Good evening, let’s start with today’s top stories:
Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg exits amid 737 Max crisis
After a year of intense scrutiny and industrial setbacks set off by twin fatal crashes of its 737 Max jetliner, Boeing Co. fired chief executive officer Dennis Muilenburg.
Chairman David Calhoun will take over as CEO and president, anticipating that a change in leadership was necessary to restore confidence in the U.S.-based company.
The 737 Max grounding was the biggest crisis of Muilenburg’s 34-year tenure at Boeing, where he started as an intern in 1985, rising through the company’s defence and services ranks to the top job in 2015.
Also read:
- Continued stumbles by CEO Dennis Muilenburg deepen the crisis at Boeing
- Boeing’s turbulent year: A timeline of the 737 Max crisis
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Conservative party’s fundraising boss takes over as acting director
Jaime Girard was chosen late last week to replace Dustin Van Vugt, who left his job as executive director this month over questions about party funds used for Andrew Scheer’s personal expenses.
Girard has been the party’s fundraising director for years and is the first woman chosen to run the party.
Saudi Arabia sentences five people to death for Jamal Khashoggi’s killing
A court in Saudi Arabia sentenced five people to death Monday for the killing of Washington Post columnist and royal family critic Jamal Khashoggi, whose grisly slaying in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul drew international condemnation and cast a cloud of suspicion over Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
Three other people were found guilty by Riyadh’s criminal court of covering up the crime and were sentenced to a combined 24 years in prison, according to a statement read by the Saudi attorney-general’s office on state TV.
In all, 11 people were put on trial in Saudi Arabia over the killing. Executions in the kingdom are carried out by beheading, sometimes in public. All the verdicts can be appealed.
ALSO ON OUR RADAR
Chinese embassy takes swipe at ‘some Canadian politicians’ over talk about cases of Kovrig, Spavor: The Chinese embassy says attempts to “gang up on China” by way of “megaphone diplomacy” and “pressuring China for unrelated matters is doomed.”
India’s main opposition party stages protest in New Delhi against contentious new citizenship law: The silent protest in the capital on Monday drew about 2,000 people at the Raj Ghat, a memorial dedicated to Mahatma Gandhi, where the Congress party demanded “protection for the constitution and the rights of people enshrined in it.”
Three people from London, Ont., charged after probe into alleged human trafficking of migrant farm workers: Police allege the suspects posed as a lawyer and a property owner, recruited the workers, then took their passports once they arrived.
Canadian economy unexpectedly shrank in October as GM strike weighed on auto industry: October’s growth figures were the latest in a string of disappointing data that analysts say could put pressure on the Bank of Canada to mull a rate cut.
Mitch McConnell not ruling out witnesses: The Senate Majority Leader said he hasn’t ruled out calling witnesses in President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial. Republicans and Democrats remain at odds over the terms of the Senate proceedings.
MARKET WATCH
Canada’s main stock index hovered below record highs on Monday
The Toronto Stock Exchange’s S&P/TSX composite index was up 10.27 points, or 0.06 per cent, at 17,128.71. The index hit a record high of 17,166.39 earlier in the session.
Wall Street’s main indexes closed at record highs on Monday amid renewed optimism over U.S.-China trade and growth prospects.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 96.61 points, or 0.34 per cent, to 28,551.7, the S&P 500 gained 2.8 points, or 0.09 per cent, to 3,224.02 and the Nasdaq Composite added 20.69 points, or 0.23 per cent, to 8,945.65.
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TALKING POINTS
This Christmas, NBA player Enes Kanter is coming to town – despite Turkey’s threats against him
Enes Kanter: “I’ve had to leave my team behind, which is hard for someone like me, who values camaraderie and team solidarity as much as I do. The reason: I speak out against the Turkish state.” Kanter plays for the Boston Celtics of the National Basketball Association.
If we can put partisan politics aside, we might find a smart China policy
Colin Robertson: “For too long our China policy has swayed between the romantic and the hostile, depending on whether the government is Liberal or Conservative.” Robertson is a former Canadian diplomat and current vice-president and fellow at the Canadian Global Affairs Institute.
How natural resources form the core of Thunder Bay’s Indigenous-settler power imbalance
Ernie Epp: “This push-and-pull over resources – occasionally fruitful, but often fraught – is the story of Thunder Bay’s economy.” Epp is a professor emeritus of history at Lakehead University, and was a member of Parliament for Thunder Bay-Nipigon from 1984 to 1988.
HOLIDAY READS
Family honours son’s memory by spreading hope, Christmas cheer to patients at Toronto hospital
For the 16th year in a row, Jane Watson and her family will spend Christmas Eve morning hand-delivering gifts to as many patients as they can at Toronto’s St. Joseph’s Health Centre. This year’s presents will be stuffed pandas, 450 of them, each one adorned with a ribbon and a tag that reads: “Project Hope.” Ms. Watson brought Project Hope to St. Joseph’s as a way to pay forward the kindness that the hospital’s staff showed her and her husband, Ian Watson, on the night their son, William Thomas, died suddenly when he was just six weeks old.
LONG READ FOR A LONG COMMUTE
Six relics vs. one B.C. pipeline: How the Wet’suwet’en’s fight against a natural gas project became an argument about archeology
There is no doubt that the artifacts found in Coastal GasLink pipeline’s path are authentic, but how they ended up in the middle of Camp 9A has spawned a complex and highly charged court dispute: Were the objects planted in an effort to halt construction on the pipeline or did they always exist on the site? The stakes are enormous – any delay would sharply raise costs and shake investor confidence in the pipeline and the Kitimat gas liquefaction facility and terminal. The Globe and Mail dug through hundreds of pages of documents filed in B.C. Supreme Court to paint a picture of the conflicting views over the origin of the relics and the Wet’suwet’en’s fight against Coastal GasLink and the BC Oil and Gas Commission.
Evening Update is written by Sierra Bein. If you’d like to receive this newsletter by e-mail every weekday evening, go here to sign up. If you have any feedback, send us a note.
Sierra Bein