Top Trump White House pick has strong view on Canada’s government. It’s not flattering
The man reportedly tapped for the top international role inside the Trump White House isn’t just predicting the defeat of Canada’s Trudeau government: He’s celebrating it.
Mike Waltz has a vast digital footprint on international issues in his six years as a congressman, following careers in business, defence policy, and as a decorated special-forces veteran.
He’s been selected by Donald Trump for the powerful position of national security adviser in the next White House, a multitude of U.S. media outlets reported Monday evening, though Trump did not publicly comment on any of these reports.
His online commentary emphasizes his view that U.S. allies must pull their weight on security issues, including with regards to China, which he views as a serious national-security threat.
Waltz predicts Liberals will lose next election
His unflattering opinion of the Trudeau government is manifest in a string of social media comments over the years, including one happily predicting its demise in the next election.
Earlier this year, he posted a video from Canada’s question period where opposition leader Pierre Poilievre ridiculed Trudeau’s housing policies.
“This guy is going to send Trudeau packing in 2025 (finally) and start digging Canada out of the progressive mess it’s in,” Waltz posted on the X social media platform.
“His trolling of Trudeau’s nonsense worth a watch!”
This guy is going to send Trudeau packing in 2025 (finally) and start digging Canada out of the progressive mess it’s in. <br><br>His trolling of Trudeau’s nonsense worth a watch! 🇺🇸🇨🇦 <a href=”https://t.co/4umBSoxIrv”>https://t.co/4umBSoxIrv</a>
—@michaelgwaltz
Waltz’s criticisms of Trudeau were frequently related to China.
He called Trudeau shameful for abstaining from a vote on Chinese genocide of Muslim Uyghurs. He referred in different social media posts to China interfering in Canada’s elections.
“This is a MASSIVE scandal,” he said in one post.
He lamented Trudeau’s government allowing the sale of a lithium mine to a Chinese-state owned entity. This was two years ago, and Canada has since moved to boot those Chinese state owners from certain critical-minerals sites.
Waltz also complained about Chinese donors pledging $1 million to the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation and reportedly wanting to erect a statue of the first Chinese communist leader outside a Montreal university.
The Florida congressman has other connections to Canada.
His other Canadian connection: pipeline business
His wife, Julia Nesheiwat, is a vice president for Calgary-based TC Energy Corp.; it’s the energy company formerly known as TransCanada, builder of the ill-fated Keystone XL oil pipeline.
Waltz’s social media posts are now a window into a substantive reality awaiting Canada on Jan. 20, when the new administration takes office.
The Trump team is expected to press, aggressively, for allies including Canada to take defence spending and security more seriously.
This will unfold amid threats from Trump to punish all countries, including allies, with trade measures including a minimum 10 per cent tariff on imports.
As Donald Trump prepares to return to office, he spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin and is finalizing his inner circle, cutting out his Republican critics and working out the key campaign pledges he’ll enact upon his return to the White House.
Canada’s argument against those tariffs is expected to include the point that it is a contributor to U.S. security — as a supplier of oil, and potentially minerals, that lessen American dependence on overseas countries, including China.
It’s an argument Waltz would presumably know well — given his personal connection to TC Energy.
Waltz also delivered a shoutout to former prime minister Stephen Harper at an international gathering of conservatives in 2022.
His comments about the next Canadian election point to another dynamic looming over the coming months: The question of whether Canada-U.S. talks on sensitive issues, like tariffs and defence spending, will happen mostly before or after Canada’s election.
Waltz: NATO allies need to ‘step up’ defence spending
Waltz holds standard Republican views on some international issues.
He was passionately supportive of helping Ukraine, certainly in the aftermath of Russia’s invasion, but, as his party grew more skeptical, he echoed that sentiment.
He’s mocked NATO allies for doing the bare minimum in meeting defence spending commitments.
Waltz joked in one post about European countries meeting the two per cent spending target, saying it was like “congratulating the F student on getting a D. We need our allies to step up, instead of letting them off and making American taxpayers foot the bill!”
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau revives a special cabinet committee dedicated to Canada-U-S relations.
His track record of commenting on Canada dwarfs that of the rumoured next secretary of state, Sen. Marco Rubio.
In the past, Rubio has frequently mentioned working with Canada in a failed attempt to isolate Venezuela’s Maduro government.
That said, he did express his disgust with how warmly Trudeau eulogized Fidel Castro after the Cuban dictator’s death in 2016.
“Is this a real statement or a parody?” Rubio, a son of Cuban immigrants, tweeted at the time. “Because if this is a real statement from the PM of Canada it is shameful & embarrassing.”
Another nominee for a senior role is even better versed on Canadian issues.
Lawmaker Elise Stefanik, tapped to be Trump’s UN ambassador, serves in a border district in New York, is knowledgeable on cross-border files, and used to co-lead a congressional group focused on Canadian affairs before rising to national prominence as an aggressive Trump defender.
Published at Tue, 12 Nov 2024 03:55:49 +0000
Church of England head Justin Welby resigns after sex abuse coverup controversy
Justin Welby, the head of the Church of England and spiritual leader of the global Anglican Communion, has resigned after an investigation found he failed to inform police about serial physical and sexual abuse by a volunteer at Christian summer camps as soon as he became aware of it.
Pressure had been building on the Archbishop of Canterbury after release of the finding kindled anger about a lack of accountability at the highest reaches of the church. Some members of the General Synod, the church’s national assembly, started a petition calling for Welby to step down, saying he had “lost the confidence of his clergy.”
“I believe that stepping aside is in the best interests of the Church of England, which I dearly love and which I have been honoured to serve,” he said in a statement.
The strongest outcry came from the victims of John Smyth.
Smyth, who died in South Africa in 2018 at age 75, physically, sexually, psychologically and spiritually abused about 30 boys and young men in the U.K. and 85 in Africa over five decades, a 251-page report released last week and commissioned by the church found. Smyth is believed to be the most prolific serial abuser associated with the church.
Archbishop knew of abuse claims a decade ago
Andrew Morse, who was repeatedly beaten by Smyth over a period of five years, said that resigning was a chance for Welby to start repairing the damage caused by the church’s handling of historical abuse cases more broadly.
“I believe that now is an opportunity for him to resign,” Morse told the BBC before Welby stepped down. “I say opportunity in the sense that this would be an opportunity for him to stand with the victims of the Smyth abuse and all victims that have not been treated properly by the Church of England in their own abuse cases.”
Welby’s resignation comes against the backdrop of widespread historical sexual abuse in the Church of England. A 2022 report found that deference to the authority of priests, taboos surrounding the discussion of sexuality and a culture that gave more support to alleged perpetrators than their victims helped make the Church of England “a place where abusers could hide.”
A secret report of the Smyth abuse was compiled by a minister in 1982 and other church officers were aware of it, but police were never contacted, last week’s Makin Report said.
Church officials, including Welby, had another opportunity to report Smyth — and prevent any potential further abuse — when they learned of it in 2013, the report said.
Welby, who attended the Christian camps and had known Smyth, said he was unaware of the abuse before 2013.
“Nevertheless, the review is clear that I personally failed to ensure that after disclosure in 2013 the awful tragedy was energetically investigated,” Welby said last week. The report said that if Smyth had been reported to police at that time, it could have uncovered the truth and led to a possible criminal conviction.
“Despite the efforts of some individuals to bring the abuse to the attention of authorities, the responses by the Church of England and others were wholly ineffective and amounted to a coverup,” Keith Makin, who led the review, said in the report.
Word of Smyth’s abuse was not made public until a 2017 investigation from Britain’s Channel 4.
Smyth moved to Zimbabwe in 1984 and later relocated to South Africa. He continued to abuse boys and young men in Zimbabwe, and there is evidence that the abuse continued in South Africa until he died in August 2018.
Leader of world’s 85 million Anglicans
Welby’s position has put him in the spotlight in the past two years, in church ceremonies surrounding the death of Queen Elizabeth II and the coronation of King Charles.
Now 68, he was made the senior prelate of the Church of England in 2013, becoming the spiritual head of 85 million Anglicans in 165 countries.
Welby was cheered by admirers for his vocal campaigning on societal issues such as fighting poverty, and had been very open about his own past, including discussing his parents’ struggle with alcoholism and his own temptation to self-harm.
But his tenure covered a decade of major upheaval in which he was forced to navigate rows over homosexual rights and women clerics between liberal churches, mostly in North America and Britain, and their conservative counterparts, especially in Africa.
His successor’s main challenges will include holding together the increasingly fractious worldwide Anglican community and attempting to reverse a decline in church attendance, which is down a fifth in Britain since 2019.
Church procedures for the appointment of a new archbishop of Canterbury require a body of clerics and a chair, nominated by the British prime minister, to put two names forward to him.
Published at Tue, 12 Nov 2024 14:28:54 +0000
