Politics Insider for Oct. 16: Cong Peiwu warns Canada in opposition to providing asylum to Hong Kong activists, Mi’kmaw fishers plead for assist from the feds and sea otters are again with a vengeance
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It’s honest to say China has taken exception to Canadian efforts to grant asylum to political dissidents from Hong Kong. Beijing’s consultant in Ottawa, Cong Peiwu, advised a press convention that two current refugees from the Chinese language metropolis have been “violent criminals,” and constitutes interference in China’s home affairs.” Cong appeared to no less than suggest a risk. “If the Canadian facet … actually cares concerning the good well being and security of these 300,000 Canadian passport holders in Hong Kong and the big variety of Canadian corporations working in Hong Kong,” he stated, “it’s best to assist these efforts to struggle violent crimes.”
Was Cong threatening repercussions? The Globe reported the ambassador as saying any perceived risk was the questioner’s “interpretation.” Cong additionally repeated longstanding—and, frankly, unbelievable—denials that Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor’s detention was linked to Canada’s arrest of Meng Wanzhou, and he threatened a “sturdy response” if the Home of Commons formally condemns China’s therapy of its Muslim Uyghur minority. (If anybody wants reminding: China has locked up tons of of 1000’s of Chinese language Muslims in what it describes as re-education camps however which the remainder of the world considers a surprising, widespread abuse of human rights.) In the meantime, the Globe additionally investigated the affect of the Chinese language-backed Confucius Institute on the curriculum of a faculty board in B.C.’s decrease mainland.
An ‘assault’ on the Mi’kmaw: That’s how Indigenous Companies Minister Marc Miller described current violent acts perpetrated in opposition to Indigenous fishers in Nova Scotia (learn extra concerning the Mi’kmaw battle). Miller referred to as on the Mounties, who’ve been criticized for making no arrests in reference to a broken facility and burnt-out van that belonged to Mi’kmaw fishers, to maintain the peace. Miller set the stakes: “If we don’t get this proper,” he stated, “folks will die.” Mike Sack, the chief of the Sipekne’katik First Nation, referred to as on Ottawa to do extra. “They’re sitting of their places of work, protected as could be, saying, ‘We want security on the market.’ Then ship enforcement down,” Sack advised a press convention.
The feds have launched a nationwide design competitors for an LGTBQ+ monument within the nation’s capital that may ultimately sit close to the shore of the Ottawa River behind the Library and Archives Canada constructing. The full funds for the monument’s design and building is about at “at least $4,825,000.” One of many jury members is Michelle Douglas, an LGBT purge survivor who has championed the monument—and extra just lately made headlines for clashing with the Kielburgers.
Leslyn Lewis will formally take her abilities to southwestern Ontario, the place she’ll carry the Tory banner within the subsequent election and try to show her Haldimand-Norfolksiness to the locals. Lewis is from the GTA, however a majority of Haldimand-Norfolk Tories supported her on the second poll earlier than she was eradicated from the occasion management race.
American evangelicals nonetheless see Trump as their anointed one: Because the race for the White Home builds to its crescendo, Adnan R. Khan is touring rural America in the hunt for solutions to so many questions raised throughout a chaotic marketing campaign. He stopped in Moscow, Idaho, to discover the unbridled enthusiasm amongst evangelicals for the incumbent.
The keenness for Trump—particularly in rural Montana, Wyoming and Idaho—is of the cultish selection seen at Trump rallies. Many progressives like me, understandably, dismiss it. However as W.I. Thomas, the late 19th- and early 20th-century American sociologist, as soon as stated, “one thing is actual whether it is actual in its penalties.” And the implications of Donald Trump currying favour with the non secular proper—from his assaults on secular establishments to his nomination of a decide they anticipate to curtail abortion rights—are very actual.
This morning, International Minister François-Philippe Champagne will inform reporters about his European swing. Champagne stopped in Greece, Austria, Belgium and Lithuania to speak with allies about easy methods to cope with a fraudulent presidential election in Belarus, armed battle between Azerbaijan and Armenia within the contested Nagorno-Karabakh area and flaring tensions between Turkey and Greece within the jap Mediterranean Sea.
Mea culpa: Yesterday’s e-newsletter advised you that former senator Don Meredith resigned earlier this yr. In actual fact, he resigned in 2017.
Now for one thing utterly completely different: Sea otters are again with a worrying vengeance in B.C., writes Hamdi Issawi. “As soon as inside a whisker of extinction, the cute creatures are making a serious resurgence,” he writes. “However not all residents view their comeback in a beneficial mild.”
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