Refugees, pipelines, pot dominate politics
OT TAWA• It’s been a week of strategizing by all three federal parties, with the Liberal caucus talkfesting in Kelowna, B.C., the Conservatives meeting in Winnipeg, and the NDP leadership candidates thumping their chests with new endorsements.
The devastating weather events seeped into the caucus rooms, with the Liberals and the Conservatives scrapping over how or whether environmental protection should be integrated into economic policy.
Most of the politicians’ attention, however, was on tax policy, immigration and positioning for the fall session of Parliament.
As they plotted and brainstormed, there were some more concrete policy developments — involving asylum seekers, legalizing marijuana and building oil pipelines.
Canada’s immigration door may well be open for Rohingya refugees and some of the “dreamers” who could soon see their status in the United States revoked, the federal government is indicating.
But for Salvadorans, Hondurans and Haitians thinking of walking illegally across the U.S. border into Canada? Not so much.
On Wednesday, the federal government said it would send Spanish-speaking MP Pablo Rodriguez to Los Angeles to make sure the Salvadoran and Honduran communities understand Canadian refugee rules — and their implications — before they risk crossing the border into Canada. The move mirrors the trip Haitian-born MP Emmanuel Dubourg made last month to Florida.
But on Thursday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau struck a different tone. He suggested Canada’s willingness to bring in Rohingya refugees fleeing Myanmar. He also showed openness to accepting some of the 800,000 “dreamers” who arrived illegally in the United States as children and were allowed to stay, but now may have to leave.
A contradiction in attitude? Trudeau says no. Rather, he says Canada is open and compassionate to people who are truly refugees and who follow the right procedures.
Plans to legalize marijuana are ramping up as the July 2018 deadline looms.
After some initial bristling this summer from some provinces about the federally imposed timeline and grumbling about the amount of resources from Ottawa, Ontario is now plunging ahead — the first province to roll out details about how it will meet Ottawa’s deadlines to have a system in place for the sale and regulation of cannabis.
The Liberals say frequently that they can — and must — marry economic development goals with environmental ambition and vow that oil pipelines will be built even as greenhouse gas emissions are reduced.
But on Thursday, TransCanada Corp., said it was putting its plans for the 4,500-kilometre Energy East pipeline on hold so that the company can figure out if it’s still viable after new regulatory expectations were rolled out last month.
The National Energy Board said in August that the approval process for Energy East will include — for the first time ever — an examination of emissions created at all stages of the project, from oil extraction to end use.