Politics This Morning: New Air Force boss takes the reins

Good Friday morning, The Royal Canadian Air Force is officially getting a new commanding officer today. Lieutenant-General ERIC KENNY will receive command of the Air Force from outgoing Lieutenant-General AL MEINZINGER at a ceremony at the Canadian Aviation and Space Museum on the outskirts of Ottawa. Chief of Defence Staff WAYNE EYRE will preside over the ceremony. Meinzinger is retiring. Kenny was announced as his successor back in April. Monkeypox in the spotlight Government of Canada officials will be virtually briefing the media at 11:30 a.m. today on the state of the Monkeypox virus within Canada. A half hour later, Vancouver MP (and physician) HEDY FRY will hold a press conference in her riding to announce new government funding for a “community-based response” to the Monkeypox outbreak. She will be making the announcement on behalf of Health Minister JEAN-YVES DUCLOS. The Public Health Agency of Canada reported earlier this week that there were more than 1,000 cases of the virus across the country. The virus is thought to spread through close personal contact. TUPOC hiring private security force The “United People of Canada” organization that has set up an “embassy” in the former site of St. Brigid’s Church in Lowertown Ottawa—a.k.a TUPOC—is hiring what it calls a “sizable private security force,” per this post on its Facebook page, and this report by the Ottawa Citizen’s AEDAN HELMER. A United People of Canada spokesperson did not wish to publicly disclose to the Citizen just how “sizable” this security force would be, saying, “the nature of who has been commissioned and what role is not something we’re disclosing. Our private security force is private.” Now there has been plenty of conjecture floating around that this group is linked to the Freedom Convoy—you remember, the group of right-winger protesters who occupied Ottawa’s downtown, defaced monuments, cursed up a storm, got drunk, blasted air horns and music, set off fireworks, blocked traffic, stole from the soup kitchen, and harassed local residents for three weeks in February. The United People of Canada would have us know that it is absolutely not a front for the Convoy and/or its sympathizers to set up shop in Ottawa. The fact that one of its three directors documented her participation in the Convoy occupation on social media? Surely a coincidence. The fact that another of the directors has served as an advisor to the husband of Convoy organizer TAMARA LICH? Another coincidence, no doubt. What about the third director’s decision to show up in Ottawa to film the occupation? That was part of a documentary he was making, we’re told. Nothing to see there. How about the fact that the United People of Canada, in its new “embassy”, is currently hosting what it calls a “a 14-day inclusive Community Conversation…to discuss the Freedom Convoy and surrounding topics.” That’s, uh…probably…something for Ottawans to think about. And why does this group need a private security force? It explained, in its Facebook post, that some Ottawans had been “hostile and verbally abusive” to its members. One particular rapscallion had shown up at a TUPOC barbecue with “an intent to breach the peace"—breach the peace!—and was “belligerent” and yelling obscenities. “…they seemed intent on continuing to create a disturbance from our perspective, what we understand to be a furtherance of a breach of the peace, police were called to address this situation.” Someone check to see if irony still has a pulse. An enthusiastic participant in the Convoy occupation of Ottawa, pictured Feb. 17, 2022. The Hill Times photograph by Andrew Meade The new not-the-Convoy embassy lies in Treasury Board President MONA FORTIER’s riding. Fortier’s office did not immediately return a request for comment yesterday afternoon. If you don’t live in Ottawa, this might still be news you can use. TUPOC is “in the process of acquiring numerous surplus and underutilized institutional properties Canada to restore and adaptively reuse into vibrant and inclusive community spaces,” according to its Facebook post. What is the cabinet up to? Housing Minister AHMED HUSSEN is holding a press conference today in Etobicoke, Ont. alongside Toronto Mayor JOHN TORY, local MP JAMES MALONEY, and DAN KERSHAW, the executive director of the non-profit Furniture Bank Toronto. The quartet will announce something to do with homelessness at the Furniture Bank’s headquarters. Fisheries Minister JOYCE MURRAY is in Iqaluit, where she’ll be announcing a new “marine stewardship” initiative alongside territorial Environment Minister DAVID AKEEAGOK and the Spence Bay Hunters and Trappers Association. Agriculture Minister MARIE-CLAUDE BIBEAU is in Sudbury today, where she will announce government funding for “agri-food business innovation and expansion in Northern Ontario.” Employment Minister CARLA QUALTROUGH will announce funding for projects that aim to make life easier for people with disabilities in Vancouver today. Families Minister KARINA GOULD is in Regina, where she will hold a presser to plug the one-year anniversary of the federal-Saskatchewan child care agreement. In the news KEVIN PHILIPUPILLAI spoke to a prominent Canadian gun control advocate about the government's move to ban the importation of handguns from the United States. You can find his story here. In case you missed it U.S. backs away from tax commitment, setting up dispute with Canada The United States appears poised to break its international commitment to raise its corporate tax rate, as part of a multilateral deal among OECD countries to reduce corporate tax avoidance, according to a report from the Globe and Mail’s BILL CURRY. That’s bad news for cash-strapped governments that are tired of seeing big businesses set up phony headquarters in tax havens. It’s especially bad news for Canada, because Finance Minister CHRYSTIA FREELAND has been waving a stick at the U.S. to encourage it to make good on the OECD deal. That stick is legislation to create a new tax on digital revenues of large corporations—a tax that would apply largely to U.S. companies that sell services into Canada. The United States is no fan of this plan, and now Freeland has effectively been dared to make good on her threat, and live with the trade war that could result. You can find Curry’s report here. Chrystia Freeland's plan for a digital revenues tax could lead Canada into another confrontation with a United States government that seems ready to undermine an international anti-tax avoidance deal. The Hill Times photograph by Sam Garcia No Peterson party in the works Businessman and former Conservative Party leadership contestant RICK PETERSON made clear yesterday: neither he nor his Centre Ice Conservatives group wish to start a new political party. “Nobody here wants to do that. Who wants to set up 338 ? That’s worse than 338 root canals,” Peterson joked as he kicked off the CIC’s “Let’s grow Canada” conference in Edmonton yesterday. Politicos have speculated about the possibility of disgruntled moderate conservatives starting their own party since STEPHEN HARPER lost the 2015 election, and the recent embrace of conspiracy theories and Convoy politics by many members of the Conservative Party only fuelled that speculation. Peterson was one of the conservatives who spoke to The Hill Times’ about the party’s state of affairs in late July. You can find that story here. Globe and Mail columnist ANDREW COYNE, one of the panellists at the conference yesterday, drew some of the loudest applause from the room when he bemoaned what he said was a Conservative Party tendency to substitute “partisan nastiness” in place of a substantive discussion of differences in policy between their party and the governing Liberals. Conservatives fret over auditing firm’s WEF connection The National Post’s CATHERINE LEVESQUE recently dug into anxiety within the Conservative Party membership about the role auditing firm Deloitte will play in the party’s leadership election. Deloitte is signed on to audit the results of the vote: a routine practice to ensure everything is done above board. However, Deloitte also has a partnership with the World Economic Forum, an organization that holds extravagant leadership conferences, and has been cast as a villain bent on world domination in a popular conspiracy theory—one that has been promoted and alluded to by multiple members of the Conservative Party caucus, and indeed some of the candidates running in the leadership contest. Some party members have threatened to throw out their ballots, lest the WEF—via Deloitte—corrupt the outcome for nefarious ends. If irony wasn't dead already... Send your news tips to pmazereeuw@hilltimes.com

Politics This Morning

Politics This Morning: New Air Force boss takes the reins

Plus, the Not-the-Convoy group in Lowerton is hiring a private security force…and may be coming to a neighbourhood near you.

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Politics This Morning

Politics This Morning: New Air Force boss takes the reins

Plus, the Not-the-Convoy group in Lowerton is hiring a private security force…and may be coming to a neighbourhood near you.

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