else, a man of his word.
But what word is that?
In a recording of a fundraising speech obtained by The Washington Post, Mr. Trump boasts that he made up facts about the trade relationship between Canada and the U.S. when the two world leaders spoke. “Trudeau came to see me. He’s a good guy, Justin. He said, ‘No, no, we have no trade deficit with you, we have none. Donald, please,’” Mr. Trump said, according to the Washington Post report. “So, he’s proud. I said, ‘Wrong, Justin, you do.’ I didn’t even know. ... I had no idea.”
The Office of the United States Trade Representative says the U.S. had a $12.5-billion trade surplus with Canada in 2016.
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
NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh appeared at a pro-sovereignty event in 2016 with the co-founder of the National Sikh Youth Federation, a man who endorses the use of political violence. It was the second such event reported by The Globe this week, the first being a 2015 rally in San Francisco. Mr. Singh has not answered specific questions about the events, but he says he has been involved with them as an advocate for human rights and that he condemns all acts of violence.
The official residence of the Prime Minister, 24 Sussex, may have even more asbestos in it than previously thought.
Canada’s High Commissioner to Barbados is being criticized by politicians in the country for saying both men and women can serve as political leaders.
Vancouver has withdrawn from the North American 2026 World Cup, amid disputes about costs between the B.C. government and the national bid committee.
The B.C. government and the City of Vancouver are setting up temporary housing in a site that has sat largely empty for a decade — despite being set aside for social housing. The modular housing units will are planned for Little Mountain, where 1950s-era social housing was cleared in 2009 to make way for plans for a larger project that has yet to materialize.
A new report finds the B.C. government responded well to destructive floods in the province’s Interior last year, but also that understaffing and training created problems when it came to forecasting river flows and managing water levels at several dams.
And PEI Senator Percy Downe says there should be more farmers, fishers and veterans in the Senate to balance out all the lawyers, journalists and academics.
Kate Bezanson (The Globe and Mail) on Federal Budget 2019: “To achieve gender equality and secure long-term economic prosperity, Budget 2019 should establish a universal publicly funded child-care system (based on need/demand) that is affordable, accessible, high quality and public or not-for-profit. This will assist parents to work, reduce poverty, create jobs for early-childhood educators (who are disproportionately women) and improve social and learning outcomes for children.”
Robyn Urback (CBC) on Jagmeet Singh: “Singh keeps getting asked about Sikh extremism and questions of independence because he won’t give an answer. That’s passable for a provincial MPP, but not for a would-be prime minister.”
Paul Wells (Maclean’s) on Jagmeet Singh: “I would so dearly prefer that these not be the subjects that follow Singh around that, when I recently sat down with him for an hour in front of CPAC’s cameras, we didn’t discuss them. But I’m not the one who flew to San Francisco and took the podium in front of a death-before-slavery poster the size of a barn door. Three years ago. The guy who did that is Jagmeet Singh, and everyone is starting to notice how he answers the questions he himself put so much energy into raising.”
Chantal Hébert (Toronto Star) on leadership races: “But a party can only rent its soul to the latest leadership comer so many times before it loses that soul. It may not be long before someone somewhere in Canada tries to steal a page off France’s President Emmanuel Macron’s game book and crafts a coalition of the willing that transcends the increasingly meaningless ideological party boundaries.”
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INTERNATIONAL HEADLINES
The United Kingdom is moving against Russia by expelling 23 diplomats after ex-spy Sergei Kripal and his daughter were poisoned, allegedly at the behest of the Kremlin. British Prime Minister Theresa May says “there is no alternative conclusion” other than Russia being responsible for the attempted murder and has threatened to freeze Russian assets and toughen anti-espionage laws. Mr. Kripal and his daughter Yulia, as well as a police officer who was exposed to the chemical, remain in critical condition in the hospital. The type of nerve agent was developed by the Soviet Union in the 1980s.
Students from more than 3,000 schools across the United States staged a walkout yesterday to protest against gun violence and send a message that enough is enough. The rallies were held one month after a gunman killed 17 people at a high school in Florida. Students who survived at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School have been at the forefront of a burgeoning political movement among teenagers to urge politicians to enact more strict gun enforcement measures.
The era of Italian politics headlined by former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi is finally over, The Globe’s Eric Reguly reports from Rome. Here’s how one political analyst describes the 81-year-old now: “Berlusconi was the original populist, but he no longer fulfils the requirements of a populist. He’s no longer anti-establishment. His message was overwhelmed by M5S and the League.”
Larry Kudlow, a former Wall Street economist and CNBC analyst, is the new director for the White House National Economic Council, replacing Gary Cohn. He supports NAFTA, opposes tariffs and called Canada “perhaps America’s greatest ally,” two weeks ago while discussing possible tariffs on steel and aluminum, over which Mr. Cohn resigned. He also had this to say: “Even with this left-wing crazy guy Trudeau … they’re still our pals. Why are we going after them?”
Slovakia’s Prime Minister Robert Fico says that he is prepared to resign to resolve a crisis that was instigated after an investigative journalist and his fiancée were murdered
And German Chancellor Angela Merkel faces a host of challenges as she embarks on her fourth term leading the euro zone’s economic powerhouse.
David Shribman (The Globe and Mail) on the special election in Pennsylvania: “The meaning of this Pennsylvania contest in 2018 is further diluted by a quirk of American politics – the way congressional districts are created. New borders for Pennsylvania’s 18 congressional ridings are now being drafted, almost certainly eliminating the district where Tuesday’s contest was conducted. The winner, elected to replace a lawmaker who resigned because of a sex scandal, will have to run for a full term in fewer than eight months in a district that will bear faint resemblance to the one that this week sends him to Washington.”
Globe and Mail Editorial Board on Russia and the U.K.: “London happens to be a playpen for Kremlin-connected oligarchs who launder their ill-gotten billions through lavish real-estate holdings and other baubles while living in the extreme luxury that the British capital affords. Freezing their assets and imposing a visa ban on them, as Magnitsky-style laws do, would hit Mr. Putin where it hurts. Britain should quickly draw up the necessary legislation.”
Wesley Wark (The Globe and Mail) on the spy story: “The world is on the edge of something momentous here. This is not just a spy story with Cold War trappings. It is not just something that happened to a former Russian spy (and his daughter, and a police sergeant). It bears the ominous hallmarks of the fracturing of a rules-based international order: The first use of a military nerve agent against a Western power since the Second World War; the first act of state aggression by Russia directly against a Western power since the end of the Cold War; and it is a potential spark for a spiral into unrestrained cyberattacks. To make matters worse, this is all taking place amid an unsettling isolationist moment in U.S. global policy.”
Konrad Yakabuski (The Globe and Mail) on Mike Pompeo: “Compared to Mr. Tillerson, Mr. Pompeo is practically Mr. Trump’s best bud. Countless reports suggest the two men get along swimmingly, as Mr. Pompeo schools an information-challenged Mr. Trump in the basics of running the world during the daily intelligence briefing he gives the President. Mr. Pompeo’s hardline position on North Korea suggests that a May meeting with Mr. Kim may not happen at all, or not before the North Korean dictator makes major concessions. The new Secretary of State only plays hardball.” (for subscribers)
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Editor’s note: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated Canada had a $12.5-billion trade surplus with U.S. In fact, as the USTR website, which we linked to, notes, it is that the U.S. has a $12.5-billion trade surplus with Canada.