Intelligence officials at EA inquiry, battery supply chain : In The News for Nov. 21

David Vigneault, the head of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, is expected to testify on a panel with two other CSIS officials.

Also appearing are Michelle Tessier, the CSIS deputy director of operations, and Marie-Hélène Chayer, the executive director of its Integrated Terrorism Assessment Centre.

The inquiry has previously heard that CSIS determined the protests were not a threat to national security according to the legal definition the agency uses to identify such threats.

Emergency Preparedness Minister Bill Blair is expected to appear after the security officials, the first of seven ministers who are expected to appear at the inquiry before Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s anticipated testimony on Friday.

—

Also this …

Federal Innovation Minister François-Philippe Champagne is selling Canada’s battery-supply chain prowess in Asia again this week, but this time he has a new boast in his back pocket.

Research firm BloombergNEF pushed Canada’s position in its annual global ranking of battery-producing countries ahead of everyone else but China.

“That’s something I’m going to use very much on my trip in Asia, to say we have what Asia needs,” Champagne said.

The survey ranks 30 countries with a significant presence in the industry, be it in the mining of raw materials to the production of batteries and their component parts.

The first version in 2020 ranked Canada fourth, and in 2021 fifth, after mining outputs fell and regulatory hurdles mounted.

But Canada has announced more than $15 billion in investments over the past 10 months in areas ranging from critical mineral mining and processing to battery component manufacturing, electric vehicle production and the country’s first gigafactory.

That helped Canada climb past Sweden, Germany and the United States, even with the latter’s massive investments under the Inflation Reduction Act.

—

What we are watching in the U.S. …

On a typical night at the Club Q, a bastion for LGBTQ people in the largely conservative city of Colorado Springs, Daniel Aston could be seen letting loose and sliding across the stage on his knees tailed by his mullet to whoops and hollers.

The venue provided Aston, a 28-year-old transgender man and the self-proclaimed “Master of Silly Business,” with the liberating performances he had long sought. But on Saturday it became the site of the latest mass shooting in the U.S. when a gunman with a semiautomatic rifle opened fire and killed Aston and four others. Twenty-five others were injured.

His mother, Sabrina Aston, vacillated between past and present tense as she discussed her son Sunday night in their Colorado Springs home. Aston’s father, Jeff Aston, sat nearby listening to his wife’s stories and alternating between tightly clasping his hands and cupping his forehead.

“We are in shock, we cried for a little bit, but then you go through this phase where you are just kind of numb, and I’m sure it will hit us again,” she said. “I keep thinking it’s a mistake, they made a mistake, and that he is really alive,” she added.

Her son’s eagerness to make people laugh and cheer started as a child in Tulsa, Oklahoma, when he would don elaborate costumes, including the beast from “Beauty and the Beast,” cycle through weird hats, and write plays acted out by neighborhood kids.

Aston preferred dressing as a boy at a young age until teasing from other kids pushed him to try girls clothing. While Sabrina Aston enjoyed helping style her son, she said the fashion led to weight loss. “He was miserable,” she said.

After coming out to his mother, he attended Northeastern State University in Tahlequah, Oklahoma, and became president of its LGBTQ club. He put on fundraisers with ever-more flashy productions (“He didn’t just stand and lip-sync,” Sabrina Aston made clear) and fanned over ’80s hair bands.

Two years ago, Aston moved from Tulsa to Colorado Springs _ where his parents had settled _ and started at Club Q as a bartender and entertainer, where his parents would join in the cheers at his shows.

“(Daniel’s shows) are great. Everybody needs to go see him,” his mother said. “He lit up a room, always smiling, always happy and silly,” she said.

Members of Colorado Spring’s LGBTQ community say Club Q has been one of only a few havens where they could be fully authentic in one of the state’s more conservative metros.

—

What we are watching in the rest of the world …

An Israeli court ruled Monday that former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert defamed his successor, Benjamin Netanyahu, and ordered him to pay damages to the former leader and his family.

The high-profile defamation suit that kicked off earlier this year pitted the only Israeli prime minister ever to go to prison against the ousted longest-serving leader of the country.

Netanyahu sued Olmert for remarks he made in 2021, after a series of inconclusive parliamentary elections. At the time, Netanyahu refused calls to step down while on trial for corruption charges.

The Tel Aviv Magistrate’s Court dismissed Olmert’s claim that he was “expressing an opinion in good faith” by saying Netanyahu exhibited “crazy behavior” and that his wife and son suffered from “mental illness.”

The court ruled that Olmert’s remarks on DemocraTV in April 2021 constituted defamation of character and ordered the former prime minister to pay damages totaling around $18,000 to Netanyahu and his family, as well as legal costs. Olmert can appeal the decision.

—

On this day in 1989 …

Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev signed a joint declaration saying that both countries respect the rights of Europeans to pursue paths of political and economic change without outside interference. But they also agreed that political reforms should not lead to instability and that NATO and the Warsaw Pact should remain as military alliances for the foreseeable future.

—

In entertainment …

The Walt Disney Company has announced that former CEO Bob Iger will return to head the company for two years in a move late Sunday that stunned the entertainment industry. Disney said in a statement that Bob Chapek, who succeeded Iger in 2020, had stepped down from the position. Disney board chair Susan Arnold thanked Chapek for his leadership during “the unprecedented challenges of the pandemic.” She said directors believed Iger was “uniquely situated” to guide the entertainment behemoth during “an increasingly complex period of industry transformation.” Iger, 71, led Disney for 15 years as it absorbed Pixar, Lucasfilm, Marvel and Fox’s entertainment businesses, then launched its Disney+ streaming service.

—

Did you see this?

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Sunday he has never been briefed that any candidates in the 2019 federal election may have been influenced by financing from the Chinese government.

A Global News report earlier this month cited unnamed sources who claimed Trudeau was informed last January that China was trying to interfere in Canadian politics, including by funding at least 11 candidates in the 2019 federal election.

The Liberals have been hammered in the House of Commons by opposition MPs demanding to know who the candidates are and what Canada is doing about the interference.

None of the MPs who responded, including Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland, provided any substantive response beyond insisting Canada’s elections were free and fair. Nor did any of them deny having information about any candidates being funded by China.

But during remarks at the end of the Francophonie summit in Tunisia on Sunday, Trudeau said the government hasn’t identified the candidates publicly because he doesn’t know who they are. He said he only learned of that specific allegation from the media.

Trudeau was speaking at the end of a 10-day overseas trip that included four international summits and attempts by Canada to expand its influence and economic ties in Asia despite a frosty relationship with China.

The chill on Canada-China ties was apparent over the trip, particularly at the G20 summit in Bali where Trudeau said he did speak to President Xi Jinping on the sidelines about “interference with our citizens.”

Xi upbraided Trudeau in front of Canadian media, accusing him of improperly leaking details of that conversation to the press. It is not unusual for the Trudeau government to provide reporters with basic details on the topics discussed between the prime minister and other foreign leaders, but Xi took issue with it.

Trudeau told Xi that people believe in openness and transparency in Canada.

—

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 21, 2022.

The Canadian Press

by Canadian Press

Intelligence officials at EA inquiry, battery supply chain : In The News for Nov. 21

More Local News