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Now That's a Bad DIPLOMATIC NEWCOMER: LATEST GAC ORG CHART, YOUR GUIDE TO UNDERSTANDING HILL MEDIA PP. 13-18 HILL CLIMBERS p. 19 GWYNNE DYER p. 9 SCOTT TAYLOR p. 9 CHANTAL HÉBERT p. 11 TIM POWERS p. 11 LES WHITTINGTON p. 10 Ambrose Parsing Korean Getting rid of Tories can learn Peter MacKay: Trump victory would hires two rhetoric and Daesh will not from PQ’s sometimes it is harder threaten Canada’s staffers reality end the conflict charter bungle to say no than yes entire economy TWENTY-SEVENTH YEAR, NO. 1369 CANADA’S POLITICS AND GOVERNMENT NEWSPAPER WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 2016 $5.00 NEWS CONSERVATIVE LEADERSHIP RACE Now that’s a bad day: Poll finds Liberals with ‘huge brand equity’ in Atlantic as MacKay rules Construction truck impaled out Tory leadership bid BY TIM NAUMETZ which voted Liberals into all 32 by security barrier on Hill House of Commons seats in the A new poll has found Justin region last October, are satis- Trudeau’s Liberal government at fied with the performance of the historic highs in Atlantic Canada, federal government, a quarterly throwing cold water on the fed- survey by Corporate Research eral Conservatives during their Associates of Halifax suggests. foray into Halifax this week in It breaks down to 63 per cent of an attempt to begin rebuilding respondents who were mostly support following the party’s 2015 satisfied and 11 per cent who election defeat in the region. were completely satisfied. Fully 74 per cent of elec- tors in the Atlantic provinces, Continued on page 6 NEWS TRADE U.S. lobbyists cheesed off over proposed Canadian dairy policy BY PETER MAZEREEUW reveal details of the strategy, it is expected to allow producers to Lobby groups in the United sell a concentrated dairy prod- An Exel Contracting Inc. dump truck carrying a trailer full of black metal fencing was hit by a rising barrier on States, European Union, and uct that could compete with the Parliament Hill on Friday, disrupting traffic near the Confederation Building for hours. The cost of the damage is three other countries are leaning diafiltered milk imports from the still unclear, though the truck will be out of commission for at least the next few weeks. For more, read Heard on on their governments to launch U.S. and elsewhere that Canadian the Hill on page 22. The Hill Times photographs by Jake Wright trade challenges against Canada, cheesemakers are currently using arguing that proposed changes to in place of Canadian milk. help Canada’s dairy farmers com- Ontario’s dairy sector has already pete with diafiltered milk imports made that change, creating a new NEWS EDUCATION amount to a violation of trade law. ingredient-pricing class and drawing Canadian dairy producers and the ire of dairy farmers south of the processors are working to ratify border and their allies in Congress, How the universities lobby got $1-billion- a national ingredient strategy for who say the moves are explicitly their sector. While the national intended to cut off U.S. exports. plus from the feds dairy lobby group, the Dairy Farmers of Canada, won’t yet Continued on page 7 BY PETER MAZEREEUW say some of the key players that its own particular brand of sup- lobbied for the fund’s creation. port for university research. It The $900-million in federal The story of that two-year lob- also serves as a window into the funds doled out to universities bying campaign adds a wrinkle influence of Canada’s university NEWS FOREIGN AFFAIRS last week was part of a research to the anti-science reputation sector, one of busiest players on fund green-lit by a Conservative slapped on the Conservative the federal lobbying circuit. government looking for an “out-of- government of Stephen Harper, What’s in a name? Canada the-park” scientific success story, which was looking to establish Continued on page 4 switches from Burma to Myanmar, after years of protest NEWS INFRASTRUCTURE BY MARCO VIGLIOTTI In protest of the military gov- ernment that ruled the country at Ottawa needs to bolster tracking of infrastructure The Canadian government the time, Canada did not recog- has started calling the south- nize its official name change from dollars to maintain public trust, says former PBO east Asian nation it previously Burma to Myanmar implemented called Burma as Myanmar in in the late 1980s, choosing instead BY MARCO VIGLIOTTI of infrastructure spending after budget officer Kevin Page. recognition of the country’s tran- to refer to the nation by its his- failing to implement internation- The Liberals promised during sition to democracy after decades torical name, which democracy The federal government must ally recognized accountability the 2015 election campaign to of authoritarian rule, and the par- activists preferred. improve reporting and manag- standards in the 2016 budget, ac- liamentary friendship group for ing standards for the next wave cording to former parliamentary Continued on page 20 the country may soon follow suit. Continued on page 3 2 THE HILL TIMES, WEDNesdaY, SEPTEMBER 14, 2016 FEATURE BUZZ FEATURE DIPLOMATIC PARTIES Navy chief honours Colin Robertson ON The Hill Times photographs by Sam Garcia HEARD THE HILL BY MARCO VIGLIOTTI Ex-Grit leadership hopeful heading think-tank for the West is good for Canada as a whole. Western Canada, however, is grap- pling with seismic political and economic changes brought upon by the steep de- cline in commodity prices over the past few years. After leading Canada in growth and employment for most of the past decade, Vice Admiral Ron Lloyd, right, commander the region is facing surging unemployment of the Royal Canadian Navy, presented and depleted provincial budgets, with lu- Honorary Naval Captain Colin Robertson crative royalty payments from natural re- with his appointment scroll in a ceremony source companies declining precipitously. at Mr. Robertson’s Ottawa home on Sept. 7. Federally, the Liberals won 184 seats in the 2015 vote, though the Conservatives and New Democrats collectively won 74 of the 104 ridings in Western Canada, exclud- ing the three northern territories. Ms. Hall Findlay, though, doubted the election results would dull the influence of the region, noting that many senior gov- ernment MPs represent Western ridings. “I have confidence that the federal government will do its best to make the right decisions for the country, without Martha Hall Findlay is the new president and undue influence from, or emphasis on, any CEO of the Canada West Foundation. The Hill region,” she said. Times photograph by Jake Wright Further, on some issues, most notably the pipelines, the Western energy sector ormer Liberal MP Martha Hall Findlay didn’t get any further ahead with the last Fis the new president and CEO of the government, so we are “hoping that change Mexican Ambassador Agustín García-López Peter Harder, government Senate leader, Canada West Foundation, a non-partisan will be good,” she added. Loaeza in conversation with Japanese with Catherine Bélanger, wife of the late think-tank based in Calgary. Over the years, she said she has learned Ambassador Kenjiro Monji. Liberal MP Mauril Bélanger. Ms. Hall Findlay, who unsuccessfully that there are many issues that people in ran for the Liberal leadership in 2006 and different regions across the country have 2013, announced the appointment in an in common, but there’s often a “lack of email distributed Thursday, saying she is engagement,” and barriers of “perspective honoured to be assuming the post. and incorrect assumptions” between gov- “It’s a great opportunity to devote my ernments, businesses, and communities in full time to public policy, my field of choice,” those different regions. she told The Hill Times in an interview. “There are some issues that are top of “The Canada West Foundation is an mind across the West, and some that are institution that I have had great respect important in different parts of the West for in terms of its focus on evidence-based but which invariably are also important in public policy and action. And I get to work other areas across the country,” she said. with a team of terrific, smart people. How “I hope to help bring more of those could I say no?” people together in finding practical solu- Ms. Hall Findlay represented the sub- tions that benefit everyone.” urban Toronto riding of Willowdale in the While Ms. Hall Findlay has stepped House from 2008 to 2011, when she was down from her position with the Univer- narrowly defeated by Conservative candi- sity of Calgary, she said she hopes to find date Chungsen Leung. “more areas of collaboration between the Chilean Ambassador Alejandro Ali Ehsassi decisively won the riding foundation and the school.” Marisio, right, and his spouse Maria back for the Liberals last fall. Beretta Delgado, greet Israeli Following her defeat, Ms. Hall Findlay Ambassador Rafael Barak, left. started working as an executive fellow Harper takes up new at the University of Calgary’s School of Public Policy. role with law firm During the past five years with the Former prime minster Stephen Harp- school, she said she fell in love with the er is wasting no time branching out in the city and Western Canada, eventually mov- private sector after resigning his seat in the ing to Calgary last summer. House a few weeks ago. Ms. Hall Findlay said her time in public The ex-Conservative leader has landed a office was “often great,” but she decided in new role as an adviser with Dentons, an inter- 2013 not to run again as an MP because national law firm with offices across Canada. she felt “more comfortable” pursuing good Dentons announced the partnership in policy away from partisan politics, ideol- a statement Monday, saying Mr.
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