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As a brand new 12 months begins, Ontario Premier Doug Ford says he’s hoping it’s going to incorporate a long-sought assembly between the premiers and the prime minister on well being care.
“I’m assured we’ll sit down,” Mr. Ford stated Wednesday when requested in regards to the concern at a information convention in Toronto. “We’re nonetheless making an attempt to get a date. I don’t know what’s so laborious about it.”
And as soon as on the desk, Mr. Ford stated he could be open to extra accountability on well being spending in alternate for extra federal cash.
“Everybody must be accountable. I all the time say there’s one taxpayer, irrespective of if it’s municipal, federal or provincial. That’s one individual paying the taxes and there all the time must be accountability in order that’s the least of our points. Do we wish just a little little bit of flexibility? Yeah, and I feel they’re prepared to try this,” stated Mr. Ford, referring to Ottawa.
“Generally that you must shift funds. So long as it’s clear and other people can see it, and the feds can see it within the province, we’re going to get there. I’m actually assured we’re going to get there.”
The premiers have been looking for a gathering, as a bunch, with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as they press for a rise within the Canada Well being Switch via which Ottawa supplies well being care funding. They wish to see Ottawa cowl 35 per cent of well being care prices throughout the nation, up from the present 22 per cent. Mr. Trudeau has stated the federal authorities is on the lookout for reforms and enhancements to the health-care system.
Following a late December assembly with Mr. Trudeau, Quebec Premier François Legault stated he was “extra optimistic” about securing a well being care cope with Ottawa. Story right here.
That is the each day Politics Briefing publication, written by Ian Bailey. It’s accessible completely to our digital subscribers. When you’re studying this on the internet, subscribers can join the Politics publication and greater than 20 others on our publication sign-up web page. Have any suggestions? Tell us what you suppose.
TODAY’S HEADLINES
PM IN MEXICO – Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, after attending the North American Leaders’ Summit in Mexico Metropolis on Tuesday, extolled the virtues of North American free commerce to a Mexican viewers of enterprise leaders Wednesday – and took a couple of jabs on the former U.S. president who tried to put off it. Story right here. Senior parliamentary reporter Steven Chase and U.S. Correspondent Adrian Morrow reported right here that Canada and the USA have reached a workaround deal in a dispute over the favored Nexus trusted traveller system, certainly one of a number of bulletins that got here out of the summit.
Reporter’s Remark, U.S. Correspondent Adrian Morrow: “U.S. President Joe Biden, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and their travelling press swimming pools had been, on Tuesday, handled to one of many signature options of protecting Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. At their joint information convention, the Mexican President spent a full 27 minutes answering a single query. This verbosity is certainly one of AMLO’s logos – he often holds a each day information convention that may go on for 2 hours. As his reply wore on, Mr. Trudeau might be seen making an attempt to carry again a smirk. Mr. Biden alternated between gazing his sneakers and winking at folks within the viewers. At one level, Mr. Trudeau gazed towards his workers sitting to the facet of the rostrum, as if on the lookout for some signal that it could be over quickly. “I feel I’m taking over extra time than I ought to. It’s chilly outdoors,” Mr. Obrador in the end stated, to laughter from reporters, because the solar vanished and a chill settled over the courtyard of the Palacio Nacional. “Thanks from the underside of my coronary heart.”
CIVIL SERVANT NAVIGATES RECOVERY AFTER BUS ACCIDENT – A federal public servant who misplaced her legs in an Ottawa bus crash 4 years in the past says she hopes to as soon as once more take the bus to the workplace this spring as she returns to work. Story right here from The Ottawa Citizen. In the meantime, light-rail service within the nation’s capital resumed absolutely on Tuesday evening after almost six full days of system issues linked to freezing rain. Story right here from CBC.
HARD CHOICES NEEDED TO FIX HEALTH CARE: MORNEAU – Former finance minister Invoice Morneau says political leaders in Canada have for too lengthy fastened the well being care system’s issues by spending increasingly more cash, and that now’s the time to make the laborious decisions they’ve averted prior to now. Story right here.
POPULATION SURGE IN URBAN AREAS IN CANADA – Canada’s city areas skilled their strongest inhabitants progress in at the least twenty years, rebounding from a weak enlargement through the early levels of the COVID-19 pandemic. Story right here.
POILIEVRE SEEKS CLOSURE OF IRREGULAR BORDER CROSSING – Conservative Chief Pierre Poilievre referred to as for the closure of the Roxham Highway irregular border crossing on Tuesday, however sidestepped questions on certainly one of his MPs denying assist to a household who used it to enter the nation. Story right here.
QUEBEC HYDRO CHIEF EXECUTIVE QUITS – Hydro-Québec chief govt officer Sophie Brochu has introduced she is stepping down, simply weeks after the provincial authorities created a “tremendous ministry” of the economic system that additionally assumed oversight of vitality issues. Story right here.
U.S. EMBASSY CONCERNED ABOUT ONLINE STREAMING ACT – The US embassy in Ottawa says it has issues that the federal Liberals’ controversial on-line streaming act may discriminate towards American firms. Story right here.
N.S. EMERGENCY DEPARTMENTS UNDER SCRUTINY AFTER WOMAN’S DEATH – The demise of a younger mom in an Amherst, N.S. hospital, is renewing scrutiny of the province’s health-care system, and the way emergency departments are functioning below the pressure of staffing shortages and overcrowded ready rooms. Story right here from CBC.
EBY FACES RECALL ACTION – Elections B.C. has accepted an software for a petition to recall British Columbia Premier David Eby launching a course of that might see his Vancouver seat vacated and a by-election held. Story right here from CTV.
TRANSPORTATION AGENCY ANNOUNCES COMPLAINTS APPROACH – The Canadian Transportation Company will lengthen choices on particular person air traveller complaints to others from the identical flight, however shopper rights advocates say the adjustments are unlikely to lead to significant advantages for many travellers. Story right here.
SMITH RULES OUT USE OF SOVEREIGNTY ACT – Premier Danielle Smith gained’t decide to utilizing Alberta’s controversial sovereignty act to rebut looming federal “simply transition” laws, which she calls an existential risk to her province’s bedrock oil and fuel business. Story right here.
CONCERNS RAISED ABOUT B.C. MOUNTIE’S ANTI-TRUDEAU WEBSITE – A B.C. Mountie’s anti-Trudeau web site is inflicting waves in a small West Kootenay group and elevating issues about political bias among the many ranks of the RCMP. Story right here from CBC.
YUKON LIBERAL MP PROMISES GUN CONTROL HEARINGS – Yukoners can have a chance to share their ideas on proposed amendments to federal gun management laws, the territory’s Liberal MP says. Story right here from CBC.
THIS AND THAT
HOUSE ON A BREAK – The Home of Commons is on a break till Jan. 30.
FREELAND AT WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM – Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland is on the schedule for 2 panels at this 12 months’s gathering of the World Financial Discussion board in Davos, Switzerland, becoming a member of a roster of contributors that embrace German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, UN Secretary-Normal Antonio Guterres and Avril Haines, the U.S. director of Nationwide Intelligence. The theme of the convention, operating from Jan. 16-20 and anticipated to attract 2,700 leaders from authorities, civil society and enterprise, is “Co-operation in a Fragmented World.” Ms. Freeland might be collaborating in a Jan. 18 session entitled “Restoring Safety and Peace” on how, based on a program be aware, leaders can collaborate and co-operate to defend collective safety amidst such challenges because the conflict in Ukraine. Different contributors embrace Jens Stoltenberg, secretary-general of the North Atlantic Treaty Group. She may even take part in a Jan. 19 panel entitled Ladies’s Management: In the direction of Parity in Energy on creating higher pathways to advance ladies into the very best ranges of management, Mark Carney, the previous governor of the Financial institution of Canada in addition to the ex-governor of the Financial institution of England, is scheduled to attend three periods together with one on philanthropy as a catalyst for shielding the planet. The convention web site is right here.
DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER’S DAY – Chrystia Freeland returns to Toronto from a go to to Washington, and attends personal conferences in Toronto.
MINISTERS ON THE ROAD – Transport Minister Omar Alghabra, in Port Colborne, Ont., made a funding announcement on the St. Lawrence Seaway Administration Company wharves. Immigration Minister Sean Fraser, in Carroll’s Nook, N.S., made a $322,727 funding announcement to improve public areas in 5 communities. Sport Minister Pascale St‑Onge, in Orford, Que., made a funding announcement to help small tourism-sector companies. Worldwide Improvement Minister Harjit Sajjan continues an official tour of Barbados and Jamaica.
PRIME MINISTER’S DAY
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in Mexico Metropolis, held personal conferences, delivered a keynote tackle on North American competitiveness and the significance of free commerce and inclusive progress, and took part in a household photograph. Mr. Trudeau and Sophie Grégoire Trudeau met with Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, and his partner, Beatriz Gutiérrez Müller. Mr. Trudeau subsequently met with Mr. Obrador. He then participated in an expanded assembly with Mr. Obrador, together with Canada’s Worldwide Commerce Minister Mary Ng, International Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly, Public Security Minister Marco Mendicino, and Graeme Clark, Canada’s Ambassador to Mexico. Mr. Trudeau then participated in a signing ceremony and was scheduled to take media questions. The Prime Minister and Ms. Trudeau had been then scheduled to depart Mexico Metropolis to return to Ottawa.
LEADERS
No schedules launched for occasion leaders.
THE DECIBEL
On Wednesday’s version of The Globe and Mail podcast, Dr. Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at VIDO, the Vaccine and Infectious Illness Group on the College of Saskatchewan, talks about The Kraken – the XBB 1.5 variant of COVID-19 shortly turning into the dominant pressure within the US, with extra circumstances in Canada too. The WHO has referred to as it probably the most transmissible variant of the virus we’ve seen to this point. The Decibel is right here.
PUBLIC OPINION
Two in 5 Canadians say they’d be snug with a nuclear energy plant working inside 50 kilometres of the place they dwell, based on new analysis from the Angus Reid Institute. Particulars right here.
OPINION
The Globe and Mail Editorial Board on how the conspiracy to inflate meals costs is actual and it’s time to rethink provide administration: “The Globe and Mail has uncovered a wide-ranging conspiracy to inflate meals costs, a dastardly scheme that has pushed up the prices of fundamental groceries whilst inflation pinches family budgets. Even worse, this plot has existed for many years, enriching the conspirators on the expense of Canadian households, 12 months upon 12 months. We communicate, after all, of agriculture provide administration and its “advertising and marketing boards” whose goals will not be a lot about advertising and marketing as they’re to constrain provide, to dampen innovation and competitors – and to maintain costs elevated.”
Campbell Clark (The Globe and Mail) on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s actual North America agenda being reacting to U.S. President Joe Biden’s industrial technique: “It was good that U.S. President Joe Biden and his Mexican counterpart, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, tacked a Three Amigos summit with Justin Trudeau onto conferences about Mr. Biden’s extra urgent concern: the Mexican border. The thought of a standard North American agenda appears a distant factor for the Mexican and U.S. presidents, each of whom are so wrapped up in home politics that there hasn’t been a whole lot of room for continental friendship. The get-together in Mexico was extra like a Three Acquaintances summit, despite the fact that Mr. Biden promised to go to Canada in March. However Mr. Trudeau does have a North American agenda – and it has been consuming his authorities’s consideration.”
Andrew Coyne (The Globe and Mail) on how the issue in Canadian politics will not be polarization, however extremism: “Definitely it’s laborious to flee the sensation that one thing is amiss in our politics, one thing new and disturbing – the fixed, escalating rage, the proliferation of conspiracy theories, the unmistakable overtones of menace. However I’m unsure that “polarization” is the best phrase. As ever, we appear to be importing American language to explain phenomena that will have echoes of occasions south of the border, however nonetheless have a distinctly Canadian ring.”
Konrad Yakabuski (The Globe and Mail) on how, with the departure of Hydro-Québec CEO, the province units its sights on new hydro dams: “Regardless of Ms. Brochu’s star profile in Quebec enterprise circles – she beforehand ran the province’s important natural-gas supplier and was thought of a possible candidate to go up Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec in 2019 – she ran up towards the fact that electrical energy coverage stays carefully guarded prerogative of the provincial authorities. Political meddling is nearly inevitable at Hydro-Québec, which has been a robust image of state capitalism and financial determinism for the reason that province nationalized its hydroelectric business within the Nineteen Sixties.”
Philippe Lagassé (Contributed to The Globe and Mail) on how Canada’s inevitable buy of F-35 jets was a slog, however the course of may have been worse: “We’ve heard so much in regards to the F-35 jet since then, however its critics and advocates have largely agreed about one factor: It was inevitable that Canada would finally purchase the aircraft. The plane’s critics argued that navy bias would inherently skew any competitors; its advocates stated {that a} competitors was a waste of time, for the reason that F-35 was probably the most superior fighter available on the market. In some methods, each side can now say, “I instructed you so.” Having served on two impartial panels that reviewed the necessities for the brand new fighters, I’m assured that the competitors was truthful. Furthermore, the time it took to get the method proper was well-spent if this navy functionality can now be acquired with none extra consternation.”
Jennifer Skene (Coverage Choices) on how logging creates as many emissions as oil sands and electrical energy technology, however the concern will get little consideration for local weather hurt: “The Canadian logging business is likely one of the nation’s best local weather liabilities, with internet annual emissions on par with each oil sands operations and the electrical energy sector. From the ambiance’s perspective, the consequences of those sectors are similar, elevating a important query that lies on the coronary heart of discussions round “pure local weather options.” Why are emissions from the destruction of the pure world handled in a different way than emissions from fossil fuels?”
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