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News from Connect2Canada
Junos 2009
The Connect2Canada Team
The 38th annual JUNO awards were held in Vancouver on March 29, 2009. Hosted by Canadian comedian Russell Peters, the awards honoured excellence in Canadian music. Alberta's Nickelback were this year's big winners, earning awards for Group of the Year, Album of the Year and the JUNO Fan Choice. Rocker Sam Roberts won Artist of the Year and Kardinall Offishall won Rap Recording of the Year. Rock group Loverboy, known for hits such as “turn me loose” and “working for the weekend” were honoured with a Lifetime Achievement award and inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame.
Performances combining a unique mix of artists displayed the diversity and talent of Canadian musicians. Dallas Green, the evening’s recipient of the Songwriter of the Year award and Tragically Hip lead singer Gord Downie collaborated on a duet, and Kathleen Edwards accompanied Bryan Adams on violin and backup vocals. For show highlights, visit http://www.junoawards.ca/. Interested in seeing if Canadian acts will be performing in your area? Check out the calendar of events.
C2C Podcast: G-20 London Summit
The Connect2Canada Team
What can the world expect from the G-20 leadership summit in London? G-20 expert John Kirton from the Munk Centre for International Studies shares his insights with us in our latest podcast.
Special Features
Canada leads by example—brings clear message to G-20 London Summit
Wednesday, April 01, 2009
Office of the Prime Minister
Prime Minister Stephen Harper continued to press his message to G-20 leaders this evening in London at a working dinner held at 10 Downing Street.
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Statement by Minister Cannon on U.S. Afghanistan-Pakistan Strategic Review
Friday, March 27, 2009
Government of Canada
The Honourable Lawrence Cannon, Minister of Foreign Affairs, today issued the following statement concerning the U.S. administration’s Afghanistan-Pakistan Strategic Review:
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The Governments of Canada and Ontario Reject Automakers' Restructuring Plans
Monday, March 30, 2009
Industry Canada
The Honourable Tony Clement, Minister of Industry, the Honourable Jim Flaherty, Minister of Finance, and the Honourable Michael Bryant, Ontario Minister of Economic Development, today announced that the plans submitted by General Motors of Canada Limited and Chrysler Canada Inc. are not sufficient for the governments to certify their restructuring plans. The governments have requested that additional work be undertaken by General Motors and Chrysler as part of ongoing restructuring efforts.
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International News
Harper takes Canada’s economic solution on the road
Friday, March 27, 2009
David Akin, National Post
Prime Minister Stephen Harper will spend two days in the U.S. selling Canada's solution to the global fiscal crisis—fix broken banks and maintain free trade—ahead of crucial meetings with world leaders in London next week.
Beginning Sunday, Mr. Harper will travel to Washington, New York, London and Strasbourg, France, squeezing in several international media interviews, a meeting with Queen Elizabeth and a celebration of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's 60th anniversary.
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Harper trumpets trade assurances
Thursday, April 02, 2009
Tara Nelson and David Akin, Edmonton Journal
Prime Minister Stephen Harper won a key commitment for Canada at the G20 summit, getting world leaders to agree to extend for 12 months a pledge not to raise new trade barriers.
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Harper urges more global intervention
Wednesday, April 01, 2009
Brian Laghi, Globe and Mail
Prime Minister Stephen Harper has called on leaders of the world's largest economic powers to err on the side of more intervention rather than less to pull out of the current crisis.
“I think, if anything, leaders should overact rather than underact at this point,” Mr. Harper said in an interview today with CNN as he prepared for a crucial meeting of G20 leaders. “I think there would be a risk of underacting. Let's assume we need dramatic action. Let's do it.”
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Harper ‘comfortable’ with U.S. plans on auto industry
Monday, March 30, 2009
Sheldon Alberts, National Post
With President Barack Obama set on Monday to lay down benchmarks for a new bailout of struggling American automakers, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said Sunday he's "very comfortable" the White House aid will be tied to a viable restructuring plan for the ailing industry.
Mr. Harper, in an interview with Canwest News Service, said his government has been in near-daily contact with U.S. officials and is satisfied the Obama administration is "prepared to lay down the conditions that will ensure vital decisions" are made to keep the car companies alive.
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Afghanistan: les États-Unis n'ont pas fait de pression, dit Harper
Vendredi 27 mars 2009
La Presse
Le président des États-Unis, Barack Obama, n'a, jusqu'à présent, fait aucune pression auprès du Canada pour que la mission des Forces armées canadiennes en Afghanistan soit prolongée au-delà de 2011, a affirmé Stephen Harper, jeudi.
En interview sur les ondes de Radio-Canada, M. Harper a affirmé que ni les États-Unis ni le Canada n'avaient le désir de transformer l'Afghanistan en un pays occidental.
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Obama's climate bill threatens Alberta oilsands
Wednesday, April 01, 2009
Sheldon Alberts, Edmonton Journal
Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday unveiled draft climate change legislation to slash America's greenhouse gas emissions by 20 per cent by 2020, setting the stage for a protracted and intense political debate in Washington that has potentially major consequences for Canada's energy industry.
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Researcher who received Canadian vaccine healthy after accident
Thursday, April 02, 2009
Associated Press, Globe and Mail
A German researcher who received an experimental Canadian vaccine after being exposed to the deadly Ebola virus has passed the disease's 21-day incubation period without showing any sign of falling ill.
Dr. Stephan Guenther, head of the laboratory where the 45-year-old woman worked, says she is being prepared for release from a Hamburg hospital.
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Business and Trade
CEO resigns in surprise shake-up at Air Canada
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Brent Jang, Globe and Mail
Making a surprising change at the top as it struggles to survive the recession, Air Canada [AC.A-T] has abruptly appointed Calin Rovinescu as president and chief executive officer.
Mr. Rovinescu will take over the controls of the country's largest airline on Wednesday. Resigning is Montie Brewer, an American who joined the Montreal-based airline in 2002 and became president and CEO in 2004. Air Canada is facing a cash crunch, and some industry analysts have speculated that it could be forced to file for bankruptcy protection for the second time in six years.
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Obama's secretary harder on Canada than predecessor
Monday, March 30, 2009
Star Phoenix
Canada can declare the new Windsor-Detroit bridge as its No. 1 infrastructure project, as Transport Minister John Baird did last week to a border forum in Washington, but don't expect its completion to speed the flow of north-south traffic of people and goods anytime soon.
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NAFTA threat won't stop Quebec ban on lawn pesticides
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Juliet ONeill, Ottawa Citizen
Trade Minister Stockwell Day vows a "vigorous defence" of Quebec's ban on lawn pesticides containing 2,4-D from a challenge by a U.S. chemical company through the North American Free Trade Agreement.
Dow AgroSciences is to decide within a few weeks whether to go ahead with a threatened claim through NAFTA for $2 million, just as Ontario is introducing similar pesticide controls that put 2,4-D on a ban list.
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U.S.–Mexico trucking war raises fears up here
Friday, March 27, 2009
Jennifer Ditchburn, Toronto Star
The Canadian government and the export industry are watching nervously as a trade war brews between Canada's NAFTA partners.
Mexico slapped hefty tariffs on 90 American products this month after Washington axed a program that allowed Mexican trucks to bring goods deep into the States—a right outlined in the North American Free Trade Agreement.
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TD Bank: 'It's a good Canadian story'
Thursday, April 02, 2009
Dave MacLean, Telegraph-Journal
As he tours the ultra-modern client service centre his company operates in Saint John, TD Bank Financial Group CEO Ed Clark extends a hand to each employee he comes across.
He is sincere in his desire to get to know the staff and his personable demeanour speaks volumes about the bank's strong emphasis on customer service—it comes right from the top.
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Le salaire moyen a augmenté de 1,1% en janvier au Canada
Mardi 31 mars 2009
La Presse
De janvier 2008 à janvier 2009 la hausse est de 3,2%.
D'une année à l'autre, parmi les plus grands secteurs industriels au Canada, la rémunération hebdomadaire moyenne a crû de 6,1% dans le secteur du commerce de détail, de 4,4% dans le secteur des soins de santé et de l'assistance sociale, de 3,5% dans les services d'enseignement ainsi que de 2,2% dans le secteur de l'hébergement et des services de restauration. Au cours de la même période, la rémunération a fléchi de 0,8% dans le secteur de la fabrication et de 0,4% dans celui de l'administration publique.
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RIM joins rush to online storefronts
Wednesday, April 01, 2009
Matt Hartley, Globe and Mail
Research In Motion Ltd. is stealing a page from rival Apple Inc.'s playbook as it prepares to write the latest chapter in the ongoing struggle between the two companies for control of the global smart phone market.
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Canadian News
Passport blitz anticipated before June 1 U.S. deadline
Friday, March 27, 2009
Adam Huras, Telegraph-Journal
As of June 1, all travellers entering the United States by land or sea will need a passport. They already need them to travel to the United States by air.
So far, New Brunswickers have been slow to get the documents.
Only 35 per cent of New Brunswickers have passports. That number drops to fewer than 20 per cent for New Brunswickers under the age of 17.
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Ottawa ready to revise budget forecasts: Harper
Friday, March 27, 2009
Meagan Fitzpatrick, Globe and Mail
Due to the rapidly changing economy, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said Thursday his government will consider revising the economic forecasts and plans that were in the Jan. 27 budget.
"We don't pull our projections out of the air," Mr. Harper told a news conference in Levis, Que. "We arrive at our projections based on a survey of the best private-sector forecasters across the country. When we did that this year, we took a low average of those projections."
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Carney: Economic fall worst since 1961
Thursday, April 02, 2009
Julian Beltrame, New Brunswick Business Journal
Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney is warning that Canada is currently suffering through the worst economic downturn in a half-century and that recovery will likely be slower and take longer than expected.
The central bank governor says there's no question the world economy is falling at the sharpest rate since the Second World War and is now in the throes of a crisis in confidence.
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Nickelback big winners at Junos
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Stuart Derdeyn, National Post
Sometimes you gamble. Sometimes you bet on the sure thing. Anyone making odds on this year's Juno Awards knew putting money on the Dark Horse was a no-brainer.
Nickelback's latest release, Dark Horse, took Album of the Year honours at Sunday's broadcast awards ceremony at Vancouver's GM Place.
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Nunavut's birthday sparks debate about future
Wednesday, April 01, 2009
Katherine O Neill, Globe and Mail
Forget balloons and streamers.
The people of Grise Fiord—Canada's most northerly community—plan to wake up this morning and launch Nunavut's 10th birthday celebrations in their town by going on a seal hunt. Most of the Ellesmere Island community's 150 residents are Inuit, and the rest of the day will include traditional games such as a harpoon toss competition, seal skin sledding, and a community feast featuring "country" foods.
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Women to be admitted to Hockey Hall of Fame
Wednesday, April 01, 2009
Damien Cox, Globe and Mail
In the end, it was a compromise.
There have always been those who believed that comparing the stars of men's professional hockey to the greatest players in the women's game was too difficult, too unwieldy and simply pointless.
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'Spiritual dream team' to gather in B.C. for peace
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Denise Ryan, National Post
The Dalai Lama will headline a "spiritual dream team" of Nobel Peace Prize laureates and international activists at a peace summit this September in Vancouver.
Victor Chan, co-founder of Vancouver's Dalai Lama Centre for Peace and Education, said the Vancouver Peace Summit: Nobel Laureates in Dialogue will take place Sept. 26-29.
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Opinion/Editorial
We should worry about U.S. border plan
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
James Travers, Toronto Star
Here's a quick quiz. Which developing news story is most important to Canada: Is it (a) the deferred auto industry rescue (b) Washington's new Afghanistan plan or (c) Brian Mulroney's cash dealings with Karlheinz Schreiber?
Answer: None of the above. Each is significant; all are poorly matched against Janet Napolitano's casually considered endorsement of a Canadian border with the bristling defences of the one the U.S. so forcefully guards with Mexico.
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Pour une commission canado-américaine de l'Arctique
Vendredi 27 mars 2009
Samantha Arnold, Le Devoir
La nouvelle politique canadienne de l'Arctique, présentée le 11 mars par le ministre des Affaires étrangères, Lawrence Cannon, marque un changement de discours pour le Canada. En affirmant son intention de coopérer davantage avec ses voisins arctiques—notamment les États-Unis et la Russie—le gouvernement de Stephen Harper semble reconnaître les insuffisances d'une stratégie canadienne unilatérale dans le Grand Nord.
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