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China’s ambassador is warning of ‘repercussions’ if Canada bars Huawei from 5G

Lu Shaye also called Canada’s arrest of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou a “backstabbing” betrayal of its relationship with China. And he upped the ante as Canada weighs whether to follow the U.S. and other allies in barring the Chinese firm from supplying equipment for next-generation 5G mobile networks over espionage concerns.

“I hope Canadian officials and relevant authorities and bodies will make a wise decision on this issue. But if the Canadian government does ban Huawei from participating in the 5G networks … I believe there will be repercussions,” Lu said without elaborating on how China would retaliate.

Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland wouldn’t say when Ottawa will decide on Huawei’s status for 5G, but noted that the matter is “being studied carefully by our security officials and by the government and is under serious consideration.”

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Canada’s drug-pricing regulator is taking the rare step of accusing a pharma company of excessive pricing

Ireland-based Horizon Pharma is charging $325,00 a year for a drug for a rare disease – about 65 times more than an older pill with the same medicinal ingredient. The Patented Medicine Prices Review Board says the firm should pay Ottawa as much as $3.15-million for the “excess” revenue and dramatically slash the price of Procysbi.

The allegations come nearly two years after the Trudeau government vowed to overhaul the regulator to better control sky-high drug prices. That plan has stalled in the face of opposition from the pharmaceutical industry.

The NHL concussion settlement could be withdrawn today

The fate of the settlement that would pay US$18.9-million for more than 300 retired players is up in the air, with some lawyers scrambling to get their clients to opt in before time runs out. The tentative deal reached in November gave a deadline of Jan. 18 for all 318 players to sign off. The NHL can scrap the settlement if that doesn’t happen, though it’s not clear whether it would exercise that option: The terms are widely viewed as favourable to the league.

The suit, launched in 2013, accused the NHL of failing to warn or protect players from the risks of head injuries. But in the agreement, the league accepts no liability, with players due to receive at least US$22,000 each. The NFL, meanwhile, agreed to pay players about US$190,000 each in a separate concussion settlement.

A Canadian man was abducted and killed in Burkina Faso

Kirk Woodman, an executive with Vancouver-based Progress Minerals, was abducted by a dozen gunmen at the firm’s mining site near the border with Niger. Burkina Faso recently declared a state of emergency in some northern provinces as a result of an increased threat from jihadi militants.

His death is a “shot fired” to other mining companies operating in West Africa, said Andrew Ellis, a former assistant director at CSIS. Experts are warning that this could see exploration in West Africa grind to a halt.

Ontario’s Progressive Conservative government is rolling back student aid

Grants the former Liberal government billed as “free tuition” for low-income students will now be a mix of grants and repayable loans, while students in higher income brackets will no longer be eligible for grants.

The PCs also said tuition fees for domestic students will be cut by 10 per cent in 2019-20 and frozen for 2020-21. Colleges and universities will be forced to adjust budgets to account for the loss of revenue.

Carleton University professor Gabriele Contessa says the changes are unfair and short-sighted: “If the Ford government was actually interested in making higher education more accessible to and affordable for lower- and midincome families, the way forward is to expand the grants program, not cut tuition fees across the board.”

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ALSO ON OUR RADAR

Quite literally on our radar is this weekend’s total lunar eclipse. Or, as it’s been coined, the “super blood wolf moon.” Scott Sutherland, a science writer for the Weather Network, came up with the term that has since made headlines everywhere from Stephen Colbert’s Late Show to The Wall Street Journal. Here’s a guide for watching the eclipse on Sunday night:

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MORNING MARKETS

Stocks climb

Global stocks rose to their highest in more than a month on Friday after a report suggested progress towards resolving the trade dispute between the United States and China. Tokyo’s Nikkei and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng each gained 1.3 per cent, while the Shanghai Composite rose 1.4 per cent. In Europe, London’s FTSE 100, Germany’s DAX and the Paris CAC 40 were up by between 1.2 and 1.5 per cent by about 6:50 a.m. ET. New York futures were also up. The Canadian dollar was below 75.5 US cents. Oil prices rose over 1 per cent after a report from OPEC showed its production fell sharply last month, easing some fears about prolonged oversupply.

WHAT EVERYONE’S TALKING ABOUT

Race, elections and the meaning of ‘representation’

“Karen Wang won’t be the MP for Burnaby South, but she has done her country a public service. Her appeal – vote for me because I look like you, and the other guy doesn’t – is nothing new in politics. The backlash against it is. That’s progress. And it represents Canada.” – Globe editorial

The problem with parachute policing

“...The Globe reported last week that, within the Toronto Police service, less than a quarter of its officers live within the city. In fairness, housing prices in the city have soared; at current trends, even officers pulling six-figure salaries could find themselves hard-pressed to purchase a family home in the inner suburbs. But that systemic problem shouldn’t supersede the reality that when officers are parachuted in from beyond the city limits, experts say, there are a multitude of knock-on effects.” – Andray Domise, Toronto-based freelance writer

Environmentalists' next opponent? First Nations

“There is far more support for pipelines among Indigenous groups in British Columbia and Alberta than there is opposition to them. That was something that was always lost amid the hysterical cacophony that passed for debate on the Trans Mountain pipeline issue.” – Gary Mason

LIVING BETTER

A study has found the food industry – not consumers – creates the most waste

The food industry is responsible for 86 per cent of food-related waste in Canada, according to a study by Martin Gooch, the leading expert on the subject in this country. “It means stop blaming consumers. Sure, consumers are part of the problem. But they’re not the problem,” Gooch said.

His research also found that the level of food waste in Canada is far worse than previously believed: 58 per cent of all food produced is either lost or wasted.

MOMENT IN TIME

Irma LeVasseur, Canadian pioneer in pediatric medicine, dies

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(Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec)Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec

Jan. 18, 1964: Dr. Irma LeVasseur died alone, destitute and forgotten. It was a tragic end for a pioneering pediatrician who had dedicated her life to caring for sick and disabled children. At the age of 16, Irma decided she wanted to study medicine, motivated by the fact that two of her brothers had died in childhood. At the time, no schools in Canada would accept women, so she enrolled at St. Paul University in Minnesota. She returned to Canada, but only after the Quebec National Assembly passed a special law in 1903 to grant her the right to practise. After studying pediatrics in France, Dr. LeVasseur returned to found Hôpital Sainte-Justine in Montreal in 1907, which has become one of the most important pediatric centres in North America. In 1922, Dr. LeVasseur sank her life savings into the creation of a pediatric hospital in Quebec City, Hôpital de l’Enfant Jésus and, soon after, left to found the Hôpital des Enfants Malades, an institution for children with severe disabilities. Little is known of her final years other than that they were spent living in what was then known as an asylum; but the institutions she built have lived on long after her death. – André Picard

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