Month: April 2019

WASHINGTON — While Donald Trump has waged a public war with defiant National Football League players, Canada’s decision to allow the broadcast of glitzy American Super Bowl commercials has quietly festered at the NAFTA talks.

The decision by Canada’s broadcast regulator to allow the sometimes iconic American advertisements to appear on Canadian television has raised the ire of U.S. trade czar Robert Lighthizer during the long renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement.

“The United States is very concerned about this policy,” Lighthizer wrote earlier this year in his annual report on barriers to U.S. trade.

A day after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau offered a full-throated defence of Canada’s cultural exemption in NAFTA, Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland returned to Washington on Wednesday and resumed talks with Lighthizer.

As Freeland headed into the day’s negotiations, she told reporters that officials spoke over the weekend after talks broke off Friday. She said she hoped for “constructive conversations” Wednesday.

The negotiations are aimed at bringing Canada into the NAFTA fold, but Canada and the U.S. remain far apart on several issues including culture, dairy and the Chapter 19 dispute resolution mechanism.

On Tuesday, Trudeau said Canada will not sign a deal that excludes a dispute resolution mechanism and exemptions for cultural industries.

Canada and the U.S. need to present a text to the U.S. Congress by Oct. 1 in order to join the deal the Trump administration signed with Mexico last week.

The overall goal is to reach a deal by Dec. 1 so Congress can give its approval to a revised NAFTA before Mexico’s new president takes office.

Trump is threatening to move ahead on a deal with Mexico that excludes Canada.

Sources familiar with the Canadian bargaining position say the cultural exemption Canada has insisted on preserving since NAFTA talks reopened 13 months ago remains an 11th-hour sticking point.

“The idea of preserving it remains an unresolved issue between the two,” said one source, who requested anonymity because of the sensitivities surrounding the issue.

A matter of sovereignty and identity

Trudeau said Tuesday that waiving the cultural exemption would be tantamount to giving up Canadian sovereignty and identity.

Lighthizer laid out his concerns about the issue in his March report to Trump on the trade barriers faced by the United States.

On a section on Canadian content in broadcasting, Lighthizer highlighted the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC)’s decision in 2015 that banned the long-time practice of Canadian advertisers inserting their ads into the Super Bowl broadcast over the more popular American ones.

The new rules went into effect in time for the Super Bowl in February 2017.

The NFL and Bell Media, which holds the Canadian rights to the game, separately asked the Federal Court of Appeal to overturn the decision. In December 2017, the court dismissed the appeals.

Lighthizer’s report said American networks had concerns about the CRTC policy: “U.S. suppliers of programming believe that the price Canadian networks pay for Super Bowl rights is determined by the value of advertising they can sell in Canada, and that the CRTC’s decision reduces the value of their programming.”

Lighthizer also said American broadcasters operating in border states have also complained about Canadian counterparts picking up the U.S. signals and redistributing in Canada without consent. “The United States is exploring avenues to address these concerns,” Lighthizer wrote.

Trump has been a vocal critic of NFL players protesting during the playing of “The Star Spangled Banner,” and has called on the league to suspend or fire them.

The controversy reared its head again on Tuesday when Trump criticized Nike for sending a “terrible message” by featuring Colin Kaepernick in a new spot to mark the 30th anniversary of its “Just Do It” campaign.

Colin Kaepernick, the former San Francisco 49ers quarterback, was the first player to kneel during the playing the American national anthem in 2016.

Some people like cleaning and know a lot about how to do it efficiently. But some of us … do not. Some of us try to stay on top of the dishes and run a Swiffer over the floors here and there and figure that’ll do it.

The problem is that that will not, in fact, do the job properly. You don’t need to spend your whole life cleaning, but a few hacks and regular maintenance on the trickiest spots can save you a lot of time and money when your parents are about to visit and you really have to make the place sparkle, or at least not actively smell funky.

If a deep clean is what your place really needs, the internet is your friend. Den Garden has some tips for a seven-day deep clean that will hit all the main areas of your home but don’t require a full weekend of cleaning to complete. And if you’d like to know how the pros do it, Merry Maids offers a breakdown of their standards.

Once you’ve done that deep clean (or found a way to get someone else to do it for you), it’s a lot easier to keep things that way if you stay on top of it regularly. Better Homes and Gardens offers a free cleaning checklist that will keep you on track, and YouTuber Simply Cherie offers her tips for a weekly schedule.

If you really want to get into it, the Ask A Clean Person podcast covers everything from removing, uh, intimate stains from your mattress to getting rid of all the messes our beloved pets can make.

But once that place is clean — or if it already is but you just have a specific issue you need to address — there are some handy and surprising tips that will help you tackle the most difficult, overlooked, or stubborn of cleaning tasks.

How do I rescue a scorched pot?

If you’ve burned food onto the inside or outside of your favourite saucepan, you don’t have to give up and toss it. The solution may be as simple as baking soda and boiling water. Jezebel recommends covering the bottom of the burned pot with a lot of baking soda then pouring the hot water over the soda and finally, washing it with soapy water.

But if that doesn’t work, give Barkeepers Friend and/or Bon Ami cleaning products a try.

Going forward, keep this helpful infographic somewhere handy so you know exactly what to reach for to perfectly clean your cookware, no matter the type.

Will my tub ever look clean again?

A bath is a wonderful thing, but it can be a bit less wonderful if you’re having it in a tub that looks filthy no matter how hard you scrub it.

A lot of bathrooms are prone to mould growth because they’re naturally contained, warm, damp environments and often have poor ventilation. But you don’t just have to give up and let the bacteria take over.

One of the keys to cleaning your tub effectively is knowing what it’s made of. If you have a porcelain tub try a pumice scouring stick to really go to town on those stains. If it’s enamel — a.k.a. a magnet sticks to it — you have to be a bit more careful to avoid scratching. You can try an abrasive powder like Comet or Bon Ami after testing on a small area to make sure it won’t cause damage, or try cleaning with hydrogen peroxide. If your tub is acrylic, which means it’s plastic, you should avoid overly abrasive cleaners and reach for cream cleaners like Soft Scrub or a good ol’ Magic Eraser.

One Pinterest favourite is a 1:1 mix of dish liquid and white vinegar, sprayed on and left to sit — again, test on a spot first because it’s acidic.

And try this trick from hotel staffers: fill your tub with a couple of inches of the hottest water you can get from the tap, which will raise the air temperature in the room and make alkaline cleaners more effective.

How do I clean a mattress, anyway?

It may seem impossible but you can, in fact, clean a mattress.

Even if there’s not an obvious reason to clean your mattress — like, ahem, cat pee — it’s a smart thing to do once in a while. Mattresses get full of dander and dust and dust mites and mould spores and who knows what else.

A simple vacuuming once in a while will take care of a lot of that: use the upholstery and crevice attachments for your vacuum cleaner and really get in there. You may be alarmed at what you dump out of your vacuum canister afterwards.

If you’re trying to get out a specific stain you’ll want to know what it is— just like with clothing. If it’s a protein stain like urine, use an enzymatic cleaner. Try a spray-on stain cleaner like Shout or Nature’s Miracle, or head to a pet store and pick up something designed to get out pet stains. If the stain is blood, try hydrogen peroxide. And apply as little moisture as possible to get it clean, because you can’t just toss that mattress in the dryer.

Why is my kitchen so sticky?

What is that weird stickiness that kitchens end up covered in, somehow without your even noticing it? It’s actually vapours from oil and grease, and the best way to clean it is … more oil. You can use mineral oil, or whatever else you have on hand, to wipe up oily kitchen surfaces. Test on a small area first if you’re not sure if the cleaner is safe.

For appliances you might not want to cover with oil, try a paste made with cream of tartar and water — you can use it to clean your coffee maker and other small appliances.

The way to prevent the stickiness from returning is improving the ventilation in your kitchen. If you can’t make large-scale changes that fix that situation, you can try simply cooking with the windows open.

TORONTO — A basic income pilot project aimed at reducing poverty in Ontario is failing and many of the participants have dropped out, the province’s Progressive Conservative government said Wednesday as it defended its controversial decision to wind down the program.

Social Services Minister Lisa MacLeod said pilot participants would receive their cheques past August, and the program’s end date would be announced later this month.

“I just wanted to point out, to begin with, the basic income research project is failing, and it’s plain and simple,” MacLeod said during Question Period. “The (previous) Liberal government had difficulty signing people up for this approach. Now a sizable number, over 25 per cent, have either dropped out or were failing to meet their obligations such as filing their taxes. It calls into question whether the $150 million being spent is actually going to be with valid research.”

MacLeod announced last week that the program launched last year by the previous Liberal government would come to an end because it was expensive and was not doing what it was intended to do. She downplayed concerns from some community agencies that the government would stop the payments at the end of August.

“I’ve been very clear since last week that the basic income research project will wind down and details will be forthcoming,” she said. “But I have been very clear that there will be a lengthy and compassionate runway. Anybody who’s suggesting that cheques will be cut off is misinforming people and that’s not fair.”

The basic income pilot project was set to run for three years, providing payments to 4,000 low-income people in communities including Hamilton, Brantford, Thunder Bay and Lindsay. Single participants receive up to $16,989 a year while couples receive up to $24,027, less 50 per cent of any earned income.

Michael Coteau, a Liberal legislator who helped oversee the creation of the basic income pilot as a cabinet minister in then-premier Kathleen Wynne’s government, slammed the rationale provided for the project’s cancellation.

“Every day it seems like the reason for cancelling this program changes,” he said. “The simple fact is we’re talking about a government that is completely in chaos. They don’t know what they’re doing. Their priorities are not aligned with what Ontarians want.”

“Four thousand families in Ontario have just had the rugs pulled from them,” he added. “We’ve stopped a very innovative program that would have given us some really good insight into the future.”

Meanwhile, anti-poverty advocates for the basic income project came to the Ontario legislature Wednesday to urge the government not to cancel the program.

Tom Cooper, from the Hamilton Roundtable for Poverty Reduction, said MacLeod should release reports and documentation to back up her claim that the pilot wasn’t working.

“If Minister MacLeod says this is what the civil servants said then release the memos. Let’s see them. Be accountable. Especially be accountable to the 4,000 people this government is cutting off,” he said.

Cooper said that in the months after the pilot was launched last spring, government staffers told him they were very optimistic about the project.

“They seemed to think it was going really well,” he said.

Participants were stunned by news of the cancellation last week, he added.

“This is something that was sprung on us,” he said. “No one expected this. People are reeling and they’re scared.”

Sheila Regehr, chair of the Basic Income Canada Network, also took issue with MacLeod’s comments. The project was in such early stages, she said, that it was too early to know if it was succeeding or failing.

“There can be no evidence whatsoever to base a decision on to decide that this program isn’t working,” she said. “That’s just nonsense.”

Also cutting social assistance increase

The Tory government also announced last week that it was cutting a planned three-per-cent increase in social assistance to 1.5 per cent — the first step in its plan to revamp the social assistance system. MacLeod said that plan will be announced by November 8.

“There are people who are very vulnerable, who aren’t able to work, so we need to make sure that we adequately support them,” she said. “There are a lot of people that could be working and there’s got to be a way for us to assist them, mentor them, and provide opportunities for them to get back into the workforce.”

WINDSOR, England — Prince Charles will walk Meghan Markle down the aisle at the royal wedding — stepping in after the father of the bride fell ill just days before the ceremony.

Kensington Palace said Friday that Markle’s future father-in-law, the heir to the British throne, would walk the American actress down the aisle at St. George’s Chapel in Windsor for her wedding to Prince Harry. The palace says he “is pleased to be able to welcome Ms. Markle to the Royal Family in this way.”

The decision comes after feverish speculation about who would have the honour after the bride announced that her father, Thomas Markle, wouldn’t attend because of poor health. The bookies had suggested that Markle’s mother, Doria Ragland, was the favourite.

Unlike Ragland, Harry’s father has a lifetime of experience in appearing at large-scale public events amid intense scrutiny. The palace said Markle had asked Charles to offer a supporting arm.

Having the father of the groom take the honour offers yet another twist in a royal wedding that is proving to be different than many others. Normally such occasions are choreographed to the second — and replete with tradition.

But things began to unravel last week after it emerged that Thomas Markle allegedly staged paparazzi photos in what celebrity website TMZ said was an effort to improve his image and show him to be a loving father preparing for the big day.

Speaking from Windsor, TMZ’s Sean Mandell told the BBC that the father was hurt by negative headlines and inaccurate portrayals.

“He was trying to explain his side of things – that him working with the paparazzi for those staged photos was an attempt to recast his image to show him as a loving father who was getting ready for his daughter’s wedding, and not as a reclusive lush.”

Also On HuffPost:

VANCOUVER — Investors have given final approval for a massive liquefied natural gas project in northern British Columbia.

The five partners have agreed to the $40-billion joint venture that includes a gas liquefaction plant in Kitimat on B.C.’s coast and a 670-kilometre pipeline delivering natural gas from the northeast corner of the province.

The partners — Royal Dutch Shell, Mitsubishi Corp., the Malaysian-owned Petronas, PetroChina Co. and Korean Gas Corp. — delayed the final investment decision in 2016, citing a drop in natural gas prices.

But, with the final investment decision, each company will be responsible to provide its own natural gas supply and will individually market its share of liquefied gas.

The decision involves two processing units, with first liquefied natural gas expected before the middle of the next decade.

LNG Canada CEO Andy Calitz says the project received support from the B.C. government, local First Nations and the Kitimat community.

“This decision showcases how industrial development can co-exist with environmental stewardship and Indigenous interests,” he said in a news release late Monday.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the LNG Canada announcement represents the single largest private sector investment project in Canadian history.

“It is a vote of confidence in a country that recognizes the need to develop our energy in a way that takes the environment into account, and that works in meaningful partnership with Indigenous communities,” he said in the LNG Canada statement.

B.C. Premier John Horgan said the project “symbolizes the kind of balanced and sustainable path forward British Columbians are looking for.”

“We welcome the unprecedented commitment shown by the LNG Canada partners to work within our province’s ambitious climate goals,” he said in the same statement. “The critical importance of this project is what it represents — the intersecting of economic development, jobs for local workers, partnerships with Indigenous communities and forward-looking climate leadership.”

But provincial Green party Leader Andrew Weaver called the announcement a “profound disappointment.”

“Adding such a massive new source of (greenhouse gases) means that the rest of our economy will have to make even more sacrifices to meet our climate targets. A significant portion of the LNG Canada investment will be spent on a plant manufactured overseas, with steel sourced from other countries,” he said in a statement.

“B.C. taxpayers will subsidize its power by paying rates twice as high and taking on the enormous public debt required to build Site C. There may be as little as 100 permanent jobs at LNG Canada. I believe we can create far more jobs in other industries that won’t drastically increase our emissions.”

B.C. NDP used to be outspoken critics of LNG

Horgan’s minority NDP government only governs because of the support of the Green party.

Weaver noted the NDP were outspoken critics of the project when they were in Opposition under the Liberals.

“Our caucus was shocked when they turned around and delivered an even larger giveaway once in power,” he said. “We did everything we could to deter them from making this decision, but we are only three MLAs up against the 84 whose parties support the heavy subsidization of this industry.”

UPDATE 9.12pm: Following Epic Games’ announcement that it would be pursuing legal action against the company responsible for Norwich’s disastrous, unofficial Fortnite event, the organiser, Exciting Events, says it has been “forced… to cease all trading activities immediately”.

The news comes via an email sent to all customers (and forwarded to Eurogamer by an aggrieved party) from Shaun Lord, the head of Exciting Events Limited.

In his statement, Lord insisted that “the vast majority of children loved Fornite Live Norwich”, and claimed that Exciting Events “were still committed to hosting the two future Fortnite Live events, even after all of the national publicity and personal abuse and threats experienced by the directors and family of the business.”

However, “In response to the media frenzy,” Lord continued, “Epic Games… have now forced the shut down of the two pre-booked Fortnite Live events, with the immediate removal of all promotional communication from the public domain”.

“These proceedings by Epic Games has had a catastrophic impact on the company’s ability to trade, which has forced Exciting Events Limited to cease all trading activities immediately and the director of Exciting Events will now seek to limit the losses to third parties as far as possible.”

According to Lord, the company’s assets will now be turned into cash and funds will be distributed among creditors, starting with HMRC. Any remaining funds will then be split between other creditors, including those customers that secured individual agreements for a refund at Fortnite Live’s event on Saturday February 16th, and those that received ticket cancellation emails before 10am on the Sunday. Ticket holders for planned events in Spalding and Newark, now cancelled, will automatically be included on the creditor list.

ORIGINAL STORY 2.44pm: Fortnite maker Epic Games has begun legal proceedings against the organisers of Norwich’s calamitous Fortnite Live festival.

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East Anglia’s first Fortnite fest made international headlines over the weekend for being a total balls-up.

Ticket prices were too high, the attractions were terrible, and families who did pay were left queuing in the cold. Some refunds were issued on the day, but the event’s Facebook page has now disappeared.

Very little at the event was actually related to Fornite and absolutely none of it was officially licensed – despite the widespread use of Fortnite’s name, logo and characters.

In a statement issued to Eurogamer today, Epic said it was now taking legal action.

“The quality of our player experience is incredibly important to us, whether it’s inside the game or at official public events like last year’s Fortnite Pro-Am,” an Epic Games spokesperson said.

“Epic Games was not in any way associated with the event that took place in Norwich and we’ve issued a claim against the organisers in the High Court of London.”

Fortnite Live’s organiser, Exciting Events, had previously pledged to bring the show back to Norwich next year despite its dismal reception.

Speaking to the EDP on Sunday, organiser Shaun Lord defended the event. “This is for the kids who love the game of Fortnite,” he said.

“I would love it to be an annual thing. Those people who didn’t get value for money on activities, we have got to make that better next year. It is highlighted to us now that we didn’t have enough of that.”