The symbolism of the King's throne speech, and what Carney faces after
CBC's chief political correspondent Rosemary Barton breaks down the symbolism of the King's throne speech, and what Prime Minister Mark Carney will face after as he tries to enact an ambitious agenda with a minority government.
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CBC
14 minutes ago
- CBC
'We are very nimble': Calgary mayor keeps door open to G7 white hatting
With a little more than a week to go before world leaders arrive in Kananaskis, Alta., for the G7 summit, Calgary Mayor Jyoti Gondek said she is ready to continue the city's white hat ceremony tradition if logistics allow. "We are happy to white hat any of the dignitaries that are coming to town," Gondek said in an interview Friday. "We have been patient as the government has been figuring out their plans, and as dignitaries are determining how they will be traveling in and through our city." On Wednesday, a Tourism Calgary spokesperson said that "given the complexity around security and the event, at this time, there are no plans for our team to conduct a white hat ceremony for G7." Alberta's ministry of tourism and sport also said it's not planning a ceremony for the G7. Federal organizers with the G7 haven't responded to requests for comment. The Smithbilt cowboy hat has long been presented to visitors as a symbol of the city's hospitality. In 2002, then-Calgary mayor Dave Bronconnier greeted G8 leaders on the Calgary airport tarmac, including former U.S. president George W. Bush and former French president Jacques Chirac. Gondek emphasized the significance of the gesture. "We are known for our hospitality and our volunteerism and our ability to make people feel so welcome when they visit our city," Gondek said. "It's a really good symbol of who we are." Unclear which leaders will travel through Calgary While there's currently no ceremony planned, Gondek confirmed she is scheduled to meet with Prime Minister Mark Carney and said she's awaiting further guidance from officials. "We are very nimble and responsive to whatever the situation may be. And if there's an opportunity to do something bigger and more formal, obviously we will be engaging with any partners that we can," she said. Asked if she would be open to white hatting all G7 leaders, including U.S. President Donald Trump amid ongoing trade tensions, Gondek said any such plans would depend on travel logistics and who actually passes through Calgary. "I can't deal in hypotheticals, but as opportunities come up, we'll definitely evaluate them," she said. The G7 summit in Kananaskis is set to run from June 15 to 17 and has been referred to by officials as one of the most complex domestic security operations a country can undertake, with thousands of personnel deployed across the region. Gondek said the city has been working closely with the Calgary Police Service to ensure any traffic detours that need to be put into place are being done as quickly as possible. She also noted the airport tunnel's closure from June 15 to 18. "We are advising all employees, all travelers, anyone going to businesses in that vicinity that you won't have access to the tunnel," she said. "There's [also] a lot of motorcade drills that are happening in the city right now. So it's best to give yourself a little bit of extra time." Officials from the United States, France, Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom, Italy and Canada, as well as the European Union, are scheduled to attend this year's summit.
CTV News
20 minutes ago
- CTV News
What it would take to convert a jet from Qatar into Air Force One to safely fly Trump
WASHINGTON — U.S. President Donald Trump really wants to fly on an upgraded Air Force One — but making that happen could depend on whether he's willing to cut corners with security. As government lawyers sort out the legal arrangement for accepting a luxury jet from the Qatari royal family, another crucial conversation is unfolding about modifying the plane so it's safe for the American president. Installing capabilities equivalent to the decades-old 747s now used as Air Force One would almost certainly consign the project to a similar fate as Boeing's replacement initiative, which has been plagued by delays and cost overruns. Air Force Secretary Troy Meink told lawmakers Thursday that those security modifications would cost less than US$400 million but provided no details. Satisfying Trump's desire to use the new plane before the end of his term could require leaving out some of those precautions, however. A White House official said Trump wants the Qatari jet ready as soon as possible while adhering to security standards. The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, did not provide details on equipment issues or the timeline. Trump has survived two assassination attempts, and Iran allegedly also plotted to kill him, so he's well aware of the danger he faces. However, he seems willing to take some chances with security, particularly when it comes to communications. For example, he likes to keep his personal phone handy despite the threat of hacks. He boasted this week that the government got the jet 'for free,' saying, 'We need it as Air Force One until the other ones are done.' Here's a look at what it would take to make the Qatari plane into a presidential transport: What makes a plane worthy of being Air Force One? Air Force One is the call sign for any plane that's carrying the president. The first aircraft to get the designation was a propeller-powered C-54 Skymaster, which ferried Franklin D. Roosevelt to the Yalta Conference in 1945. It featured a conference room with a bulletproof window. Things are a lot more complicated these days. Boeing has spent years stripping down and rebuilding two 747s to replace the versions that have carried presidents for more than three decades. The project is slated to cost more than $5.3 billion and may not be finished before Trump leaves office. A 2021 report made public through the Freedom of Information Act outlines the unclassified requirements for the replacement 747s under construction. At the top of the list — survivability and communications. The government decided more than a decade ago that the new planes had to have four engines so they could remain airborne if one or two fail, said Deborah Lee James, who was Air Force secretary at the time. That creates a challenge because 747s are no longer manufactured, which could make spare parts harder to come by. Air Force One also has to have the highest level of classified communications, anti-jamming capabilities and external protections against foreign surveillance, so the president can securely command military forces and nuclear weapons during a national emergency. It's an extremely sensitive and complex system, including video, voice and data transmissions. James said there are anti-missile measures and shielding against radiation or an electromagnetic pulse that could be caused by a nuclear blast. 'The point is, it remains in flight no matter what,' she said. Will Trump want all the security bells and whistles? If the Qatari plane is retrofitted to presidential standards, it could cost $1.5 billion and take years, according to a U.S. official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to provide details that aren't publicly available. Testifying before Congress this week, Meink discounted such estimates, arguing that some of the costs associated with retrofitting the Qatari plane would have been spent anyway as the Air Force moves to build the long-delayed new presidential planes, including buying aircraft for training and to have spares available if needed. In response, Rep. Joe Courtney, D-Conn., said that based on the contract costs for the planes that the Air Force is building, it would cost about $1 billion to strip down the Qatar plane, install encrypted communications, harden its defenses and make other required upgrades. James said simply redoing the wiring means 'you'd have to break that whole thing wide open and almost start from scratch.' Trump, as commander in chief, could waive some of these requirements. He could decide to skip shielding systems from an electromagnetic pulse, leaving his communications more vulnerable in case of a disaster but shaving time off the project. After all, Boeing has already scaled back its original plans for the new 747s. Their range was trimmed by 1,200 nautical miles, and the ability to refuel while airborne was scrapped. Paul Eckloff, a former leader of protection details at the Secret Service, expects the president would get the final say. 'The Secret Service's job is to plan for and mitigate risk,' he said. 'It can never eliminate it.' If Trump does waive some requirements, James said that should be kept under wraps because 'you don't want to advertise to your potential adversaries what the vulnerabilities of this new aircraft might be.' It's unlikely that Trump will want to skimp on the plane's appearance. He keeps a model of a new Air Force One in the Oval Office, complete with a darker color scheme that echoes his personal jet instead of the light blue design that's been used for decades. What happens next? Trump toured the Qatari plane in February when it was parked at an airport near Mar-a-Lago, his Florida resort. Air Force chief of staff Gen. David Allvin was there, too. The U.S. official said the jet needs maintenance but not more than what would be expected of a four-engine plane of its complexity. Sen. Tammy Duckworth, an Illinois Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said it would be irresponsible to put the president and national security equipment aboard the Qatari plane 'without knowing that the aircraft is fully capable of withstanding a nuclear attack.' 'It's a waste of taxpayer dollars,' she said. Meanwhile, Boeing's project has been hampered by stress corrosion cracks on the planes and excessive noise in the cabins from the decompression system, among other issues that have delayed delivery, according to a Government Accountability Office report released last year. Boeing referred questions to the U.S. Air Force, which said in a statement that it's working with the aircraft manufacturer to find ways to accelerate the delivery of at least one of the 747s. Even so, the aircraft will have to be tested and flown in real-world conditions to ensure no other issues. James said it remains to be seen how Trump would handle any of those challenges. 'The normal course of business would say there could be delays in certifications,' she said. 'But things seem to get waived these days when the president wants it.' AP writer Lolita C. Baldor in Washington contributed to this report. Tara Copp And Chris Megerian, The Associated Press
Globe and Mail
32 minutes ago
- Globe and Mail
The party is over. It's time to embrace a postparty system of governance
David Berlin is an author, the former editor of the Literary Review of Canada and the founding editor of The Walrus magazine. He led The Bridge Party of Canada, which ran in the 2016 federal election. With uncanny prescience, as though peering into a crystal ball, America's first president, George Washington, anticipated and warned against the rise of the 45th and 47th U.S. president, Donald Trump. In his Farewell Address to the Nation, published in 1796, Washington predicted that 'sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation on the ruins of public liberty.' Such a chief will not have attained power illegitimately – by coup d'état or secession – but by the usual shenanigans which pave a political party's path to glory. But Washington is very clear about where the fault lies: It lies not with the chief but with the 'spirit of party' which inevitably produces such a leader. The villain is the party system which 'agitates the community with ill founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasional riots and insurrection and opens the door to foreign influence and corruption.' The only way to avoid the rise of a leader inclined in the direction of a 'frightful despotism' is to prevent the 'spirit of party' from ever taking hold. Had he been around these days, America's founding father would have undoubtedly railed against the facile notion that parties and party leaders do no more than mirror, reflect and represent underlying societal tensions and differences. They do no such thing. Parties exacerbate and exploit such differences. Unlike virtually all other institutions, the party system thrives by dividing. It is polarizing by design. It should perhaps be noted that the invidious 'spirit of party' does not necessarily apply equally to every party system, at least not with the same force. The augmented Westminster model which Canadians have proffered, and the rise of a multiparty system, inoculated Canada from the full impact of a crazy-making polarization which is now bringing America close to a constitutional crisis. In Canada, throughout history, the two major parties differed very little on crucial questions. Their conception of power was almost identical. Both parties treated patronage as the lifeblood of the party, both traded favours for votes. For a long time, both parties respected one another's accomplishments. But such mutual respect is no longer the case. Canada, today, is far more vulnerable to the poison of partisan politics than many Canadians suspect. Consider that in the past election, the difference between Mark Carney's Liberals, who received 8,564,200 votes, and Pierre Poilievre's Conservative Party, which clocked in at 8,086,051 was 2.4 per cent. And it is not at all clear that the relations between the Liberals and the Conservatives are all that much better than the relations between Democrats and Republicans in the United States. Editorial board: Democracy is messy, and that's a good thing But even if Canada manages to resist the full force of what Quebec City mayor Joseph Cauchon, in 1865, called the 'miserable spirit of party,' and even if we manage to work around Mr. Trump's tariffs and threats and somehow survive the new world disorder which the current American administration is disseminating, there is still a good argument to be made for undertaking efforts to get us over political parties – to get us to a postparty system of governance. Many young Canadian activists are designing and experimenting with sophisticated and scalable manners of reviving versions of direct democracy. Vancouver-based Ethelo, for example, is developing a consensus-building platform which invites users to vote on granulated issues, challenge one another and review unexplored assumptions. Users are given ample opportunity to consider issues which are flagged by one party or another and those which are summarily ignored or buried by campaigns. Votes on the platform are 'weighted' as a display of each voter's priorities. The results are tabulated to produce 'the people's platform,' which is not a poll or survey but the highest attainable level of consensus at a particular time. The published platform may serve as a far better indication of where our 'centre' resides than the amorphous and unanchored centre currently in use. In 2016, I registered a new federal political party called The Bridge Party of Canada which was intended to introduce the 'People's Platform' as a first step toward a richer form of democracy. Though a federal party, The Bridge sought to attain official standing for a consensus-building stage in advance of federal, provincial and local elections. On the hustings, I spoke with many young Canadians who raged against a party's treatment of voters as numbers. Young people said they were weary of manipulative party campaigns that dumb down the electorate and reduce a rich inventory of issues to one or two wedges. Both young and older electors expressed disgust with the reductions of the public to consumers who care about nothing but the price of eggs. To many voters, it seems that far more serious engagement and participation in the decision-making process would be inspiring – a rising tide that would lift all boats. There are literally hundreds, if not thousands, of democracy-enhancing initiatives. Some are non-profits. Many are housed in universities in Canada, the U.S., the U.K., Belgium, Germany and elsewhere. None with which I am familiar are ready for prime time. But it makes a lot of sense for Canada to establish, participate and support ongoing experimentation. Would a centre that funds, integrates and co-ordinates disparate efforts to decrease party dominance not be a thoughtful way of responding to Donald Trump's taunts, threats and tariffs? And given the state of liberal democracy in the West, are we not right to assume that the world is awaiting a new model and that this model could be Canada's gift to posterity? Democracy is not about nation-building. It is first of all a process by which settlers and Indigenous populations living under autocratic rule become voters, voters become citizens who, by resisting the centrifugal force which tears them apart, become a people. Parties may have a place in the process, but they cannot be permitted to monopolize the field.
