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politics briefing newsletter

Good morning,

Representatives of a number of Central and South American countries, including Brazil, Mexico and Peru, are meeting in Ottawa today to talk about what to do about Venezuela’s deepening political and humanitarian crisis. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau spoke on the phone for the first time Sunday with Venezuela’s self-declared interim president Juan Guaido, who is now recognized as the legitimate leader of the country by a number of Western nations. On the weekend, U.S. President Donald Trump floated the idea of a military intervention in Venezuela, but the Canadian government – which has been an international leader on the file – said it would not support such a move.

This is the daily Politics Briefing newsletter, written by Chris Hannay in Ottawa. It is available exclusively to our digital subscribers. If you’re reading this on the web, subscribers can sign up for the Politics newsletter and more than 20 others on our newsletter signup page. Have any feedback? Let us know what you think.

TODAY’S HEADLINES

The lead lawyer for Chinese businesswoman Meng Wanzhou – an executive with telecom giant Huawei, who was arrested in Canada and will undergo extradition hearings to be sent to the United States – says her legal team is actively exploring a defence that says the charges against her are politically motivated.

BCE and Telus still hope to use Huawei technology in the next-generation 5G mobile network, but financial analysts increasingly think the Canadian government will ban the Chinese company’s involvement in 5G.

Bill C-69, the Liberal government’s contentious environmental assessment bill, continues its examination in the Senate this week. The legislation comes in the wake of some high-profile pipeline debates (Trans Mountain, anyone?) and the Liberal government’s earlier implementation of a carbon-pricing scheme that aims to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions.

Both the Liberals and Conservatives had some social media gaffes on the weekend: The Conservative Party pulled an attack ad that used the format of Heritage Minutes (Historica Canada, the maker of the official Heritage Minutes, said it disapproved of parodies for partisan purposes) and Liberal MP Adam Vaughan apologized for suggesting Ontarians “whack” Premier Doug Ford.

Liberal MP Greg Fergus, the head of the cross-party caucus of black MPs, says the public service has been too slow to address systemic issues facing black Canadians. “If there is not buy-in from the public service – if the public service, the machinery of government is not reflective of the diversity of the country, and doesn’t see that the black community is an important community that you want to deal with – it’s like Astroturf ... it exists on the top but there are no roots,” Mr. Fergus said.

The Conservative Party says its candidates in the upcoming election will be more available to the media and for local debates than they were last time.

And Canada’s Auditor-General, Michael Ferguson, died from cancer on Saturday. He was 60. “He cared deeply about conducting audits that brought value to the public service, always for the greater good of Canadians,” his office said in a statement.

John Ibbitson (The Globe and Mail) on the foreign policy of the Liberals and Conservatives: “The Liberal government has announced new measures to prevent foreign actors from interfering in the next Canadian election. All well and good, but here’s the thing: There is no reason why any foreign actor would want to interfere in Canada’s election. The Liberal and Conservative parties are so closely aligned on every major foreign policy file that Russia, China or any other great power would achieve nothing by attempting to promote one party or undermine another.”

Margaret Wente (The Globe and Mail) on Trudeau’s China policy: “Today, Canada is trapped in an epic struggle between the world’s two superpowers, with no clear way out. To please either one would enrage the other. Progressive values won’t help us now.”

National Post editorial board on freezing relations with China: “Canada continues to engage with China, and provide what consular support it can to the detained Canadians. But the time may come when the Liberals, despite their palpable desire to avoid confrontation with any foreign nation, may have to draw a line as it has with Iran.”

Barrie McKenna (The Globe and Mail) on Canada’s trade with the U.S. and China: “Sadly, we no longer make many of the things the U.S. buys from China in large quantities. Over the past couple of decades, Canadian manufacturers have ceded market share in the U.S. to exporters from other countries, most notably China, in products such as steel, plastics and toys.”

Parag Khanna (The Globe and Mail) on the Asian century: “Over the past four decades, Asians have gained the greatest share of total global economic growth and Westerners, especially middle-class industrial workers, the least – a trend driven by the rise of manufacturing in Asia. Billions of Asians growing up in the past two decades have experienced geopolitical stability, rapidly expanding prosperity and surging national pride. The world they know is one not of Western dominance but of Asian ascendance.”

Rashid Husain Syed (The Globe and Mail) on Canada’s relations with Saudi Arabia: “And for its efforts in calling out these human-rights violations, Ottawa received only tepid support from its Western allies. Riyadh’s antagonistic position against Canada – it has ceased new trade deals with the country and expelled the Canadian ambassador – hasn’t changed, and there appears to be no real political incentive to do so.”

Ken Frankel (The Globe and Mail) on Canada’s leadership on Venezuela: “In taking a leadership role in the Lima Group’s support for a peaceful transition from Nicolas Maduro’s regime in Venezuela to democracy, Canada has seized an opportunity to showcase the validity and importance of a foreign policy based on the promotion of democracy, human-rights accountability and multilateral solutions. This is welcome news for a Trudeau government that has wrestled with implementing these policies elsewhere in the world.”

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