Good morning,
Britain and the European Union have come up with a draft plan for Brexit, but it’s not clear how long that agreement will survive.
British Prime Minister Theresa May is going over the 500-page draft text with her cabinet today in the hopes of winning over the skepticism. But even if she gets her ministers on board, selling the agreement to the larger Parliament will be challenging. Ms. May’s Conservatives hold only a minority of seats in the U.K. Parliament, and not everyone is on board. Her former foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, who helped campaign for Brexit, says he’ll vote against her plan. It might also be difficult for her to win over the 10 Democratic Unionist Party MPs from Northern Ireland, who ordinarily vote with the Conservatives to keep Ms. May in power.
One of the biggest issues is how to handle the Irish border. In the 1990s, the border between Northern Ireland (part of the United Kingdom) and Ireland (an EU country) was made fairly porous as part of the end to the Troubles and decades of violence and terrorism in the region. But because of Brexit, the walls might have to come up again. The Globe’s Paul Waldie travelled the border recently to see how the Brexit debate was hurting people on both sides of the line.
This is the daily Politics Briefing newsletter, written by Chris Hannay in Ottawa. It is exclusively available only to our digital subscribers. Have any feedback? Let us know what you think.
TODAY’S HEADLINES
Calgary’s bid to host the 2026 Winter Olympics is over. Fifty-six per cent of city voters rejected the plan last night. Organizers on the no side say the project was too expensive and the billions of dollars of public funds better used elsewhere. Calgary is following in the footsteps of residents in other cities who have also rejected Olympic bids in referenda in recent years, such as the German cities of Hamburg and Munich.
A new Nanos poll suggests Canadians are dubious about Statistics Canada’s plans to compel banks to hand over customers' personal financial information for research purposes. About three-quarters of respondents say they opposed or somewhat opposed the plan, and a similar number said they wouldn’t consent to giving the statistics agency their own data. Not that Statscan needs their consent: The agency has pointed out it’s within their legislated powers to collect the data, whether Canadians want them to or not.
Meanwhile, in China, Canadian journalists say they don’t have access to the information they need. Members of the media were barred from a meeting of the Canada China Business Council in which Finance Minister Bill Morneau addressed the Beijing crowd.
International co-operation is necessary to protect the world’s endangered species, Environment Minister Catherine McKenna says, suggesting conservation will be the next great global environmental goal after tackling climate change.
And senators need to stop dragging their feet and make some systematic changes to how expenses are handled, says Peter Harder, the Liberal government’s point man in the Senate. Six years after the expenses problem exploded into public, senators still have not set up an oversight body that was recommended to them by the Auditor-General.
Globe and Mail editorial board on Canada-China trade: “But Canada has never had as a leading partner a government and system whose values are so at odds with our own. Our primary relationships have always been with liberal, democratic, rule-of-law societies. The People’s Republic of China is not a regime that lives according to the rule of law. A law in Canada is enforceable, even against the government. A law in China is a piece of paper.”
André Picard (The Globe and Mail) on the origins of our health-care system: “The Conscription Crisis of 1917 – which threatened to tear the country apart – ended when the government agreed to provide free medical care for all veterans. That was the beginning of the medicare system we have today, which provides ‘free’ hospital and physician care.”
Konrad Yakabuski (The Globe and Mail) on a national securities regulator: “Quebec would be smart to salvage what it can by signing on to a pan-Canadian regulatory authority in exchange for ensuring that Montreal, home to the country’s only derivatives exchange, remains the locus for the regulation of the derivatives market and a guarantee that a national regulator would operate in both official languages.”
Don Braid (Calgary Herald) on the death of Calgary’s Olympic dream: “Inexplicably (no, incompetently!) the Trudeau cabinet didn’t consider the bid until less than three weeks before the plebiscite, and just a week before the crucial council vote. Calgary 2026 and the city had been urging Ottawa, almost begging, to get that funding decision out to the public in June.”
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Chris Hannay