Good morning,
The big announcement on Parliament Hill this week is expected to be the Liberal government’s fall fiscal update on Wednesday. Yesterday, the House of Commons was dominated by the Conservatives' opposition motion saying the Liberals should declare when, exactly, they plan to run a balanced budget. The Liberals say they plan to run deficits for the foreseeable future.
One of the biggest topics of the fiscal update will be Canada’s so-called competitiveness gap with the United States. U.S. President Donald Trump cut corporate taxes in his country last year, which until then had been much higher than Canada. The Liberal government is expected to announce measures tomorrow to address the concerns of the business community.
Finance Minister Bill Morneau has indicated he’s not inclined to cut the corporate tax rates, though the provinces of Ontario and Quebec are poised to. The New Democrats say they could support some measures, as long as they are linked to job creation.
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TODAY’S HEADLINES
The Liberals and NDP have formally asked the federal Elections Commissioner to investigate the possible link between the Conservative Party and a wealthy Toronto developer who set up a number of non-profit groups to help the Tories win votes in Chinese-Canadian communities.
The federal government will give Quebec millions more every year to help with immigration, even as the province takes in fewer people.
The leader of the Senate’s independents, who was appointed by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, says the Conservatives and NDP should be clear whether they would appoint partisan senators if they came to power.
Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer says the way to cut down on gun violence is to target the people holding the guns, not the guns themselves.
NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh, in a fundraising pitch, is offering supporters a home-cooked meal.
The Global Affairs department says it’s increasingly worried about its employees falling victim to e-mail scams.
A group of Canadian museums are trying to intervene in a court case that they say is causing a chill on donations to public galleries.
Spending on medications is growing at a slightly faster pace than spending in other parts of health care, a new report says.
And Michael Ignatieff, the former Liberal leader who returned to academia, says he’s been in a struggle with the Hungarian government over the status of the university he leads. “We’ve been here 25 years, we’ve done nothing wrong, they changed the rules of the game, we tried to comply," he told The Globe and Mail. "And everything – a barrage of misinformation – is simply falsehoods. So, we’ve said enough is enough, I’ve got a university to run.”
Derek Burney (The Globe and Mail) on development in Afghanistan: “Afghanistan today is a crumbling hulk beset by unending violence and pervasive corruption. The Taliban now control half or more of the country’s territory. More and better had been expected from the highly educated and experienced president, Ashraf Ghani, but he has not been able to exercise authority over his own government let alone on the warring tribal factions in northern Afghanistan.”
Eileen Dooley (The Globe and Mail) on Tony Clement’s sexting scandal: “We should learn from this example – but many do not, as it seems to show up every few months, and that is only those we know about. No matter how many times high-profile people are caught, people are still doing it and risking not only their personal lives, but their careers.”
Andrew Coyne (Postmedia) on loosening of fundraising rules in Ontario: “What urgent public imperative requires that corporations and unions be allowed to donate to political parties — and not openly, in a manner that might invite public scrutiny, but surreptitiously? For that matter, why was any of it necessary? In what conceivable way are the political parties of Ontario, which between them had revenues of more than $18 million in 2017, starving for funds?”
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Chris Hannay