In the News

Federal travel restrictions to limit the spread of COVID-19 have been extended until at least 30 September. Returning Canadian citizens and permanent residents will remain subject to quarantine. Foreign nationals non-essential travel also is prohibited.

The federal government has signed agreements with Johnson & Johnson and Novavax, reserving COVID-19 vaccines which are still under development. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says these deals, coupled with similar arrangements with Pfizer and Moderna last month, could mean at least 88 million doses being available to Canadians.

The U.S. Defense Information Systems Agency plans to call for bids within the new few weeks on an $11.7-billion sole-source information technology contract to be awarded in 2021. The goal is “common-use IT systems” which would cover infrastructure, networking and cybersecurity as the Pentagon consolidates its agencies.

Toronto Police Services frontline officers are showing off new body-mounted cameras, some six years after beginning a pilot program but only a month after the services’ board finally approved the five-year procurement at a cost of $34.1 million. The goal is to have 2,350 officers eventually wearing the new technology which will use cloud storage for its imagery.

Foreign Affairs Minister François-Philippe Champagne says Canada is prepared to help Lebanon with its investigation of a massive explosion which levelled much of Beirut’s port area 04 August, killing at least people and injuring thousands. However, he says, “if Canada participates in this investigation it is because it is going to be credible, transparent and get to the bottom of things to get justice.”

An unspecified number of Chinese officials and business executives the U.S. says are responsible for Beijing’s military buildup in the South China Sea are the target of new travel restrictions which might also apply to immediate family members.

International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors are being granted access to two suspected former nuclear sites in Iran. The country says its about-face, announced 26 August during a visit by IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi, should resolve a number of issues.

A New Zealand judge has sentenced an Australian man to life imprisonment without parole for the shooting of 51 Muslims in Christchurch last year. When arrested, Brenton Tarrant told police he wished he had killed even more. He is the first person in New Zealand to receive the country’s most severe criminal punishment.

Lawyers for Meng Wanzhou, the Huawei executive detained by Canada at the request of the U.S., have been denied access to redacted elements of Canadian Security Intelligence Service documents. Meng is trying to prove that she is the victim of a law enforcement conspiracy but a Federal Court judge, having examined the information which was redacted , says the details were not relevant to her defence.

The World Trade Organization has ruled once more in Canada's favour in the decades-long dispute with the U.S. over softwood lumber. A dispute-resolution panel found that the U.S. was wrong to reimpose countervailing duties in 2017. The U.S. as usual denounced the finding as biased and flawed.

Rafael Grossi, the Argentinian diplomat who heads the International Atomic Energy Agency, is expected to visit Tehran this week to press for access to sites where the country is thought to have stored or used undeclared nuclear material. He says he hopes “to establish . . . direct dialogue with the Iranian government which will be valuable now and in the future.” A 2015 multinational deal with Iran has been shaky since the U.S. withdrew and began imposing economic sanctions in 2018.

Sound intelligence was behind Canada’s decision not to participate in the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, according to a recently-published research paper. The U.S. and Britain justified their decision on grounds that Saddam Hussein’s government had developed “weapons of mass destruction” but the paper’s author, who was involved in the early intelligence effort, says the pro-invasion intelligence was “flawed.”

A recent Federal Court ruling that Canada's asylum agreement with the U.S. infringes on the Charter of Rights and Freedoms is being appealed by the government. The accord states that refugee claimants must request protection in their first country of entry, meaning that Canadian border officers could deport any who arrive via the U.S. Public Safety Minister Bill Blair said 21 August that the government has challenged the decision because it was predicated on factual and legal errors.

The Canada Emergency Response Benefit is being extended yet again in preparation for the transfer of most CERB claimants onto a revamped Employment Insurance program, beginning 27 September. Three new temporary benefits are also being established, including a form of paid sick leave, and the total projected cost of the revised program over the next year is at least $37 billion.

At least $600 million in court-monitored compensation is to be paid to residents of Flint, Mich., in connection with drinking water the Environmental Protection Agency had confirmed was contaminated with dangerously high lead levels. Litigation continues against other defendants in the class-action suit.

The Toronto Police Services Board has agreed to spend S34.1 million over five years to buy 2,350 body cameras for its officers. Interim Chief James Ramer says the cameras, the first of which is being distributed this month, should help to “to create trust and legitimacy between officers and the public as we continue to modernize policing services.”

Two British members of the Islamic State charged with murdering Western hostages in Iraq and Syria would not be sentenced to death if found guilty, the U.S. says. Alexanda Kotey and El Shafee Elsheikh, stripped of their citizenship and now in U.S. military custody in Iraq, have been at the centre of a legal dispute which has stalled progress, but U.S. Attorney General William Barr has told U.K. Home Secretary Priti Patel that if a U.S. court did opt for capital punishment, “it will not be carried out.”

Three Ottawa men and one from Toronto face 92 Criminal Code charges arising from an RCMP investigation into weapons smuggling from the U.S. They were arrested in June near Cornwall, Ont., while in possession of several guns and other prohibited devices. The men have been released from custody pending court appearances.

The U.S. Justice Department says a former CIA officer and contract linguist for the FBI in the 1980s has been charged with spying for China, including by disclosing secret tradecraft and information on sources to intelligence officers. Court documents show that Alexander Yuk Ching Ma worked with a relative who also had worked for the CIA.

Years of court proceedings and negotiations between the Toronto Police Services Board and representatives of some 1,100 people arrested during demonstration at the G20 Summit in 2010 have yielded a $16.5-million settlement. Each person is entitled to compensation up to $24,700, depending on the circumstances of their detention and those who were wrongfully arrested will have their police records expunged.

Rewarded for her work in the foreign affairs and International trade portfolios with a promotion late last year to Deputy Prime Minister with the added responsibility for intergovernmental affairs, Chrystia Freeland was sworn in 18 August as Finance Minister. She succeeds Bill Morneau, who stepped down the previous day and also quit his Toronto seat in the House of Commons. Freeland remains Deputy PM but her intergovernmental affairs role has been assigned to New Brunswick MP Dominic LeBlanc, who also remains President of the Privy Council.

The U.S. administration now requires Huawei to have special licenses for acquiring certain U.S. technologies, including semiconductors developed by foreign companies with U.S. software. The Commerce Department also has added 38 Huawei affiliates in 21 countries to its list of entities prohibited from buying or integrating U.S. technologies without a waiver. 

The federal government is using extended national security review authority to scrutinize foreign investments more aggressively during the COVID-19 pandemic. The health care sector and critical supply chains are a particular focus, to ensure there are enough time and resources for the review of potential security issues.

Finance Minister Bill Morneau, who has held the portfolio since the advent of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government in 2015, announced 17 August that he had resigned both as minister and as an MP. This followed a couple of weeks of speculation about policy differences with the PM but Morneau, who intends to bid to become Secretary General of the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, would only say there had been “vigorous” discussions which yielded better policy.

Alcohol-based hand sanitizers have become a fixture in the civilian and civilian worlds as health authorities try to stem the spread of COVID-19. However, an incident in the U.S. indicates that static electricity in some situations actually could ignite any residue, which becomes particularly problematic in that alcohol flames are nearly invisible.

More than a year after it was confirmed that police had suppressed and even destroyed evidence that could have freed him in a murder case, Halifax resident Glen Assoum wonders whether anyone will be held to account. Imprisoned for 17 years and then paroled for five before an appeal court declared him innocent in March 2019, he says governments “just don’t care” about how his prosecution was handled.

The Canada Revenue Agency said 17 August that it expects online services to be fully restored in three days after they were shut down when it was found that about 5,500 accounts had been hacked and the data used to fraudulently obtain government services. Hackers used passwords and usernames from other websites to gain access to the CRA accounts.

A peace agreement between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, announced August 13, is being described by their leaders as a “breakthrough” which could advance peace in the Middle East overall. Only the third such deal since Israel declared its independence in 1948, it commits Israel to suspend further annexation of the West Bank. However, a senior Palestinian official has condemned the deal, telling the UAE leader, “may you never be sold out by your friends.”

Satellite imagery analyzed by 38 North, a website maintained by the Washington-based Stimson Centre think-tank, suggests recent flooding in North Korea may have compromised cooling systems at the Yongbyon Nuclear Scientific Research Centre. Located north of the country’s capital, Yongbyon houses reactors as well as fuel re-processing and uranium enrichment facilities considered central to the regime’s nuclear weapons program.

His party holds only 32 of the 338 seats in the House of Commons and would need support from the other Opposition parties, but Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet says he will try to trigger a snap election if the prime minister, his chief of staff and his finance minister don't resign. Blanchet's rationale is that the minority Liberal government is not “worthy” of the public’s trust because of the WE Charity controversy.

Non-medical masks have been required for air travellers in Canada since mid-April to prevent the spread of COVID-19 but Transport Canada has closed a loophole which made it easier for some passengers to eschew face coverings. They now must present an official note from their physician that they should be exempt from the requirement; otherwise they will not be allowed to board.

Russian President Vladimir Putin says his country’s health regulator is the first to approve a COVID-19 vaccine. But scientists worldwide say the decision to proceed with widespread immunization is dangerously premature because Russia hasn’t completed large Stage 3 trials to test its safety and efficacy.

Authorities say that the remaining oil on a Japanese cargo ship which ran aground off Mauritius in late July is expected to be pumped out before the vessel breaks up. The island nation in the Indian Ocean is home to world-renowned coral reefs and tourism is a crucial part of its economy.

The Canadian government has quietly abandoned its prosecution of a couple for alleged espionage after Federal Court Judge Henry Brown was “unable to reasonably find any reason to believe the applicant was engaged in anything secret, clandestine, surreptitious or covert.” The Canada Border Services Agency, relying mainly on unsubstantiated claims by a Russian defector, opted to pursue the case against David and Elena Crenna even though Canadian and American intelligence officials found their version of events credible.