EF; #WTO; #CyberSecurity; #InclusiveTrade; #TransparentInterconnectedBusiness; #ReduceCarbon; #WomenEntrepreneurs; #IndigeousEnterpreneurs

Ottawa, Jan 26 (Canadian-Media): Navdeep Bains, the Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry, and Mary Ng, the Minister of Small Business, Export Promotion and International Trade, met with international partners and business leaders around the world to showcase Canada on the international stage this week at the World Economic Forum (WEF)'s Annual Meeting in Davos, Switzerland, media reports said.

During the participation, Bains reaffirmed Canada’s commitment to science, research, technology and innovation underscoring the government’s desire to bring zero-emission vehicle manufacturing capacity to Canada and Canada's support of Mastercard’s project to help establish a new global Intelligence and Cyber Centre in Vancouver, British Columbia with an investment of $49 million with a focus  to minimize threat of cybersecurity.

Navdeep Bains. Image credit: Facebook page

“Our government wants to continue Canada’s global leadership in clean tech and data-driven innovation to drive change, reduce our carbon footprint, and create good middle class jobs, said Bains.”

​As Chair of the Canada-led Ottawa Group on World Trade Organization (WTO), Ng promoted progressive trade deals which would create more opportunities and jobs for Canadians across the country and highlighted the overall benefit to the people of an inclusive approach to a transparent interconnected world, including women, indigenous entrepreneurs, and small businesses, to amicably resolve trade disputes as well as how Ottawa Group members can help organize a successful 12th WTO Ministerial Conference in June 2020.

Mary Ng. Image credit: Twitter handle

Ng also endorsed WTO members’ commitment to reforming agriculture and to supporting Canadian farmers and producers. 

 “The World Economic Forum is an unparalleled opportunity to showcase Canada as a premier destination for investors...Canadians will benefit from the progress made to strengthen rules-based international trade, and the opportunities it creates" said Ng.​​

United States had reached an agreement  with Mexico and Canada by the United States, under the leadership of President Donald J. Trump,  in the renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), to make new United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA)  mutually beneficial win for North American workers, farmers, ranchers, and businesses.

The main question is how the Liberal minority government's reduced mandate would be tackled by opposition parties amid their own internal challenges. 

The liberal minorities with a political and pragmatic win in USMCA and their thought of delaying in ratification by utilising Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland for this message would leave the opposition to decide how much political capital to expend.

National Democratic Party (NDP) Leader Jagmeet Singh, in particular, insisted last week they as well us Conservatives want to study in detail and would be based on their own viability of running a campaign with NDP's 7 million dollars in debt.

To solve the crisis of opposition's walking out and the Liberals's hope to make it harder for them to balance, request to study the bill by many would be justified.  

Medical assistance in dying or medically assisted death causes the death of a person by the prescription or provision of medication by a physician or nurse practitioner. 

As of Wednesday evening, the survey, which had been online for a week and a half, 229,281 Canadians had responded, the largest number of responses for any public consultation seen by the federal Department of Justice. 

The Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops provides a link to the survey on its website.

Besides the online survey, closed-door roundtable meetings across the country on the topic by cabinet ministers of the federal government had been held and officials are working to meet a court-imposed timeline.

Justice Minister David Lametti said Canadians' views on medically assisted death have evolved since the legislation was passed in 2016 and he hopes the new legislation would be there by next month.

But the priorities, when the Parliament resumes would be the steps for ratification, legislation, and passing of the new NAFTA, Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Tuesday

Despite this interest in collaboration, New Democratic Party (NDP) Leader Jagmeet Singh says since the deal was negotiated in a behind-closed-doors his caucus will discuss whether to support it.

"We're going to discuss it in caucus and in the debate in the House and see if it actually delivers for Canadians." he said in a statement Tuesday.

The state of the economy, the fight against climate change, and pressing global affairs were topics discussed during the meeting, with  NAFTA 2.0, new legislation on medical assistance in dying (MAID)  at the top of that list.

New gun control measures were another priority for the session, said Public Safety Minister Bill Blair.

Supported by other opposition parties in the minority Parliament, the creation of the committee resulted due a Conservative motion passed in December,

Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Foreign Affairs Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne, Public Safety Minister Bill Blair and Canada's ambassador to China, Dominic Barton are  authorized by the committee to appear as witnesses as and when required by the committee.
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Thirteen months ago, China detained two Canadian citizens, Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig, who remain imprisoned without access to lawyers or their families — a move widely seen as retaliation for Canada's arrest of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou at the behest of the United States, which wants to extradite her on fraud charges related to U.S. sanctions against Iran.

Trudeau said it was a first step to getting Iran to compensate the grieving families and added, 

"I want to be clear, we expect Iran to compensate these families," Trudeau said during a news conference in Ottawa Friday morning.

"But I have met them. They can't wait weeks. They need support now."

Three main avenues for family members to achieve financial compensation, said the lawyers were: through civil action, through the International Court of Justice, or through international diplomacy.

Vincent Genova, a Toronto lawyer who practices personal injury and aviation law, said the families of Canadian citizens and those with ties to Canada could most likely launch a civil action in a Canadian court against Ukraine International Airlines, by making a case that the airliner was negligent and should have cancelled the flight due to the security situation in the region.

Joe Fiorante, a Vancouver lawyer who specializes aviation law said people travelling to Canada on a one-way ticket or returning to Canada on a round-trip ticket would be covered by the Montreal Convention, an international treaty to which Canada and Ukraine are signatories and are entitled to provable damages up to an initial threshold of $232,000, without having to prove fault, but Iran is not.

A second possible avenue of compensation is that government of Canada could make a claim in that court against the government of Iran for reparations  through the International Court of Justice, for victims' families and may be worked out through international diplomacy.

The Iranian government could come to an agreement with other governments involved, including Canada's, that would include compensation for the families of victims. ​

"We have intelligence from multiple sources, including our allies and our own intelligence. The evidence indicates that the plane was shot down by an Iranian surface-to-air missile," Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said during a news conference in Ottawa, adding that it might have been an unintentional act.

"The news will undoubtedly come as a further shock to the families who are already grieving in the face of this unspeakable tragedy."