The Wednesday news briefing: An at a glance survey of some top stories – CP

Source: The Canadian Press
Sep 14, 2016 

Highlights from the news file for Wednesday, Sept. 14

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CHINESE PREMIER TO VISIT CANADA NEXT WEEK: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will have another opportunity to work on strengthening relations with China when he welcomes Premier Li Kequiang to Canada next week. Trudeau may have made inroads on his recent trip to China, but a potential free trade deal remains a long way off. China is Canada’s second-largest single-country trading partner and two-way merchandise trade between the two countries reached nearly $85.8 billion in 2015, up 10.1 per cent over 2014.

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MULCAIR SAYS HE HAS UNANIMOUS SUPPORT TO STAY: Outgoing NDP Leader Tom Mulcair tried Wednesday to put an end to nagging questions about his leadership, emerging from a caucus meeting to say he has unanimous support to stay on. “I couldn’t be more honoured and humbled by the support of our caucus today,” Mulcair said. The leader, who is set to step down in fall 2017 when a successor is named, said he plans to work with his parliamentary team to take on the Liberal government in Parliament beginning next week.

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CLEMENT SAYS LAGARDE ‘SPOUTING LEFT-WING IDEOLOGY: Conservative leadership candidate Tony Clement accused the head of the International Monetary Fund of “spouting left-wing ideology” in praising the fiscal policies of the Trudeau government. Clement was reacting to comments from Christine Lagarde, who met with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in Ottawa on Tuesday and gave her stamp of approval to his economic policies. She said she hoped they would “go viral” and spread to the European Union.

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VANCOUVER PROPOSES EMPTY HOMES TAX: Vancouver is proposing to tax homeowners by as much as two per cent of assessed value for units they declare vacant, with the hope of freeing up more supply in the city’s crunched rental market. Mayor Gregor Robertson announced new details of the proposed tax on Wednesday ahead of a report going to council next week. The aim is for the levy to be in place for the 2017 tax year, with the first payments in 2018. The tax is meant to encourage owners to rent out their empty homes in order to improve Vancouver’s vacancy rate, which has hovered near zero for years, Robertson said.

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LIBERAL MP OPENS UP ABOUT LIVING WITH MENTAL ILLNESS: Liberal MP Celina Caesar-Chavannes remembers being on a train, tears streaming down her face, trying to pull herself together before anyone could recognize her. The Ontario MP was at a low point in her ongoing struggle with depression _ a diagnosis she received last year. Now, she has decided to speak out about her experience to let others know they are not alone, encourage them to seek help and push her colleagues _ including Prime Minister Justin Trudeau _ to remember the government can always be doing more on the issue of mental health, including improving access to frontline services.

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DEFENCE REVIEW HEARS FROM INDIGENOUS LEADERS: Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan is considering a request to give First Nations the power to directly call in the military when their treaty, environmental and other rights are threatened. Ron Swain, vice-chief with the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples, told Sajjan during consultations with indigenous groups Wednesday that aboriginal communities deserve the same rights as provincial governments, which have the authority under the National Defence Act to call in the military to fight civil unrest and during other crises. The meeting, which focused on indigenous issues, was one of several discussions Sajjan is holding around the country as part of a broad review of Canada’s defence policies.

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MILITARY HAVING HARD TIME FINDING EXPERIENCED PROCUREMENT STAFF: The Defence Department’s procurement chief says he is in the process of hiring hundreds of new employees to help untangle the military’s snarled procurement system. The challenge, says Patrick Finn, is finding the right people. “There’s numbers, but there’s also kind of knowledge and experience. And I can grow the numbers, and I’m doing that,” said Finn, the assistant deputy minister of materiel at National Defence. “The issue for me is actually getting the experienced workforce and getting the knowledge and expertise to do it.”

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LEAKED COLIN POWELL EMAILS FAULT TRUMP AND CLINTON: Former Secretary of State Colin Powell, in newly leaked emails, criticized both major presidential candidates, calling Donald Trump “a national disgrace” and lamenting Hillary Clinton’s attempt to equate her email practices with his. The emails were first reported by BuzzFeed News late Tuesday. Powell, a respected retired general who served under Republican presidential administrations, told BuzzFeed that he does not deny the emails’ authenticity. In a subsequent statement to NBC News, Powell said “the hackers have a lot more” of his emails.

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MOTHER OF SOLDIER WHO COMMITTED SUICIDE TO BE HONOURED WITH MEMORIAL CROSS: The mother of a Canadian soldier who killed himself after serving in Afghanistan will finally be honoured with a Memorial Cross this weekend, ending a long battle to have the military recognize his death as service related. In an interview ahead of the ceremony, Denise Stark said she was both stunned and overjoyed when told the family’s fight over the death of her son, Cpl. Justin Stark, was over. Stark, 22, a reservist with the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders of Canada, served a seven-month deployment in Afghanistan. In October 2011, 10 months after his return to Canada, he killed himself at the John Weir Foote Armouries in Hamilton.

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EVANGELINE LILLY JOINS PROTEST AGAINST TRADE DEAL: A Canadian star is adding her voice to a chorus of advocacy and labour groups in denouncing the controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership deal, teaming up with punk rockers and hip-hop artists in an effort to reach an audience that might not otherwise care about international trade. Actress Evangeline Lilly will be speaking at the Rock Against the TPP show in Toronto on Friday, the touring event’s only Canadian stop. Lilly, who is Canadian but lives in the U.S., called the TPP a “backdoor way for multinationals to squeeze things into law” without the usual public scrutiny.

INDEX: NATIONAL POLITICS