Joe Biden

Wednesday January 12, 2022

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday January 12, 2022

Canada offers to support U.S. measures to deter Russia in confrontation with Ukraine

June 13, 2017

Canada has told the U.S. that it’s willing to help with possible deterrence measures against Russia — which could include sanctions — to head off a crisis in Ukraine, CBC News has learned.

Canada made the offer during a meeting between Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Dec. 31, according to a source with knowledge of the matter.

The source said the message was received well by Blinken. 

Bilateral talks between Russia and the U.S. over the nearly eight-year-long war in Ukraine took place in Geneva Monday. Nearly 100,000 Russian troops are stationed near Ukraine’s eastern border, prompting concerns from other countries that Russia’s President Vladimir Putin intends to invade Ukraine.

Wednesday December 22, 2021

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday December 22, 2021

One senator just blew up Joe Biden’s presidential plans

A single U.S. senator has detonated a political bombshell whose wide-ranging blast radius has touched his political party, his country and his planet.

December 14, 2021

Let us sift through political wreckage over the horizon and count the effects unleashed by Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia.

He has, until further notice, killed President Joe Biden’s hope of signing major legislation. Resurrecting the Build Back Better mega-bill could happen but it won’t be easy and it’s dead in its current form.

Because he holds the 50th vote in a 100-seat Senate, Manchin’s statement was a game-changer on multiple fronts.

It’s rocked Biden’s presidency, enraged the Democratic Party, imperilled about two dozen major initiatives affecting millions of Americans, undone economic forecasts, torched the U.S. climate plan, tossed into doubt a global tax plan, and, perhaps to Canadians’ benefit, paused a major Canada-U.S. irritant, a potential violation of trade agreements.

His move unleashed recriminations within the Democratic Party as some of Manchin’s colleagues castigated him; questioned his integrity; said he couldn’t be trusted; and some even raised money in fundraising letters trashing his decision.

February 23, 2021

That acrimonious climate is hardly propitious to getting Democrats back to the negotiating table to try saving bits of the 2,468-page Build Back Better bill.

There’s a silver lining in all this for Canada.

The Canadian government was deeply worried about the green rebates and preparing for an economic war over them. 

That’s because Build Back Better offered tax credits for the purchase of U.S.-assembled electric cars, which Canada and others called a violation of trade agreements that would kill jobs abroad.

It’s no accident a Canadian auto-parts representative happened to be meeting with Manchin’s staff on Friday, lobbying against the measure.

Flavio Volpe said it’s too soon to assume this irritant is gone. Ottawa appears to agree. Nobody in the Canadian government has been willing to comment on Sunday’s developments, suggesting they’re not final.

“I don’t feel like we’re out of the woods yet,” Volpe said. “We’re [still] on DEFCON 1 for Canadian prosperity.” (CBC) 

 

Thursday December 9, 2021

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday December 9, 2021

Canada joining diplomatic boycott of Beijing Winter Olympics

August 12, 2021

Canada will not send any official representatives to the Beijing Winter Olympics in February as part of a growing diplomatic boycott by allies over China’s record of human rights abuses.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made the announcement on Wednesday after facing several days of questions over whether Canada would stand with allies that have already announced similar plans.

“We are announcing today that we will not be sending any diplomatic representation to the Beijing Olympic and Paralympic games this winter,” said Trudeau, adding he does not believe the move from Canada or by allies will “come as a surprise” to China.

“We have been very clear over the past many years of our deep concerns around human rights violations and this is a continuation of us expressing our deep concerns for human rights violations.”

Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly said the Royal Canadian Mounted Police has worked in the past with the Canadian Olympic Committee to try to keep athletes safe while competing abroad.

February 20, 2021

Calls have been growing over recent days as Canada’s closest allies have announced their plans not to send official representatives to the Beijing Olympics in February as part of a diplomatic boycott over China’s human rights abuses, particularly against the Uyghur ethnic minority.

The United States, the U.K., and Australia all announced their decisions this week.

Liberal MP Adam van Koeverden, an Olympic gold medalist kayaker, said a diplomatic boycott is one of the tools at Canada’s disposal and that he doesn’t think such a move would cause additional stress on athletes.

“My priority is to make sure that athletes have the opportunity to compete, and of their safety and security as well,” he said on Wednesday.

March 24, 2008

A diplomatic boycott refers specifically to non-athletes. It would see countries that agree to take part in a boycott pledge not to send diplomatic missions or representatives to attend the ceremonies and the events themselves.

Normally, participating countries typically do send official representatives from their governments.

For example, former Canadian governor general David Johnson attended the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, for six days as the country’s official representative. (Global) 

 

Thursday November 18, 2021

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday November 18, 2021

Now it’s Biden, not Trump, giving Trudeau grief

The political bromance that was supposed to blossom between Justin Trudeau and Joe Biden has so far been a bust.

November 3, 2020

When Americans turfed Donald Trump in last November’s presidential election and sent Biden to the White House, you could almost hear a collective sigh of relief across Canada. A dark, dangerous cloud that had hovered over this country for four years had been blown away. With two progressive, seemingly compatible leaders at the helm of the North American neighbours a new era of amiable bilateral relations seemed guaranteed.

But that hasn’t come to pass. And so Prime Minister Trudeau will have his work cut out for him when he heads to Washington for Thursday’s summit with President Biden and Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.

Despite all his friendly smiles, Biden has yet to prove he’s a real friend to this country. Relations are strained and he’s making them worse. There’s an infrastructure bill packed with Buy American provisions that could bar Canadian businesses from bidding on billions of dollars worth of projects in the U.S. Biden loves it.

July 22, 2021

Another bill would offer huge incentives for American consumers to purchase made-in-the-U.S. electric vehicles instead of buying Canadian-manufactured models. Biden is all for it. If Congress passes the bill, car makers would obviously be more inclined to invest in American electric vehicle plants than Canadian ones. Then what will happen to all those dreams of a bright new Canadian electric-vehicle sector?

No wonder Flavio Volpe, president of Canada’s Automotive Parts Manufacturers’ Association, says the proposed incentives are “a bigger threat than anything pointed at us by Donald Trump” — including all the tariffs he imposed and the disruptive free-trade battle he engineered.

Meanwhile, the State of Michigan is still trying to shut down Enbridge’s Line 5 pipeline which transports vital supplies of Western Canadian petroleum to Ontario and Quebec. If this threat to Canada has caught Biden’s eye, he’s done nothing about it. And if the list of bilateral sore-points isn’t long enough already, the American government moved this spring to double tariffs on Canadian lumber.

April 30, 2021

Clearly American protectionism has again reared its ugly head. And this despite the years of struggles during the Trump era to reach the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement which, by the way, does not permit those American electric-vehicle incentives.

It should be a given that Trudeau will raise these issues with Biden this week. But the president will be more preoccupied with pressures coming from within his own deeply divided country. After just 10 months in office, his approval ratings have plummeted. The control his Democrats have over Congress is precarious and could be lost after next year’s mid-term elections. And those Buy American incentives are widely popular south of the border with progressive Democrats, unions, consumers and, when it comes to electric vehicles, environmentalists.

February 23, 2021

Trudeau will be swimming upstream against powerful currents to alter these trends. He does, however, have leverage. With an increasingly assertive China responsible for Biden’s biggest international headache, Trudeau should remind him Canada and Mexico can help build a “Fortress North America” as an economic and political counterweight to that rising superpower. With Canadian and Mexican co-operation, Biden could also have a better chance of successfully fighting climate change, which would thrill much of his voter base.

Beyond these measures, Trudeau should adopt a strategy that worked with Trump: start sending his federal cabinet ministers and Canadian business leaders to meet with and lobby their American counterparts.

Considering all the differences between them, it may be too much to hope for another “Three Amigos Summit” this week. We’d settle for a co-operative, congenial neighbourly get-together. (Hamilton Spectator Editorial) 

 

Saturday October 30, 2021

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday October 30, 2021

COP26 climate talks off to an ominous start after weak G20 leaders’ meeting

It was in the city of Glasgow that Scottish engineer James Watt improved the workings of the steam engine and, unwittingly, kicked off the Industrial Revolution. Never could he have imagined that humans would burn so much coal, oil and gas over the next two centuries that they would imperil the very climate that has allowed for their existence.

June 6, 2007

More than 120 leaders will speak Monday in the very same city to begin the COP26 climate talks, where they will set the tone for two weeks of negotiations that can either end with a plan to rapidly decarbonize the planet, or make watery statements to delay what the science shows is needed, possibly pushing it off until it’s too late. Climate leaders and experts are calling it the world’s last best chance to address the climate crisis.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, whose government is hosting the talks, will warn Monday that humanity has run down the clock on climate change.

“It’s one minute to midnight, and we need to act now,” he will say in an opening speech, according to remarks sent to journalists.

“We have to move from talk and debate and discussion to concerted, real-world action on coal, cars, cash and trees. Not more hopes and targets and aspirations, valuable though they are, but clear commitments and concrete timetables for change.”

The G20 leaders’ meeting that ended in Rome on Sunday suggests that leaders are finally listening to the science, but they still lack the political unity to make the ambitious decisions required to meet the moment.

August 13, 2021

The latest UN climate science report published in August made clear what needs to happen — deep, sustained cuts to greenhouse gas emissions over this decade to have any chance of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees above levels before industrialization. Even with all the newly announced pledges, the world is still on track for 2.7 degrees of heating.

Global warming beyond 1.5 degrees will bring worsening impacts of the climate crisis. But the positive news is that the 1.5 limit is entirely in our reach. The UN report showed that by mid-century, the world needs to reach net zero — where greenhouse gas emissions are no greater than the amount removed from the atmosphere — and warming can be stopped in its tracks.

All of this scientific language was in the G20 leaders’ communiqué, including an acknowledgment that to meet net zero by mid-century, many member nations will need to lift their emissions-reductions pledges, known as Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), over this decade. (CNN)