Good Tuesday morning,
It’s shaping up to be a slow day in Ottawa today, but not in New York, where Foreign Minister ANITA ANAND has travelled on behalf of Canada.
Anand is there to talk about the crisis in Gaza.
Starvation and malnutrition are mounting in the territory. Aid groups and the UN itself have called on Israel to stop blocking aid shipments from entering Gaza. On Sunday, Israel’s government announced that it would begin allowing aid to flow through certain routes into Gaza during specified hours.
Yesterday, Anand represented Canada at a UN conference on the subject—properly, the “high-level international conference for the peaceful settlement of the question of Palestine and the implementation of the two-state solution.”
France and Saudi Arabia co-chaired the summit. France has committed to formally recognizing Palestine as a state. Israel and the United States declined to participate.
Anand is in New York, according to her department, to “engage with her counterparts on the most pressing issue facing Gaza—the rapidly deteriorating humanitarian disaster—which must be resolved immediately.”
The blame game
“Resolved how?” is the question for all involved. Anand arrived in New York with her boundaries more or less set by a statement issued by Prime Minister MARK CARNEY on July 24. Carney posted this statement on X on July 24. He did not post it on the PMO website.
“Canada condemns the Israeli government’s failure to prevent the rapidly deteriorating humanitarian disaster in Gaza.
“Israel’s control of aid distribution must be replaced by comprehensive provision of humanitarian assistance led by international organizations. Many of these are holding significant Canadian-funded aid which has been blocked from delivery to starving civilians. This denial of humanitarian aid is a violation of international law.
“Canada calls on all sides to negotiate an immediate ceasefire in good faith. We reiterate our calls for Hamas to immediately release all the hostages, and for the Israeli government to respect the territorial integrity of the West Bank and Gaza.
“Canada supports a two-state solution which guarantees peace and security for Israelis and Palestinians. Canada will work intensively in all fora to further that end, including through the participation of the Minister of Foreign Affairs at the UN High-Level Conference on a Two-State Solution in New York next week.”
Israel’s ambassador to Canada, IDDO MOED, responded to that statement with one of his own to the Canadian media. He said that UN agencies were to blame for “failing to move and distribute aid in Gaza and discouraging other NGOs from taking action.”
Israeli Prime Minister BENJAMIN NETANYAHU recently denied that there was any starvation in Gaza, and at the same time accused Hamas of stealing aid sent into the territory.
Yesterday, Anand issued a statement noting the decision by the Israeli government to allow some aid into Gaza, and urging the Israeli government to “allow the sustained and large-scale delivery of humanitarian aid—and to make this humanitarian access permanent.”
Leaders under pressure
Netanyahu leads a coalition government, and is under pressure from members of his own cabinet to deny any kind of aid to Palestinians, including Heritage Minister AMICHAY ELIYAHU, National Security Minister BEN GVIR, and Finance Minister BEZALEL SMOTRICH.
Carney and Anand are facing calls to exert more pressure on Netanyahu’s government, and to recognize Palestine as a state. Rookie Liberal MP FARES AL SOUD has publicly called for Canada to recognize Palestine, and so has veteran Liberal SALMA ZAHID. The NDP’s foreign affairs critic, MP HEATHER MCPHERSON, echoed that call in a press release yesterday.
Prime Minister Carney was asked yesterday whether Canada would follow France’s lead and commit to formally recognizing Palestine as a state. He gave a lengthy response that did not directly answer the question.
In the news
Interpreters incensed: The government shift in strategy for contracting interpretation services for Parliament Hill has been met with a backlash by freelance interpreters. LAURA RYCKEWAERT reports.
Michel’s team: Ryckewaert fills us in on Health Minister MARJORIE MICHEL’s staffing team in her latest Hill Climbers.
What else is happening today?
Solomon welcomes eco-cement plant
EVAN SOLOMON, the minister in charge of the economic development agency for Southern Ontario, will attend a groundbreaking ceremony in Mississauga this morning.
Solomon will give a speech at 10 a.m. to welcome a new facility built by Carbon Upcycling, a company that produces low-carbon dioxide cement.
MOE speaks to U.S. politicians in Saskatoon
At 9 a.m. CST, Saskatchewan Premier SCOTT MOE will deliver a keynote speech about “fueling North America’s energy future” to a group of visiting U.S. lawmakers at the Council of State Government’s Midwestern Legislative Conference in Saskatoon.
Ng speaks at a public lecture on trade in Singapore
MARY NG, the former international trade minister and MP for Markham-Thornhill is delivering a speech in Singapore today on the “path forward” for global trade.
Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy and Canada’s Asia Pacific Foundation have organized the event.
Ng’s speech will delve into the challenges posed by the “resurgence of protectionism and the weakening of rules-based institutions”, according to the Lee Kuan Yew school. Ng recently wrote about the topic for the Hinrich Foundation.
“Can any deal with the U.S. be counted on to last? If agreements are only reliable until the next election cycle, then the very foundation of modern trade is at risk,” she wrote.
Today’s lecture is expected to touch upon this theme, and how Asian businesses can partner with Canada to “co-invest in energy transition technologies, green and digital infrastructure.”
Ng served in Parliament from 2017 until this spring, when she did not seek re-election. TIM HODGSON, now the natural resources minister, ran and won in Markham-Thornhill for the Liberals in her place.
Today’s data
This morning Statistics Canada will release reports on university finances and health care access in 2024, employment insurance beneficiaries in rural and small town Canada, and more. You can find it all here beginning at 8:30 a.m.
Yesterday StatsCan reported on business openings and closures across Canada in the month of April. It found that the rate of openings and closures hadn’t changed much compared with previous months, though businesses in sectors reliant on U.S. trade had fared more poorly.
People
Former prime minister JUSTIN TRUDEAU is getting his 10,000 steps a day in. He was spotted last week in Whistler and Victoria, B.C. with his youngest son HADRIEN whitewater rafting, hiking, and exploring, and yesterday, he was in Zermatt, Switzerland, with his older son XAVIER, mountaineering and hiking, and eating cheese.
In other news, KORY TENEYCKE has hired DAVID KNIGHT LEGG as a senior adviser at Rubicon Strategy.
In case you missed it
Yesterday Prime Minister Mark Carney announced that the federal government would be cutting the fee to travel across the Confederation Bridge between New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island, from $50 to $20.
The 12-kilometre bridge is the only one connecting P.E.I. to the mainland.
Carney also announced that the government would be reducing the fares for designated ferry services operating in Atlantic Canada.
Carney’s election platform included promises to make the Confederation Bridge and those ferry services “more affordable.”
We asked, you answered
Former Senator Philippe Gigantès spent 33 months in a North Korean prison camp, also tortured
Former Quebec Liberal Senator PHILIPPE GIGANTÈS, who was born in Greece, was a war correspondent for the London Observer who was taken prisoner while covering the Korean War. He spent 33 months in a North Korean camp where he was tortured. He was also a Second World War veteran of the British Royal Navy, a British spy catcher, an author of 15 books, a television commentator, and a former Greek minister of culture.
Gigantès immigrated to Canada and was later on in life an editorial writer for the Montreal Gazette. He was appointed to the Upper Chamber by prime minister PIERRE TRUDEAU in 1984, retired from the Senate in 1998, and died in 2004. Kudos to loyal reader NATHAN NASH who was the first and only person to answer Friday’s trivia question.
TODAY’S POLITICAL TRIVIA QUESTION
Which former NDP MP used to give out the “Corporate Welfare Bum of the Week Award” in the House of Commons?
Please send your responses to trivia@hilltimes.com by NOON today and the winner’s name will be highlighted in tomorrow’s Politics This Morning, along the names of all other participants.
BOOK QUESTION
This week’s book is What Ukrainian Elections Taught Me About Democracy, by JANE COOPER, and published by McGill-Queen’s University Press.
The back jacket blurb: “The first work written from the perspective of a Canadian international election observer, the book is an accessible and entertaining story that will appeal to election specialists and the ordinary Canadians who work at the polls on election day, as well as readers who want to learn more about the democratic process in present-day Ukraine.”
This week’s question: when did Russia start the war with Ukraine? Please send your responses to trivia@hilltimes.com by NOON today ET and the lucky winner’s name will be drawn. Good luck.
The Hill Times
Correction: A previous version of this column stated that Minister Anand had been scheduled to remain in New York until July 30. In fact, that was the duration of the summit, not the minister’s schedule.