Politics This Morning: Trudeau and ministers barnstorming across Europe

Good Monday morning, The House is adjourned for two weeks until Monday, March 21, but the Finance committee is meeting twice today. It will meet at 11 a.m. Ottawa time to discuss the draft report on its pre-budget consultations. The committee will convene again at 2:30 p.m. to continue its study of the invocation of the Emergency Act, with witnesses from the Canadian Bankers Association and the RCMP. After sitting for most of last week, the Senate is also adjourned for the next two weeks. No Senate committees are scheduled to meet today. Prime Minister JUSTIN TRUDEAU arrived in London yesterday as part of his week-long trip to Europe. He will meet with the prime ministers of the U.K. and the Netherlands, and with the Queen, before heading to Latvia tomorrow and to Germany and Poland later in the week. Defence Minister ANITA ANAND and the chief of the defence staff, General WAYNE EYRE, will join Trudeau in Latvia. Operation REASSURANCE, which is based in Latvia, is Canada’s largest ongoing international military operation. International Development Minister HARJIT SAJJAN is in Geneva today to discuss the pandemic response and the humanitarian crises in Ukraine and Afghanistan. He will then travel to “various locations” in Eastern Europe, with a Global Affairs Canada press release saying Sajjan’s exact itinerary is not being announced ahead of time because of security considerations. Foreign Minister MÉLANIE JOLY was in Brussels on Friday to meet with the NATO foreign ministers and with the president of the European Commission, URSULA VON DER LEYEN. Cruise ships returning to Canada Minister of Transport Omar Alghabra lifted the government's COVID-19 ban on cruise ships in November, but advised Canadians not to go on cruises outside Canadian waters. The Hill Times photograph by Andrew Meade Transport Minister OMAR ALGHABRA will be at the Port of Halifax at 9:30 a.m. local time to announce the return of cruise ships to Canada. He will also announce trade funding for the port. Global News reported that Health Canada and Transport Canada were scheduled to meet with industry representatives in mid-February to discuss requirements for vaccinations and testing. Transport Canada initially banned cruise ships from Canadian waters at the beginning of the pandemic, and then extended that ban several times. Industry news site CruiseCritic.com reported that “the orders prohibit any cruise vessel carrying more than 100 or more people from operating in Canadian waters, effectively cancelling the 2021 Alaska and Canada New England seasons,” with some exceptions. The order also banned all pleasure craft and passenger vessels from entering Canada's Arctic waters. Transport Canada lifted the ban on November 1, 2021, but warned that people “should continue to avoid all cruise ship travel outside of Canada” because the government could not guarantee consular support and would not provide financial support in the event of a COVID-19 outbreak outside Canadian waters. What else is happening today? Statistics Canada is releasing the latest set of data from its annual Head Office Survey. Today’s release will present data about head offices across Canada from 2020. The data for 2019, released in January 2021, showed that there were 2,750 head offices across Canada employing 227,680 people in fields such as accounting, legal, management, payroll and other support services. Toronto held a third of all the head office jobs in the country in 2019, mostly because of its strong financial sector, followed by Montreal with 18 per cent and then Calgary and Vancouver. Toronto also had the most head offices in 2019, at 705. Nova Scotia saw a 10.1 per cent increase in head office jobs in 2019, the largest increase among the provinces, while P.E.I. saw the largest decrease. MARC SERRÉ, the Liberal MP for Nickel Belt, Ont., will make an announcement at 11 a.m. local time in Sudbury, Ont. on support for Kivi Park, a year-round sports and outdoor park. Northern Affairs Minister DAN VANDAL and Minister of Tourism RANDY BOISSONNAULT will announce federal support to help Alberta’s small businesses enhance their digital presence and reach new customers, in an online appearance at noon Ottawa time. Liberal MP SEAN CASEY, who represents Charlottetown, P.E.I., will make an infrastructure announcement at the Charlottetown Port Authority at 3 p.m. local time. In case you missed it Yesterday was Ghana’s 65th Independence Day. Ghana was the first country in sub-Saharan Africa to break free from colonial rule, securing its independence from Britain on March 6, 1957. SHAFQAT ALI, the Liberal MP for Brampton Centre, Ont., congratulated the people of Ghana in the House on Friday, adding that Ghana was one of the first countries in Africa to establish diplomatic relations with Canada. MIA MOTTLEY, the prime minister of Barbados, was the guest of honour at the Independence Day ceremonies in Ghana yesterday. Barbados removed QUEEN ELIZABETH II as its head of state on November 30, 2021. Mottley asked the crowd at Cape Coast in Ghana, one of the “doors of no return” in the transatlantic slave trade, for Africa’s support as Caribbean countries seek reparations from European countries. In unrelated news, Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada announced on Friday that it would pay $7.4-million in compensation to the Alexander First Nation for historic mismanagement of the First Nation’s trust accounts. According to a government press release, the settlement agreement relates to “certain expenditures” made from the accounts between 1905 and 1950. The Alexander First Nation, located in Treaty Six territory in Alberta, first filed a claim with the Federal Court in 2002. In The Hill Times Automakers warn JESSE CNOCKAERT that the zero-emissions vehicle sales mandate proposed by the federal government could put Canada’s regulatory regime out of step with that of the U.S. MIKE LAPOINTE covers the reaction from MPs and economists to the Bank of Canada’s first rate hike since 2018. kphilipupillai@hilltimes.com The Hill Times

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Politics This Morning: Trudeau and ministers barnstorming across Europe

Meanwhile, Transport Minister Omar Alghabra heads to the Port of Halifax with an announcement about the return of cruise ships to Canada.

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