Back to newsletter list 21/02/2007 00:02:21 (UTC) Canada | World Briefs | Business News | Sports | Weather Headlines  - Federal budget due in Ottawa on March 19 - Ottawa set to end rail conflict - Canada, Microsoft join forces against AIDS
OTTAWA: FEDERAL BUDGET DUE ON MARCH 19 Canadian Finance Minister Jim Flaherty has told the House of Commons that he will deliver his second budget on March 19. The budget vote will be a matter of confidence in the House, and if the three opposition parties vote against it, the vote would bring down the minority Conservative government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper and a national election would ensue. Mr. Harper denies any intention of using the budget to provoke an election. A new opinion survey by the Decima polling firm gave the Conservatives a two-percentage point lead over the Liberals, who had led in the polls for months. The poll has, however, a 3.1 per cent margin of error. OTTAWA: GOVT. BRACED TO LEGISLATE END TO RAIL WALKOUT Canadian Labour Minister Jean-Pierre Blackburn has told the House of Commons that the 11-day strike at Canadian National Railway Co. has severely harmed the country's economy and that he has contacted both CN and the United Transportation Union that the "situation couldn't continue." The minister cited problems caused in the port of Vancouver and problems in the chemical, automobile and grain sectors. Mr. Blackburn told MPs that cities aren't receiving food and that remote communities are receiving neither food nor fuel. The minister says his department has prepared back-to-work legislation which will be presented swiftly. A government source told the Canadian Press that the earliest it could be presented in the House would be Thursday. Earlier, the union representing 2,800 striking conductors and yard workers declined CN's request they return to work during a 60-day cooling-off period after the Canadian Industrial Relations Board refused CN's demand that the strike be declared illegal. OTTAWA: HIGH COURT TO RULE ON ANTI-TERROR MEASURE The Supreme Court of Canada will hand down a ruling Friday on the government's use of "security certificates." The certificates are considered an essential legal tool used in the government's fight against terrorism by enabling the deportation of foreign nationals suspected of terrorist connections. The Conservative government has argued the certificates are needed to maintain national security, while critics say they violate the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Under the certificate system, non-citizens in Canada can be targeted for removal based on secret intelligence heard by a judge behind closed doors. Those who fight deportation can be imprisoned for years while they challenge their way through the courts. OTTAWA: CANADA, MICROSOFT JOIN HANDS AGAINST AIDS Canada and the founder of the Microsoft computer programming empire in the United States, Bill Gates, will work together to finance the testing of possible AIDS vaccines. Canada's Prime Minister Stephen Harper made the announcement concerning the project known as the Canadian HIV Vaccine Initiative. The $140-million project will help build a research facility in Canada and work with partners around the world to develop a HIV vaccine. Scientists believe it will take 10 years to develop one. TORONTO: FORMER MILOSEVIC ASSOCIATE FACES DEPORTATION The National Post newspaper reports that Canada's Immigration and Refugee Board has ruled that a wealthy Serbian businessman was a "senior advisor" to the late Yugoslav dictator Slobodan Milosevic and that Dragomir Karic is therefore inadmissible to Canada because he served a régime that engaged in crimes against humanity. In a ruling made public on Feb. 9, The court found that Mr. Karic advised the president of the former Yugoslavia on how to end NATO air strikes in reaction to the ethnic cleansing of Muslims by Serbian forces in the territory of Kosovo. He was also accused of representing Milosevic at talks in Vienna with Russian and American legislators aimed at ending the conflict. Mr. Karic denied the accusations, but the judge ruled his testimony wasn't believable. The Canadian government hasn't made any move to deport him because his lawyer intends to mount a constitutional challenge, which if unsuccessful would be followed by a deportation order. Mr. Karic became a permanent resident in 1993. OTTAWA: SENATE DISMISSES INTERNATIONAL FISHING REFORM The Canadian Senate has dismissed proposed reforms for the North Atlantic Fishing Organization as ineffectual. A report by the standing Senate committee on fisheries and oceans claims the reforms would do little to make NAFO effective in stopping overfishing of protected species in waters outside Canada's 200-mile limit. The report suggests that its member states start all over in trying to strengthen it. The document criticizes in particular a proposal by which ships found to be violating fishing regulations proceed to port because the port would be chosen by the country itself. Federal Fisheries Minister Loyola Hearn praised the proposed changes to NAFO when they were adopted last year. On another matter, the senators recommend that Canada reverse its acceptance of high-seas bottom trawling and join the U.S. and other nations which support a ban. The government has said it cannot do so because it cannot back a ban in international waters while allowing bottom trawling in its own. QUEBEC CITY: BUDGET PRESENTED AS ELECTION LOOMS The Liberal Party government of Quebec Premier Jean Charest has brought down a new budget, just a day before he's expected to call an election. Finance Minister Michel Audet has presented a balanced budget including increases in spending for health and education. There is a $250-million cut in personal taxes, although the Liberals still haven't kept their four-year-old promise to reduce Quebecers' taxes to the Canadian average. The budget is unlikely to pass before Mr. Charest makes the election call to the lieutenant-governor, which is expected on Wednesday. VICTORIA: B.C. BUDGET FEATURES HOUSING The Liberal government of Premier Gordon Campbell also presented a budget, one which Finance Minister Carole Taylor praised by saying it sets the most ambitious agendas for housing, tax cuts and cleaning up the environment in Canada. The C$36.2-billion budget promises $2 billion in spending for projects that will benefit both the homeless and homeowners. Taxpayers earning up to $108,000 will benefit from a 10-per cent tax reduction, which will give them the lowest provincial income taxes in the country. Environmental measures include an extension of the $2,000 provincial sales tax break for the purchase of hybrid vehicles.
IRAQ There was more insurgent violence in Iraq on Tuesday, despite the one-week security thrust by U.S. and Iraqi troops. Near the town of Taji 20 kilometres northwest of Baghdad, a bomb blew up a chlorine tanker, killing nine people and sending 150 others to the hospital. In the capital, a suicide bomber blew himself up a fineral in a Shi'ite district of western Baghdad, killing seven and injuring 15. Another suicide bomber drove a car into a vegetable market in another Shi'ite quarter killing at least five. At Ramadi 112 west of the capital, U.S. forces pressed attacks against suspected Sunni insurgents, calling in airstrikes against them. BRITAIN The BBC reports that Prime Minister Tony Blair will announce on Wednesday a new timetable for the withdrawal of British troops from Iraq. The state broadcaster says he'll announce the return of 1,500 soldiers in several weeks. According to BBC, Mr. Blair also will tell the House of Commons that a total of 3,000 troops will have left southern Iraq by the end of 2007. UNITED STATES U.S. Court of Appeals has ruled that terrorist suspects being held at a military prison in Guantanamo, Cuba, cannot challenge their detention in U.S. courts. The ruling maintains that civilian courts no longer have the authority to consider whether the military is holding the prisoners illegally. Lawyers representing the detainees say they'll appeal the ruling to the Supreme Court. INDIA India Tuesday ordered high security for all Pakistan-bound trains and buses and launched a massive manhunt for the bombers who attacked the cross-border Friendship Express, killing 68 passengers. Thirteen others were injured in the midnight fire-bombing of the train, near the northern Indian city of Panipat a day ago, which has drawn worldwide condemnation, including from Canada. The security announcement came as Pakistan Foreign Minister Khurshid Kasuri flew into New Delhi to pursue peace talks despite the attack which mainly killed Pakistani holidaymakers returning from India. SOMALIA Hundreds of residents of Mogadishu fled the Somali capital on Tuesday to escape fighting between government and Ethiopian troops on one side and insurgents on the other. About a dozen residents were killed and several dozen others injured. The fighting in Mogadishu was the heaviest since the Ethiopian military helped the transitional government drive out Islamists late last year. The latest fighting casts doubt on a plan by the African Union to send 8,000 peacekeeping troops to Somalia. Its first troops, a small contingent from Burundi, is scheduled to arrive as early as Friday. RUSSIA Russia has stepped up the rhetoric against the U.S. deployment of an anti-missile defence system in Poland and the Czech Republic. Russia's strategic forces commander, Gen. Nikolai Solovtsov, told a news conference that Moscow is capable of firing missiles at Poland and the Czech Republic should they decide to accept the U.S. system. NATO responded by saying that such extreme language is out of date and uncalled for. Relations between Moscow and Washington have soured since NATO's expansion eastward and the announcement of the U.S. missile plans. Russia distrusts U.S. assurances that the defence system is to avert missile attacks from countries like Iran and North Korea. GUINEA Leaders of Liberia and Sierra Leone are in Conakry on Tuesday to try to find a regional solution to the ongoing crisis in Guinea. The country has been paralysed since martial law was declared last week. Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf and her counterpart from Sierra Leone, Ahmad Tejan Kabbah, are intent upon preventing the crisis in Guinea from spilling over into the entire area. The International Crisis Group has warned against a bloodbath in Guinea that could destroy the fragile internal political situations in countries including Liberia, Sierra Leone and Ivory Coast. More than 120 people have been killed since labour unions launched public protests to force the resignation of President Lansana Conté, who has occupied the presidency for 23 years. MEXICO A Mexican congressman has been wounded after an attack on his car near the city of Nuevo Laredo. Horacio Garza of the opposition Institutional Revolutionary Party is in hospital recovering from several wounds. The attack left his driver dead. Nuevo Laredo has been the scene of battles between rival drug gangs that have resulted in the deaths of some 2,000 people last year. Mexican President Felipe Calderon has launched a military offensive against drug cartels in Mexico in recent months. Meanwhile, the Mexican government has increased the salaries of the military by almost 50 percent. Official say it's a reward for leading the fight against violent drug gangs.
TORONTO: IMPERIAL FIRE AFFECTING ONTARIO GAS SUPPLIES Imperial Oil Ltd. says that a recent fire at its Nanticoke, ON, refinery southwest of Hamilton will create gasoline shortages on a rotating basis across the province. Imperial says 20 Esso stations will be affected on a daily basis for a few hours at a time until the middle of next week. Imperial says it supplies about one-half of Ontario's gasoline market. The company says the situation has been made worse by the CN strike which has made its trucks unavailable to help transport fuel to the southwest of the province, and by the cold weather which has made it hard for ships to convey fuel across the Great Lakes from sites in the U.S. OTTAWA: OILSANDS, KYOTO COMPLIANCE CALLED COMPATIBLE An environmental research group claims that oilsands projects could be brought into compliance with the emissions reduction targets of the Kyoto Protocol on Climate Change at a cost of $1 per barrel. The Pembina Institute made that claim before the all-party House of Commons committee that is studying the government's proposed Clean Air Act. The lobby says its plan is based on the supposition that "polluters pay their full share." The Pembina plan calls for a fixed cap on emissions. Polluters could get credit for investing in domestic or international emissions-cutting projects. The MPs also heard from Gord Lambert, a vice-president at Suncor Energy. He didn't contest Pembina's $1-per-barrel figure but said he would need more time to study the proposal. Mr. Lambert added that although Suncor is making profits more than financial capacity is required to cut greenhouse gases, because inefficient facilities cannot be replaced overnight. He added that investors will pull out of oilsands projects if the government imposes a "punitive model" on producers, a term he didn't define. TORONTO: SECURITIES REFORM PROCEEDS The Canadian Securities Administrators have presented a package of reforms which are posted on several websites for comment until June 20. The council of the country's 13 provincial and territorial securities regulators is trying to ease the procedural process for small investors. One proposal is to create a short "relationship disclosure" document written in plain language which outlines information which a customer needs to know about a product. Such documents, which at present can run to 40 pages, aren't always helpful, according to the Administrators. Another change would be to reduce the number of registration categories for firms, individual investors, dealers and producers of financial products. TORONTO: HEAD OF BUSINESS LOBBY GETS INTO BANKING The head of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, Nancy Hughes Anthony, has announced she'll leave her position to assume a similar one at the Canadian Bankers Association. Mrs. Hughes Anthony has been president and CEO of the country's top business lobby since 1998. The Canadian Bankers Association represents 54 domestic banks, foreign bank subsidiaries and foreign bank branches. MARKETS TSE midday Tuesday: 13,320 up 28.10 points.. The Canadian dollar: 85.40 US, down 0.48 of a cent. The euro: C$1.5390, up 0.72 of a cent. Light sweet crude: US$58.07, down $1.32.
CURLING Newfoundland's Heather Scott knocked Saskatchewan's Jan Betker from the ranks of the unbeaten Tuesday at the Canadian women's curling championship. Betker's Regina rink dropped into a tie with Manitoba's Jennifer Jones at 5-1 in the round-robin standings, while defending champion Kelly Scott improved to 6-1 with a pair of victories.
Weather British Columbia on Wednesday: rain, forecast high 8 Celsius Vancouver. Yukon, Nunavut: snow. Northwest Territories: mix of sun, cloud. Whitehorse, Yellowknife -23, Iqaluit -14. Alberta: mix of sun, cloud. Saskatchewan, Manitoba: mix of sun, cloud. Edmonton, Regina -7, Winnipeg -5. Ontario: mix of sun, cloud south, flurries north. Quebec: sunny. Toronto 1, Ottawa -36, Montreal -4. New Brunswick: sunny. Nova Scotia,: flurries. Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland and Labrador: mix of sun, cloud. Fredericton -2, Charlottetown -6, Halifax 0, St. John's -3.
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