Poll shows slight Liberal lead, N.S. election day : In The News for Aug. 17, 2021

In The News is a roundup of stories from The Canadian Press designed to kickstart your day. Here is what’s on the radar of our editors for the morning of Aug. 17, 2021.

What we are watching in Canada …

New survey results suggest Justin Trudeau’s Liberals were clinging to a five-point lead on the eve of the federal election campaign.

Thirty-five per cent of decided voters who took part expressed support for the Liberals, 30 per cent for the Conservatives and 20 per cent the NDP.

Seven per cent would vote for the Bloc Québécois, which is fielding candidates only in Quebec, while five per cent supported the Greens and two per cent the People’s Party of Canada.

The online survey of 2,007 Canadians, conducted Aug. 13 to 15 by Leger in collaboration with The Canadian Press, cannot be assigned a margin of error because internet-based polls are not considered truly random samples.

Trudeau quickly framed the election that began Sunday as a referendum on the party most able to guide the country through the months and years after COVID-19 subsides.

The 36-day campaign, the shortest allowed under the election law, concludes Sept. 20.

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Also this …

Nova Scotians are heading to the polls today following a midsummer election campaign that was waged as the province started to emerged from the COVID-19 pandemic.

The incumbent Liberals, led by 38-year-old Iain Rankin, tried to capitalize on post-pandemic optimism while preaching fiscal conservatism. 

His party, which he took over after replacing Stephen McNeil as leader in February, has been in power since 2013.

The Progressive Conservatives, led by chartered accountant Tim Houston, tried to set themselves apart by unveiling a big-spending platform focused on improving the health-care system.

The New Democrats, led by United Church minister Gary Burrill, campaigned on a traditionally progressive platform that called for a $15 minimum wage, 10 paid sick days for all workers and rent control. 

A total of 28 seats are needed to secure a majority in the province’s newly expanded 55-seat legislature.

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What we are watching in the U.S. …

WASHINGTON _ A defiant President Joe Biden rejected blame Monday for chaotic scenes of Afghans clinging to U.S. military planes in Kabul in a desperate bid to flee their home country after the Taliban’s easy victory over an Afghan military that America and NATO allies had spent two decades trying to build.

At the White House, Biden called the anguish of trapped Afghan civilians “gut-wrenching” and conceded the Taliban had achieved a much faster takeover of the country than his administration had expected. The U.S. rushed in troops to protect its own evacuating diplomats and others at the Kabul airport.

But the president expressed no second thoughts about his decision to stick by the U.S. commitment, formulated during the Trump administration, to end America’s longest war, no matter what.

“I stand squarely behind my decision” to finally withdraw U.S. combat forces, Biden said, while acknowledging the Afghan collapse played out far more quickly than the most pessimistic public forecasts of his administration. “This did unfold more quickly than we anticipated,” he said.

Despite declaring “the buck stops with me,” Biden placed almost all blame on Afghans for the shockingly rapid Taliban conquest.

His grim comments were his first in person to the world since the biggest foreign policy crisis of his still-young presidency.

Emboldened by the U.S. withdrawal, Taliban fighters swept across the country last week and captured the capital, Kabul, on Sunday, sending U.S.-backed Afghan President Ashraf Ghani fleeing the country.

Biden said he had warned Ghani _ who was appointed Afghanistan’s president in a U.S.-negotiated agreement _ to be prepared to fight a civil war with the Taliban after U.S. forces left. “They failed to do any of that,” he said.

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What we are watching in the rest of the world …

 KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) _ The Taliban announced Tuesday an “amnesty” across Afghanistan and urged women to join its government, trying to calm nerves across a nervous capital city that only the day before saw chaos at its airport as people tried to flee their rule.

The comments by Enamullah Samangani, a member of the Taliban’s cultural commission, represent the first comments on governance from a federal level across the country after their blitz across the country.

While there were no major reports of abuses or fighting in Kabul, many residents have stayed home and remain fearful after the insurgents’ takeover saw prisons emptied and armories looted. Older generations remember their ultraconservative Islamic views, which included stonings, amputations and public executions during their rule before the U.S-led invasion that followed the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks.

“The Islamic Emirate doesn’t want women to be victims” Samangani said, using the militants’ term for Afghanistan. “They should be in government structure according to Shariah law.” 

He added: “The structure of government is not fully clear, but based on experience, there should be a fully Islamic leadership and all sides should join.”

Samangani remained vague on other details, however, implying people already knew the rules of Islamic law the Taliban expected them to follow.

Under the Taliban, which ruled in accordance with a harsh interpretation of Islamic law, women were largely confined to their homes. The insurgents have sought to project greater moderation in recent years, but many Afghans remain skeptical.

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On this day in 1896 …

The discovery that led to the Klondike gold rush was made. George Washington Carmack and two Indian companions, Skookum Jim and Tagish Charlie, found gold at Rabbit Creek, a tributary of the Yukon’s Klondike River. After news of the strike reached the outside world, thousands of miners poured into the territory. It’s estimated more than $100 million in gold was recovered in the region during the next eight years.

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In entertainment …

LOS ANGELES (AP) _ Selma Blair says she’s in remission from multiple sclerosis as a result of undergoing a stem cell transplant.

The 49-year-old actor, best known for such movies as “Cruel Intentions,” “Legally Blonde” and “Hellboy,” was diagnosed with the disease in 2018.

“My prognosis is great. I’m in remission,” Blair told a Television Critics Association panel on Monday.

She underwent hematopoietic stem-cell transplantation which uses stem cells derived from bone marrow, peripheral blood or umbilical cord blood.

“It took about a year after stem cell for the inflammation and lesions to really go down, so I was reluctant to talk about it because I felt this need to be more healed,” she said. “I don’t have any new lesions forming.” 

According to the Mayo Clinic, multiple sclerosis is an autoimmune disease in which the immune system attacks the protective myelin sheath that covers nerve fibers. It can cause vision loss, pain, fatigue and impaired coordination. Its cause is unknown.

“There’s still maintenance, treatment and glitches, and wonderful things,” said Blair, who at times spoke in a halting voice on Zoom.

“Cognitively, I’m very changed and that’s been the harder part,” she added.

The actor reveals her fight with MS in “Introducing, Selma Blair,” an intimate documentary directed by Rachel Fleit. It debuts Oct. 15 in theatres and begins streaming Oct. 21 on Discovery+.

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ICYMI …

SAULNIERVILLE, N.S. _ The chief of Sipekne’katik First Nation was taken in for questioning by federal Fisheries Department officers on Monday, moments after he announced the expansion of his band’s self-regulated lobster fishery in St. Marys Bay.

Chief Mike Sack says he was pulled over and arrested by fisheries officers shortly after he held a news conference at the Saulnierville Wharf, in southwestern Nova Scotia. He says he was held at the detachment in Meteghan, N.S., for about 45 minutes and questioned about the fishery before he was released.

“It’s kind of a pity,” he said in a phone interview after he left the detachment, adding that the band had been in conversations with federal Fisheries Minister Bernadette Jordan last week about Sipekne’katik’s fisheries. “It’s not very neighbourly.”

Debbie Buott-Matheson, a spokesperson for the Fisheries Department, said in an email Monday, “fishery officers arrested an individual at the Saulnierville Wharf for alleged violations of the Fisheries Act. As this matter is now under investigation, no further comment will be provided.”

“Anyone found to be fishing without proper authorization may be subject to enforcement action,” she added. “Improperly or untagged lobster traps will be hauled and seized.” 

Before being taken in for questioning, Sack had launched his First Nation’s lobster fishery _ months ahead of the start to the federally regulated season, adding that he expected Fisheries Department officers to pull some of his band’s traps out of the water because they aren’t licensed by Ottawa.

Sack said his band, located 65 kilometres north of Halifax, issued 13 fishers with so-called “treaty fishery” licences for boats operating in the province’s southwest. He said he expected up to 20 fishers to participate with 50 traps each.

Federal regulation dictates that the area in question, LFA 34, has a season that runs from the last Monday in November until the end of May. Sack said the plan is for the band’s fishers to stop harvesting on Dec. 15. The community says it will operate under the guidelines of its own fisheries-management plan, which Sack has said is based on sound conservation principles. 

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This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 17, 2021.

The Canadian Press