Tag: National Post

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The Constitution makes clear that impeachment proceedings can result in disqualification from holding office in the future, so there is still an active issue for the Senate to resolve, those scholars have said.

‘MATTER OF POLITICAL CONSEQUENCE’

Fellow Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski, who has been critical of Trump, rejected Paul’s move.

“My review of it has led me to conclude that it is constitutional, in recognizing that impeachment is not solely about removing a president, it is also a matter of political consequence,” Murkowski told reporters on Tuesday.

She joined fellow Republicans Mitt Romney, Susan Collins, Ben Sasse and Patrick Toomey in opposing Paul.

Trump is the only president to have been impeached by the House of Representatives twice and the first to face a trial after leaving power, with the possibility of being disqualified from future public office if convicted by two-thirds of the Senate.

He was acquitted by the then Republican-controlled Senate last February on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress arising from his request that Ukraine investigate Democratic rival Joe Biden and his son.

The House approved a single article of impeachment – the equivalent of an indictment in a criminal trial – on Jan. 13, accusing him of inciting an insurrection with an incendiary speech to supporters before they stormed the Capitol. A police officer and four others died in the melee.

But reaching the two-thirds threshold required for conviction will be a steep climb. Trump remains a powerful force among Republicans and his supporters have vowed to mount election challenges to lawmakers in the party who support conviction.

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More On This Topic

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Started in Brussels in 1926, Godiva says on its website that the founder chose the Lady Godiva logo as she “embodies the values we hold most dear.” So, that’s naked chocolate bunnies, then? Well … we’re thinking Pierre Draps and his three sons might have had another reason for that choice back in the day, though they claim it was Godiva’s boldness, generosity and pioneering spirit that moved them. Okay, that works, too.

But, back to the bonbons. Monsieur Draps began by creating what would become the chocolate-dusted truffle in his home workshop and grew from there. The company first came overseas in 1972, opening in New York City. Ambitious plans saw store opening after store opening over the next 50 years, but now those plans seem to be melting away. So perhaps the last special occasion on which to splurge will be for Valentine’s Day.

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The sheer size of the diaspora in the territory has put Canada at the centre of the citizenship debate.

Tens of thousands of Hong Kong-born immigrants landed in Vancouver after the 1997 handover from Britain and while many returned home, they retained Canadian citizenship.

Canada should have an evacuation plan, just in case

Since the crackdown started, Canada has accepted a number of asylum-seekers fleeing arrest, prompting the Chinese ambassador in Ottawa, Cong Peiwu, to warn that receiving “violent criminals” could jeopardize the “health and safety” of the 300,000 Canadian passport holders in the Hong Kong.

For now, those people are free to leave. In an interview with the National Post last summer, Cong re-affirmed the right of exit, saying it is up to Canadian passport holders whether they stay or go.

But Avvy Go, director of Toronto’s Chinese and South-east Asian legal clinic, said there has been a pattern of China not recognizing foreign citizens, “particularly when it suits their purpose”.

“Canada should have an evacuation plan, just in case” China introduces exit controls, she said.

• Email: jivison@postmedia.com | Twitter: IvisonJ

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“But it won’t come with any Hilton or Marriott points,” Jeff DeWit, NASA’s former chief financial officer, said at the 2019 announcement of the policy change.

Pathy, who has three young children, has a lifelong passion for space but didn’t think he would ever be able to go until a friend told him about the Axiom missions. His initial reaction was skeptical.

“I wasn’t sure it was completely real, and I’d never heard of this company, Axiom,” he said. “I obviously was not going to blast off in a rocket if this was some sort of Mickey Mouse travel outfit. But the more I inquired and the more I spoke with them directly, the more I realized they were the real deal. It was really possible. And that moment where you think, ‘Holy cow, this is something I could actually do,’ it’s a bit of a surreal moment.”

Flying private citizens to space is a goal that NASA has had for years. At the beginning of the space shuttle program, it envisioned offering seats to private citizens and started a “Spaceflight Participant” program. A couple of members of Congress flew first, Sens. Jake Garn, R-Utah, and Bill Nelson, D-Fla., but then NASA selected a teacher – Christa McAuliffe, who taught history in Concord, N.H. Next, a journalist was to go, then perhaps an artist.

The program ended, however, after the space shuttle Challenger exploded shortly after takeoff, killing McAuliffe and the other astronauts on board. The agency decided spaceflight was too risky for ordinary citizens.

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Canada has yet to approve the AstraZeneca vaccine, but Trudeau said shipments will not be coming from Europe when they are approved.

Conservative Health Critic Michelle Rempel Garner said the Liberals should be transparent about what all of Canada’s vaccine contracts dictate.

“What I’m hearing from provincial colleagues, from health experts is the Liberals just need to be a bit more transparent with what’s actually going on,” she said. “I think the opaqueness is because we have not negotiated anything that is remotely resembling a good contract or a good deal for Canadians.”

In addition to the threat of export restrictions, some European countries have threatened to sue Pfizer or AstraZeneca for failing to deliver on time.

She said she wonders if Canada simply doesn’t have strong enough contracts.

“The federal Liberals here have not done that, so to me, that suggests that we did not negotiate favourable terms.”

Last week, the government pledged all Canadians would be vaccinated by September with a forecast that included only the currently approved Pfizer and Moderna candidates.

It also pledged the government could vaccinate much faster if some of the unapproved vaccines are green lit, with a forecast of 23 million people vaccinated by June and enough doses for 73 million people vaccinated by September.

The government declined to detail what went into that rosier prediction other than saying it included all of the candidates the government had ordered.

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What a difference a year makes. On Jan. 25, 2020, the first COVID case was identified in Canada. At the time, our country’s leaders were grappling with a different crisis: blockades of rail lines and supply chains by Indigenous protesters in support of the hereditary chiefs of the Wet’suwe’ten First Nation. For most Canadians, COVID-19 was a matter for China, a minor headline, possibly just another bad flu.

Until, of course, it wasn’t.

Today, the pandemic has upended every facet of our lives. Sadly, communities which were already disadvantaged have borne the brunt of the impact. This week, Cree doctor Marlyn Cook, who works in Moose Factory, Ont., told CTV News “One of the biggest things COVID-19 is bringing out, is the racism within the health-care system.” Meanwhile, other trends have emerged as well: a growing urban-rural exodus, and a nosedive in trust in our elected officials.

What does this new reality portend for Canadian politics? How will it shape issues in the elections to come? Here are three possible issues and the impacts they could have.

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Germany’s health minister, Jens Spahn, supported EU proposals to introduce restrictions on COVID-19 vaccine exports, saying Europe should have its “fair share.”

“I can understand that there are production problems but then it must affect everyone in the same way,” Spahn told ZDF television.

Spahn said an export limitation for vaccines produced in the EU would “make sense.” Vaccines leaving the EU “need a license, so we know at least what’s produced in Europe and what leaves Europe, where it goes, and if there’s fair distribution,” he said.

The bloc’s executive branch, the European Commission, said Tuesday that it was preparing a scheme under which companies would have to register their vaccine exports from the EU. The proposal is aimed at increasing transparency, the commission said, but would effectively slow the flow of vaccines out of the Europe.

“The European Union wants to know exactly which doses have been produced by AstraZeneca and where exactly so far and if or to whom they have been delivered,” Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides said Monday in a televised address.

Canada has contracts to get at least 20 million doses from AstraZeneca and 10 million from Johnson and Johnson if they’re approved for use by Health Canada, although it’s not clear when approval will come.

All of Canada’s current vaccine doses from Pfizer-BioNTech are made in Europe, potentially putting at risk the entirety of Canada’s vaccine deliveries if export controls are introduced.

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It also found that one in nine patients could be diagnosed with depression or stroke, despite not going to the hospital when they had COVID-19, Taquet added to The Guardian.

If a patient had a history of encephalopathy, then the risk of mental illness diagnosis “markedly” increased, researchers stated in the study.

It’s possible that a proportion of survivors who were diagnosed with a mental illness post COVID-19 may have suffered from a previous condition that went undiagnosed, Taquet acknowledged, but added that the analysis proved “this was not the case.”

Researchers also acknowledged that a first diagnosis of a condition post COVID-19 may not necessarily represent the first time that condition presented in a patient. The health records also lacked in information such as housing density, family size, employment and immigration status.

The study does not prove that COVID-19 directly caused the conditions, but it does show that the virus can have an impact on the brain and the central nervous system. It also supports a previous study conducted by Taquet that showed that nearly one in five people who survived COVID-19 were diagnosed with a psychiatric disorder within three months of testing positive for the virus.