Canada column for
Sunday, July 7/19
THE CANADIAN REPORT
By Jim Fox
There are calls for
a member of the Ontario government to be removed from the cabinet after a
profanity laced outburst at the Rolling Stones concert.
Eugene Melnyk,
owner of the Ottawa Senators hockey team, said he was with family and friends
watching the Stones perform north of Toronto when a woman burst through the
crowd of about 70,000 and accosted him.
The woman was Lisa
MacLeod, Ontario’s Minister of Tourism, Culture and Sports, who launched into a
“vulgar and profane” attack, Melnyk said.
“All of a sudden, this
woman yells at me,” he said, repeating her words.
Melnyk spoke to
Premier Doug Ford about the “troubling incident” made worse because MacLeod was
at the concert on official business.
MacLeod tweeted
that she regrets her “inappropriate remarks and being so blunt.”
She explained she
was expressing concern about “the state of our beloved Ottawa Senators.”
---
Prime Minister
Justin Trudeau now says that President Donald Trump as agreed raised the issue with
President Xi Jinping of two Canadians imprisoned in China.
Trudeau also spoke
informally with Xi about Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor at the G20 summit in
Japan.
Geng Shuang of China’s
foreign ministry has mocked Canada for relying on a “so-called” ally and said
China would allow no interference in its affairs.
“What we’re seeing
really is that our allies are helping us and showing they’re concerned about
the behavior of China towards Canada,” Trudeau said.
The arrests
occurred soon after Canada placed China’s Huawei chief financial officer Meng
Wanzhou under house arrest in Vancouver for the U.S. on fraud allegations.
---
News in brief:
- Job growth slowed slightly last month, shedding 2,200 positions as the unemployment rate edged up
to 5.5 percent. This followed May’s report when the jobless rate fell to
5.4 percent, a 43-year low. Overall, the Canadian economy added 248,000 new
positions, almost all of them full time this year, Statistics Canada reported.
It’s expected the Bank of Canada could hold its key interest rate steady for
the rest of the year.
- A bar owner in
Red Deer, Alberta said it could have been done more tastefully when he hung a
large pinata with the image of Prime Minister Trudeau. Rob Newell of the
Burgundy’s Bar and Stage said maybe he shouldn’t have secured it with a rope
around Trudeau’s neck. “We filled it with money, candy and little notes of
things he promised and it was all just in fun,” he said.
---
Facts and figures:
The Canadian dollar
is higher at 76.42 cents U.S. while the U.S. dollar returns $1.308 Canadian before
exchange fees.
The Bank of Canada’s
key interest rate is steady at 1.75 percent while the prime-lending rate is 3.95
percent.
Stock markets are higher, with the Toronto
exchange index at 16,541 points and the TSX Venture index 587 points.
The average price for gas in Canada is higher at
$1.22 a liter or $4.63 (Canadian) for a U.S. gallon.
Lotto 6/49: (July 3) 13, 21, 26, 30, 38 and 39; bonus 19.
(June 29) 2, 5, 19, 21, 29 and 46; bonus 15. Lotto Max: (July 2)
6, 14, 26, 31, 34, 36 and 45; bonus 25. (June 28) 7, 11,
36, 37, 38, 43 and 46; bonus 26.
---
Regional briefs:
- British
Columbia’s north coast was jarred by three earthquakes 10 minutes apart on Friday
morning. There were no reports of injuries or a tsunami as it was at a depth of
seven miles. The largest quake of 5.1 was southwest of Bella Bella while
rumblings of 4.9 and 4.7 were near Port Hardy and Queen Charlotte on the Juan
de Fuca seismic plate.
-
Trenton, Ontario has set a world record for creating the largest human maple
leaf. There were 3,942 people forming the maple leaf as in Canada’s flag to
mark the country’s birthday on June 1. It surpassed the record of 1,589 people
in Grouse Mountain, British Columbia from two years ago.
-30-
Jim Fox can be reached at canadareport@hotmail.com
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