The Tuesday news briefing: An at-a-glance survey of some top stories

Highlights from the news file for Tuesday, Nov. 22

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FEDS TO ‘EXPLORE’ ACQUIRING SUPER HORNET JETS: The federal Liberal government says it will “explore the acquisition” of 18 new Boeing-made Super Hornet jets on an interim basis until it can decide on a permanent replacement for Canada’s aging fleet of fighter planes. The government plans to meet with the U.S. and Boeing to purchase the 18 planes “at a cost, time, level of capability and economic value that is acceptable to Canada” in order to fill a “capability gap” in the country’s air defences. The decision marks what will surely be another controversial turning point in the long, protracted effort to replace the air force’s workhorse CF-18s, which Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan says are long past due for replacement.

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TRADE PACT NEEDS U.S. TO SURVIVE, FREELAND SAYS: The Trans-Pacific Partnership can’t go ahead without the United States, Canada’s trade minister said Tuesday in the wake of Donald Trump’s renewed vow to pull his country out of the controversial 12-country pact. International Trade Minister Chrystia Freeland said it’s long been no secret that the Pacific Rim deal would hinge on the participation of the U.S., a factor that boils down to simple arithmetic. The TPP, as it is known, can only come into force if ratified by six of the 12 member countries representing 85 per cent of their combined GDP, Freeland said Tuesday. A Canadian government official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the issue, said no decision on pulling out of the TPP becomes final until February 2018.

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TRUMP WIN EXPECTED TO DENT DRILLING FORECAST: The election of Donald Trump is good news for U.S. oil and gas drillers and potentially bad news for the Canadian industry, says the head of the Canadian Association of Oilwell Drilling Contractors. President Mark Scholz said the association’s 2017 drilling forecast released Tuesday is based on information gathered prior to the U.S. election. He said its forecast of a 31 per cent increase in Canadian drilling next year after its least active year on record in 2016 would have been “tempered” had it known Trump was going to win. Scholz added Trump’s vow to open U.S. federal lands to more drilling could lead to investment dollars diverted from Canada to the U.S., further increasing a glut of American oil and gas production which has been blamed for lower North American commodity prices.

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TRUMP SIGNALS END TO CLINTON INVESTIGATIONS: After a campaign filled with Donald Trump’s denunciations of “Crooked Hillary,” the president-elect declared Tuesday that “I don’t want to hurt the Clintons; I really don’t,” and a top adviser said he had no interest in pursuing further investigations. The president-elect’s remarks in an interview with The New York Times were tweeted out by Times reporters. Trump reversed his campaign trail vow to put Clinton “in jail” and seek a special prosecutor, saying he wanted to move on to his agenda of creating jobs, repealing President Barack Obama’s health-care law and cracking down on people entering the country illegally. His comments were a firm suggestion to Republicans who control both houses of Congress to do the same and abandon years of probes into the former secretary of state.

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LAWYERS WORRIED OVER SEX-OFFENDER PROGRAM CLOSURE: Criminal trial lawyers in Alberta are worried the public could be at risk if a treatment program for sex offenders is shut down. The Criminal Trial Lawyers Association in Edmonton and the Criminal Defence Lawyers Association in Calgary say they’ve been told the Alberta government will end the Phoenix program by next March. The program is offered in a secure, 19-bed facility operated out of Alberta Hospital Edmonton and provides intensive therapy to convicted sex offenders serving provincial jail sentences. Ian Savage with the Calgary lawyers association said the treatment involves 35 hours of therapy a week, while a potential replacement program operated by Alberta Health Services would offer six hours.

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SENATE COMMITTEE AMENDS TAX CUT BILL:A Senate committee has amended the Trudeau government’s signature tax bill to cut taxes even more for some middle-income earners. The amendment changes the tax brackets in Bill C-2. As originally written, the bill would reduce the tax rate to 20.5 per cent from 22 per cent on income between about $45,000 and $90,000 and impose a new tax rate of 33 per cent on income above $200,000. But the amendment would set a rate of 16.5 per cent on income between $45,000 and $52,999, with the 20.5 per cent applying from there up to just over $90,000. That means Canadians with taxable income of $48,000 would get a tax saving of $190, more than double the $81 contemplated by the bill as originally written. Someone earning $60,000 would get $570 instead of $261 and a person earning $89,000 would get just over $1,000 instead of just less than $700.

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OTTAWA PUTS LIMIT ON MEDICAL POT FOR VETERANS: The federal government is limiting the amount of medical cannabis that veterans will be reimbursed for to three grams a day. Veterans Affairs Minister Kent Hehr says the cost of reimbursing veterans has increased with many using up to 10 grams a day. The new limit announced Tuesday at a military and veterans health research forum in Vancouver is for dried cannabis or the equivalent of oil and fresh marijuana. Hehr said Veterans Affairs and the Canadian Armed Forces are also launching a study on the medical effects of cannabis, adding that scientific research is inconclusive. The number of veterans who were being reimbursed for medical cannabis rose to more than 3,000 in eight years and he was surprised the former Conservative government began paying for it with no policy in place, Hehr said.

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CANADIANS RECEIVE PRESIDENTIAL MEDAL: Canadians Frank Gehry and Lorne Michaels were at the White House on Tuesday to receive America’s highest civilian honour: the Presidential Medal of Freedom. The Toronto natives are among 21 new honourees being recognized by U.S. President Barack Obama. Gehry is a world-renowned architect whose best-known buildings include the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, the Dancing House in Prague and the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain. He was also behind the redesign of the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto. Michaels is a 13-time Emmy winner best known for creating and producing “Saturday Night Live.”

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WOMAN PLEADS GUILTY TO OBSTRUCTING JUSTICE IN BOSMA CASE: The ex-girlfriend of a man convicted of killing Hamilton father Tim Bosma has been sentenced to time served plus one day after pleading guilty to obstructing justice in the case. Christina Noudga had been set to stand trial on the more serious charge of accessory after the fact in the murder of Bosma, who vanished in May of 2013 after taking two men for a test drive in the truck he was trying to sell. Noudga’s former boyfriend Dellen Millard was convicted of first-degree murder in Bosma’s death in June, along with his friend and co-accused Mark Smich. Noudga’s lawyer Brian Greenspan told The Canadian Press that the 24-year-old Noudga was totally unaware that a homicide had taken place.

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