Good evening, the Evening Update newsletter will pause on Monday for the Thanksgiving holiday, and return on Tuesday.
Now let’s start with today’s top stories:
Conservatives, NDP release costed platforms
Andrew Scheer revealed a Conservative government would cut $18-billion in infrastructure spending over five years, a surprise announcement that came a day after the Conservative Leader said he had already outlined all of his planned spending cuts. The party says the change is triggered by a plan to take the existing 12-year allocation for infrastructure spending – worth more than $180-billion – and stretch it out over 15 years. The infrastructure changes are the largest spending reductions by far in the party’s costed election platform, which Scheer released Friday afternoon in Delta, B.C.
The platform explains for the first time how a Scheer government would deliver on its pledge to erase the federal deficit within five years, while also delivering an across-the-board income tax cut and specific tax breaks for various demographics, including public transit users and parents of newborns.
The raft of new cuts were revealed a day after Scheer told Canadians in the official French-language debate that his spending reductions had already been disclosed.
Also on Friday, at an event in Ottawa, NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh unveiled his party’s detailed costing plan for how his party would pay for its big-ticket spending promises in areas such as national pharmacare and billions for affordable housing and public transit. The NDP says it can raise $130-billion in new revenue over four years by hiking taxes on corporations, high-income Canadians and by closing offshore tax loopholes. “We know we can do these things. We know we can invest in housing and make these choices. We can also ask the wealthiest to pay a little bit more so we can make these investments in people,” Singh told reporters.
In other election news, we took a look at the parties’ culture platforms and the Liberals’ legacy in this area. As Simon Houpt writes, revenues are falling as Canadian viewers pivot from traditional TV to foreign-owned services delivered over the internet. Industry experts and others are warning of a Canadian media ecosystem – which produces everything from entertainment programming to local news – in danger of buckling without new and imaginative government policy. And some are blaming the Liberals for wasting precious time during their four years in office.
Ex-Ukrainian diplomat opens up about chat with Rudy Giuliani
For six hours, Rudy Giuliani and Andriy Telizhenko smoked cigars and ate hamburgers in Giuliani’s New York law office while the former Ukrainian diplomat told U.S. President Donald Trump’s personal attorney exactly what he wanted to hear.
What Telizhenko told Giuliani in their May 17 meeting – and Giuliani’s willingness to believe the 29-year-old’s version of some key events in recent history – helped send the United States down the path to Trump’s fateful phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. The impeachment hearings that followed have sprung from Trump’s attempts to persuade the Ukrainian leader to open an investigation that could damage former U.S. vice-president Joe Biden.
The Globe’s Mark MacKinnon spoke to Telizhenko in the lobby of a five-star hotel in Kyiv that he jokingly refers to as “my home." Telizhenko says he approached Giuliani because he was disturbed by the role the Ukrainian embassy had played in the U.S. election. Whether someone believes Telizhenko – now a full-time political consultant – likely corresponds with whether the listener likes Trump.
Meanwhile, former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch told lawmakers Friday that President Trump put pressure on the State Department to oust her from her position.
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ALSO ON OUR RADAR
Canadian economy adds 54,000 jobs: Canada’s unemployment rate nudged down to 5.5 per cent in September as the economy added 54,000 net new jobs, driven by gains in full-time work, Statistics Canada reports.
Ethiopia’s Abiy Ahmed wins Nobel Peace Prize at a risky time for his democratic reforms: The Globe’s Geoffrey York reports on Africa’s youngest leader, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, being awarded the prize for reforms at home and his diplomatic efforts to bring peace to one of the world’s most volatile regions.
Ontario court rules Ford government broke law when it scrapped province’s cap-and-trade system: Two of three judges on a divisional court panel said the government violated provincial laws when it failed to consult the public on a regulation ending Ontario’s cap-and-trade program last year but even the groups who launched the case concede the finding won’t bring the program back.
Hong Kong faces weekend protests: Hundreds of mask-wearing pro-democracy protesters marched through Hong Kong’s central business district on Friday, occupying a main thoroughfare and disrupting traffic as the Chinese-ruled city braced for another weekend of unrest.
Mandatory evacuations ordered for about 100,000 people as wildfire rages in California: A wildfire raged out of control along the northern edge of Los Angeles early Friday, forcing tens of thousands of people from their homes as firefighters battled flames from the air and on the ground.
Yukon MLAs unanimously vote to declare a climate emergency: The vote adds Yukon to the growing list of nearly 500 federal, provincial and municipal governments, including the House of Commons and the Province of Quebec, that have declared climate emergencies in Canada over the last year.
MARKET WATCH
Canada’s main stock index finished flat despite robust domestic jobs data.The Toronto Stock Exchange’s S&P/TSX composite index finished down 7.52 points, or 0.05 per cent, at 16,415.16. In U.S. markets, the improved appetite for riskier assets carried from Thursday and improved after U.S. President Donald Trump said “good things” were happening during high-level China-U.S. trade talks and spoke of “warmer feelings.” The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 317.65 points, or 1.2 per cent, to 26,814.32, the S&P 500 gained 31.88 points, or 1.09 per cent, to 2,970.01 and the Nasdaq Composite added 106.27 points, or 1.34 per cent, to 8,057.04.
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TALKING POINTS
Fraternities and their outdated ideas of manhood have to end
“The question I want to raise for all schools that permit fraternities: How long are we going to allow our campuses to be dominated by secret societies of men whose culture promotes unhealthy and dangerous behaviour toward women?” Marina Adshade teaches at the University of British Columbia’s Vancouver School of Economics and SFU School of Public Policy
Microbiome research needs a gut check
“It happened with stem-cell research. Ditto genetics and precision medicine. And now we are seeing it play out with microbiome research. Good science is being exploited to market bunk products and ideas. Gut hype is everywhere.” – Timothy Caulfield is a Canada Research Chair in Health Law and Policy at the University of Alberta and host of A User’s Guide to Cheating Death
LIVING BETTER
With Thanksgiving around the corner, we have a guide to food, wine and giving thanks. Whether you’re hosting a meal or trying to be a good guest, we have you covered with advice on how to handle the the dynamics around the dinner table, plus recipe ideas and wine pairings.
And if you’d like an escape this holiday weekend, check out our roundup of films opening in theatres and available to stream this weekend, including El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie, which dropped today on Netflix, Eddie Murphy’s energetic comeback Dolemite Is My Name (now in theatres before coming to Netflix in two weeks) and Ang Lee’s story-lacking spectacle Gemini Man.
LONG READ FOR A LONG COMMUTE
Pickerel with tomatillo and padron sauce by Manitoba chef Renée Girard.Barry & Kirn/The Globe and Mail
Canada’s Kitchen 2019: Meet the country’s next top chefs
Our second annual edition of Canada’s Kitchen puts the spotlight on emerging chefs from across the country. With a rich and diverse food culture between our coastlines, these chefs are on the forefront of culinary trends while also keeping regional food traditions alive. We asked these 10 culinary stars, each representing a different province or territory, to share dishes that capture their cooking style and sense of place.
Evening Update is written by Kate Hopwood and Lori Fazari. 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.