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SNC-Lavalin lastly get that deferred prosecution settlement they had been angling for
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First Studying is a each day publication protecting you posted on the travails of Canadian politicos, all curated by the Nationwide Submit’s personal Tristin Hopper. To get an early model despatched direct to your inbox each Monday to Thursday at 6 p.m. ET (and 9 a.m. on Saturdays), join right here.
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TOP STORY
Whilst his authorities stubbornly ignores native and nationwide tendencies towards lifting masks mandates, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is proving extraordinarily prepared to go maskless himself — supplied it occurs on international soil.
On Might 8, the prime minister was in Ukraine, a rustic that noticed solely 45 per cent of its grownup inhabitants totally vaccinated on the eve of the Russian invasion. There have been hugs with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, handshakes with Ukrainian officers and tightly packed indoor press occasions. In not one picture can Trudeau be seen sporting a masks.
Evaluate that to 2 days prior, when Trudeau visited Hamilton, Ont. for a photograph op with not too long ago arrived Afghan refugees.
Of Hamiltonians over the age of 12, 84.4 per cent are “totally vaccinated.” On the time Trudeau visited, every little thing from hospital admissions to case charges to wastewater knowledge confirmed that the metropolis’s COVID charges had been in steep decline. What’s extra, Trudeau has himself obtained three doses of the COVID-19 vaccine. He additionally has pure immunity from a COVID-19 an infection in January.
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Regardless of all this, Trudeau spent the complete go to sporting a masks. Not an N95 masks as per the main advice from the Public Well being Company of Canada, however a loose-fitting surgical masks whose utility has been more and more questioned ever because the rise of extra transmissible COVID-19 variants equivalent to Omicron.
“Because the Public Well being Company of Canada says, sporting a masks is an added layer of safety towards COVID-19,” learn a press release from the Prime Minister’s Workplace when requested concerning the discrepancy.
It’s removed from the primary time that Trudeau has appeared to watch one set of masking guidelines for Canada, and one other whereas overseas.
In October 2021, Trudeau was photographed at a maskless bar gathering within the Netherlands together with the nation’s Prime Minister Mark Rutte. Later that month, Trudeau was sporting a face masks outdoor on the grounds of Rideau Corridor upfront of a cupboard swearing-in ceremony. The disparity was regardless of comparable case and vaccination charges between Canada and the Netherlands on the time.
In March, Trudeau was maskless whereas assembly and shaking arms with Queen Elizabeth II. A month later, throughout a visit to Kitchener, Ont. to advertise his new federal price range, Trudeau could possibly be seen sporting a masks throughout out of doors occasions.
On April 24, Trudeau posted a picture to social media celebrating the birthday of his spouse Sophie Grégoire Trudeau. Each of them had been pictured sporting face masks whereas on swings collectively, though as a married couple who share the identical family, they’ve presumably spent the complete pandemic in the identical COVID-19 bubble.
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That is all taking place as Trudeau’s authorities stubbornly bucks each native and worldwide tendencies in the direction of abandoning extraordinary measures associated to COVID-19.
Whereas provincial governments have lifted nearly all of their COVID-19 mandates, Ottawa hasn’t budged on strictures that even on the top of the pandemic had been seen as among the many world’s most stringent.
This features a blanket ban on air and rail journey for any Canadian over the age of 12 not displaying proof of vaccination, in addition to a unbroken vaccine mandate for federal public servants. ban on authorities employment for the unvaccinated. Airports and rail stations stay a few of the solely public venues within the nation the place masking and vaccination standing remains to be topic to authorities order.
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Whereas Canadian public well being officers justified the imposition of those measures as a key software to curb transmission, epidemiologists are questioning their utility as extra transmissible COVID variants are proving in a position to unfold among the many unvaccinated and regardless of masking.
“The justification behind vaccine mandates is that they assist forestall transmission. However this doesn’t appear to be the case any longer, with the Omicron variant,” reads a latest op-ed by McMaster College infectious illnesses doctor Zain Chagla revealed within the Globe and Mail. Chagla referred to as for a full dismantling of Canadian vaccination and quarantine mandates for travellers.
Persevering with federal orders are additionally placing Canada more and more out of step with the worldwide group. Masks have been non-obligatory on U.S. flights for almost a month after an analogous federal mandate was struck down by a U.S. district choose. The U.Okay. started backing off on in-flight masks in March. The European Union is dropping masks mandates in its airports subsequent week.
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IN OTHER NEWS
Keep in mind that political scandal just a few years in the past the place then-minister of justice Jody Wilson-Raybould was expelled from the Liberal caucus allegedly as a result of she wouldn’t bend to stress to grant a deferred prosecution settlement to SNC-Lavalin over worldwide bribery expenses associated to the household of Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi? Properly, SNC-Lavalin simply obtained a deferred prosecution settlement (the primary in Canadian historical past) over one other bribery cost – this one surrounding contracts to rebuild Quebec’s Jacques Cartier Bridge.
A candidate within the Ontario election has been dropped by his occasion due to one thing he mentioned when he was 13 years previous. Alec Mazurek, 21, was to run for the Ontario Liberals in Chatham-Kent-Leamington, however was dropped after NDP researchers discovered an eight-year-old Fb submit through which the teenaged Mazurek used the phrase “faggots” in a photograph remark. To this text’s information, that is the youngest ever indiscretion for which a would-be Canadian politician has been stripped from an official poll.
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In different rejected candidate information, the Ontario Liberals rejected the applying of an completed Indigenous lawyer who wished to be their nominee in Sault Ste. Marie. As an alternative, they went with a literal high-schooler. In a write-up for the Nationwide Submit, Sabrina Maddeaux says she suspects it’s as a result of the lawyer, Naomi Sayers, used to work as a stripper. “Liberals can’t credibly declare themselves feminists then run their nominations processes like purity trials,” she wrote.
You might have seen the occasional Canadian abortion rally (both professional or anti) in response to information out of the U.S. that their Supreme Courtroom could also be clearing the best way for state-level abortion bans. However in a latest Maru Public Opinion ballot, an unimaginable 72 per cent of Canadians mentioned they wished to stay with the abortion establishment. That establishment, after all, is the shortage of any legal guidelines in any way.
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The primary official debate of the Conservative management race featured a bizarre Courting Sport-style section through which the candidates had been requested a sequence of non-public questions in order that voters might “get to know them.” The Nationwide Submit compiled their exhaustive solutions right here, however listed below are the highlights …
- Roman Baber is an Amy Winehouse superfan
- Leslyn Lewis appeared to assume that Bridgerton, a fantasy sequence a few race-blind model of Regency-era England, is a traditionally correct interval drama
- If the candidates had been in a position to have dinner with any historic determine, two named John A. Macdonald, two named Nelson Mandela and the remaining named U.S. presidents
- It’s solely potential that Patrick Brown doesn’t learn books
Get all of those insights and extra into your inbox each weekday at 6 p.m. ET by signing up for the First Studying publication right here.
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