In the News

With the “Two Michaels” safely repatriated from China, questions are being asked about Huseyin Celil, a naturalized Muslim Canadian in Chinese custody for much longer than three years. Jailed for his advocacy on behalf of the Uyghur minority, he fled China in 2001 and, as a UN-recognized refugee, became a Canadian citizen in 2005. However, during a visit to his wife’s family in Uzbekistan, he was arrested there and handed over to China, which has denied him consular access because Beijing does not recognize his Canadian citizenship.

A day after Taiwan declared its intention last week to join an 11-country Pacific trade group which includes Canada, China responded with yet another show of force, deploying fighters twice toward the island state it considers a rogue province. Taiwan tracked the aircraft and countered with its own assets.

Centre-left Social Democrats are claiming victory in the Sept. 26 German election, taking 205 of the 735 seats in parliament. Party leader Olaf Scholz said he had a clear mandate to form a government and that it is time for a coalition with Greens and Liberal Democrats who made climate change a priority during the campaign. Outgoing Chancellor Angela Merkel, who has been in power since 2005, is expected to remain in power until a coalition is sorted out.

A former Calgary city councillor elected to the House of Commons Sept. 20 is under investigation in response to a complaint that he removed an opponent's campaign material from a front porch. George Chahal, the only non-Conservative elected in the city, evidently was captured on a doorbell camera. City police say “the report has been directed to our Anti-Corruption Unit that handles investigations of a sensitive nature or involving a public official.”

In a bid to contain the fourth wave of COVID-19, New Brunswick reinstated a state of emergency Sept. 25. “The situation we currently face in New Brunswick is indeed serious, Premier Blain Higgs said.

Kirsten Hillman, Canada’s ambassador to the U.S., said Sept. 26 that China initiated the dialogue which led to the release of Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor after nearly three years. “Having felt for over 1,000 days incredible pressure from Canada [and] from our allies . . . I think the Chinese government decided that, you know, it was time to put this behind them and move on.”

Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor are back in Canada nearly three years after being detained in China on alleged espionage charges in apparent retaliation for Canada detaining Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou at the request of the U.S. A legal deal between Meng and the U.S. Sept. 25 set the stage for mutual repatriation. Kovrig and Spavor arrived in Calgary early today aboard an RCAF CC-144 Bombardier Challenger transport; Kovrick was flown on to Toronto.

Meng Wanzhou, the Huawei executive detained by Canada in 2018 at the request of the U.S., has reached a deferred prosecution agreement which clears the way for extradition proceedings in a B.C. court to end later today. Meng pleaded not guilty in a U.S. court to several fraud charges and her DPA runs until the end of next year, after which the U.S. would move to dismiss the charges.

A Canadian resident allegedly involved in Nazi war crimes has died at the age of 97 even as the federal government was finalizing a 26-year effort to deport him. The government’s position was that Helmut Oberlander’s immigration was illegal because he had concealed his role as an interpreter for a Nazi death squad during Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union.

Daniel Foote, appointed in July as the U.S. envoy for Haiti, has quit over what he says is the “inhumane, counterproductive decision to deport thousands of Haitian refugees and illegal immigrants.” In a letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken, the career diplomat excoriates the administration for deporting hundreds of migrants to the crisis-engulfed Caribbean nation from a border camp in recent days.

Independent analysts are questioning the lack of a national security element in the incumbent Liberal government’s latest federal election campaign despite have committed significant resources to the issue during its previous mandate. While there evidently is new “enthusiasm” for reorganizing policies to address a range of evolving security-related issues, it’s noted that there is no permanent cabinet committee on national security. That issue essentially has been left to the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians chaired since its inception in 2017 by re-elected veteran Ottawa Liberal MP David McGuinty.

The Taliban have nominated their Doha-based spokesman, Suhail Shaheen, as Afghanistan’s UN ambassador to replace Ghulam Isaczai, who represented Afghanistan’s ousted government. The nomination has been referred to a nine-member credentials committee which includes U.S. and Russian representative.

The Secret Service is the latest U.S. agency to have bought drones from a Chinese company the Defense Department considers a potential national security. Manufactured by Shenzhen-based DJI, they have become a global stable for recreational and other applications. It’s reported that efforts to block other U.S. law enforcement agencies and the military from similar procurements have become stuck in bureaucratic red tape.

Prime Minister Justin’s push for a parliamentary majority he said was needed for his government to address ongoing issues effectively has failed. With mailed ballots still to be counted today, his party was on track to take 157 of the 338 seats in the House of Commons. This was well short of the 170 needed for a majority and essentially left the Liberals in the same position as when Trudeau called the election in mid-August.

United Russia, which is loyal to President Vladimir Putin, has won the latest election but with a slightly-reduced margin of victory, taking nearly half the vote compared with 54 per cent in 2016. However, there have been allegations of widespread fraud and one video has surfaced of a ballot box apparently being stuffed.

Four U.S. border-state senators have asked President Joe Biden to lift restrictions that have limited Canadians’ access since March 2020. Pressing for entry by Canadians vaccinated against COVID-19, they expressed concern about “economic and emotional strain in our communities” and question why land-crossings for non-essential travel have been in effect, Canadians still can fly to the U.S.

Transport Canada is disputing claims that a Chinese sailboat has been prevented from transiting the Northwest Passage, which has been off-limits to to foreign pleasure craft since March 2020 due to concern about introducing COVID-19 in remote communities. State-owned television had reported that Zhai Mo and his crew had been “illegally stopped” in Lancaster Sound near the maritime border with Greenland. TC says it is aware of the boat but “at this point it has not entered Canada's Arctic Waters.”

A senior Chinese military officer is reported to have collaborated on virus research as recently as last year with one of two expatriate scientists fired in 2019 from the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg. Their dismissal remains a political issue for the Canadian government due to public health agency officials’ lack of cooperation with a parliamentary inquiry.

The Supreme Court of Canada has been asked to review a Federal Court of Appeal ruling on the constitutionality of Canada’s “safe third country agreement” with the U.S. as it applies to asylum seekers. It enables Canada to turn back applicants seeking to enter from the U.S. A lower-court judge ruled last year that the 2004 agreement was unconstitutional but that was overturned earlier this year by the FCA.

The Taliban’s abrupt return to power in Afghanistan has left hundreds diplomats in limbo overseas, running out of money, worried about families back home and possibly seeking asylum. Several diplomatic staff, including those posted to Canada, have spoken of dysfunction and despair as they try to maintain operations.

Three former U.S. intelligence and military personnel have agreed to pay more than $1.68 million to settle conspiracy charges arising from their work as civilian hackers for the United Arab Emirates. Documents filed this week in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia show they were accused of “knowingly and willfully” engaging in illegal activities. The trio must relinquish any security clearances and they have three years to pay up.

The federal government has been asked by a coalition of legal professionals to suspend its extradition treaty with France. They fear that an Ottawa university professor, Hassan Diab, could face a terrorism trial based on questionable evidence about a 1980 bombing of a Paris synagogue. He arrested by RCMP at France’s request in 2008 in what the critics call a continued miscarriage of justice.

Zheng Zeguang, China's ambassador to Britain since June, has been told he cannot visit Parliament until his country lifts sanctions against several members of the House of Commons and the House of Lords. The former vice-minister of foreign affair was due to attend a Sept. 15 all-party Commons reception; his embassy said the “despicable and cowardly” decision could harm both countries’ interests.

Centre-left opposition parties in Norway, apparently on the verge a parliamentary majority after a Sept. 13 general election, are expected to negotiate a coalition, with climate change and income disparity at the centre of talks. Conservative Prime Minister Erna Solberg has conceded defeat after eight years in power and Labour Party leader Jonas Gahr Stoere intends to form a government with the support of centre-left parties which might mean policy compromises.

The U.S. Coast Guard, struggling to recapitalize its ocean-going icebreaker fleet, has been given preliminary authorization to spend $350 million on a ship it evidently neither needs nor wants. The funding was approved by House of Representatives but specifically for an icebreaker designed for the Great Lakes.

Russia’s state-controlled Gazprom says it has completed construction of its politically-contentious Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline under the Baltic Sea to Germany despite strong opposition by Poland, Ukraine and the U.S., which fear political pressure from Moscow.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has flatly denied that he wanted then Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould to lie as the SNC-Lavalin international bribery affair was unravelling in 2019. Wilson-Raybould alleges in her new book that the PM “knew he wanted me to lie . . . to protect a Crown government acting badly; a political party; a leader who was not taking responsibility.”

The United Nations confirmed Sept. 8 that its headquarters’ computer systems were hacked last April and there have been other hacks since then. The announcement came after several private cybersecurity experts warned that cybercriminals had been selling login access. The UN admitted early last year that its offices in Geneva and Vienna had been targeted by hacker in 2019.

The only surviving member of a group accused of terrorist attacks in Paris in 2015 which left 130 dead, said at the opening of what is expected to be a mine-month trial, that he and his 19 fellow accused are “being treated like dogs.” The complaint by Salah Abdeslam, a confessed ISIS follower, provoked an outcry from victims’ families.

As expected, the Bank of Canada left its key interest rate target untouched at 0.25 per cent Sept. 8, citing concerns about the fourth COVID-19 wave. It had announced some months ago that it would stay the course until the economy is ready to handle an increase, which is not expected until the second half of 2022.

Toronto-based Canada Goose Holdings, whose garments have become a status symbol in many markets, has been fined the equivalent of $88,202 by a Chinese agency for allegedly misleading consumers about the materials it uses. It arises from the company’s advertising claims about the quality of down used in its parkas and jackets but the company blame a marketing error by an online partner.

Having previously called for a moratorium on COVID-19 boosters through to the end of this month, the World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus wants it extended until at least the end of the year. “I will not stay silent when companies and countries that control the global supply of vaccines think the world's poor should be satisfied with leftovers,” he said today. “Because manufacturers have prioritized or been legally obliged to fulfill bilateral deals with rich countries willing to pay top dollar, low-income countries have been deprived of the tools to protect their people.”

Quebec Health Minister Christian Dubé announced today that all health and social services workers in the public and private sectors face suspension without pay if they are not fully vaccinated against COVID-19 by Oct. 15. “We cannot . . . accept that workers put vulnerable people at risk,” Dubé said, adding that hospital visitors must present their vaccine passports.

As the Liberals and Conservatives trade shots during the federal election campaign about gun controls, Statistics Canada data show that criminal gun violence has risen over the last decade or so. However, the homicide rate due to firearms has actually declined slightly in recent years.