Trump call ratchets up political tension in U.S.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Voters in Georgia will head to the polls Tuesday to determine who holds the balance of power on Capitol Hill for the next two years, the opening act in what promises to be an explosive week in U.S. politics.

The dead-heat Senate contests — Democrats Jon Ossoff and Rev. Raphael Warnock hope to unseat Republican incumbents David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler — will decide which party gets to control the 100-seat chamber.

That has profound consequences for president-elect Joe Biden: should both Ossoff and Warnock prevail, vice president-elect Kamala Harris would wield the deciding vote, giving Democrats control of the legislative branch.

But what was to be the main event of the 2021 electoral calendar was upstaged over the weekend, first by a faction of U.S. senators vowing to support Donald Trump's unfounded bid to subvert the presidential election, then by Trump himself.

What the end of the Trump era means for Tories

OTTAWA - When Donald Trump leaves the White House, a regular feature of the last four years of Canadian politics is going to change: Conservatives will no longer constantly have to distance themselves from such a polarizing president.

But to win the next general election, they'll still face a challenge: how to appeal both to the Trump-friendly supporters within their base, and to those Canadians who abhorred the Republican president and his policies.

For four years, Trump has served as a bogeyman for Conservative opponents, who would point to his divisive hold on U.S. politics and suggest that if a Conservative were elected in Canada, Trumpism would be imported here.

During the last federal election campaign, Elizabeth May, leader of the Green party at the time, made the comparison explicit, suggesting that then Conservative leader Andrew Scheer was literally a puppet of the U.S. president.

Endless 'Trump Train' barrels into downtown D.C.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Tens of thousands of the 72 million Americans who voted for Donald Trump showed up on his doorstep Saturday, urging on the president in his quixotic bid to subvert the results of last week's election.

Police cordoned off an enormous swath of downtown Washington, D.C., from the White House to Capitol Hill, steering an endless caravan of Make America Great Again devotees down Pennsylvania Ave. to their ultimate destination outside the U.S. Supreme Court.

The stream of red, white and blue — dotted throughout with now-familiar Trump 2020 flags, banners and the Stars and Stripes — included a large, stone-faced faction of the white supremacist Proud Boys, their black-and-yellow shirts emblazoned with the president's infamous message from the presidential debate: "Stand back and stand by."

Across the street from the Canadian Embassy, a woman with a megaphone shouted the rallying cry from the pro-Trump online conspiracy-theory group QAnon: "Where we go one, we go all."

New president an opportunity: immigration minister

OTTAWA - A pledge by U.S. president-elect Joe Biden to rip up some of the Trump administration's most controversial immigration policies is an opportunity for Canada, says federal Immigration Minister Marco Mendicino.

Biden has said that once he takes office in January, policies including travel bans from certain countries, the end of protected status for certain nationals already in the U.S. and a major decrease in refugee resettlement are all likely to be reversed, over time.

All have had impacts on Canada.

The travel bans are believed to have helped drive an increase in migration to Canada by international students and workers in certain sectors. Canada has also become a global leader in refugee resettlement from abroad while the domestic asylum system has come under pressure from an increase in new claims driven partially by people seeking a way out of the United States.

Trump 'taking names' on Biden congrats: expert

OTTAWA - The current president of the United States has warranted nary a mention from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau since Democrat Joe Biden became president-elect on Saturday.

While that might be setting Trudeau and Canada up for some retaliatory pain from Donald Trump, analysts are divided on how much misery even a very vindictive lame-duck president could inflict on his closest neighbour.

On Monday, Trudeau became the first international leader to speak to Biden, following his swift congratulations to the former American vice-president and his running mate Kamala Harris on Saturday.

The Prime Minister's Office released a statement congratulating Biden within 45 minutes of multiple news outlets having called the Democrat's pivotal victory in Pennsylvania.

Trudeau becomes first leader to speak to Biden

OTTAWA - Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is the first international leader to have personally congratulated Joe Biden on being elected U.S. president, his office said Monday as it summarized a conversation about areas of co-operation — and potential contention.

The telephone call took place even as Donald Trump refused to concede, making unfounded allegations of electoral fraud. Trudeau had already issued a statement congratulating Biden, who will be sworn in as president at an inauguration ceremony Jan. 20, soon after media outlets declared him the winner Saturday.

The prime minister and Biden discussed a variety of topics, including COVID-19, climate change, the need to fight anti-Black racism and China's detention of two Canadians, Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, according to a statement released by the Prime Minister's Office after the call.

The statement also says Trudeau raised several issues that have challenged the Canada-U. S. relationship, including the softwood lumber dispute, U.S. protectionism and the Keystone XL pipeline, which Biden has suggested he wants cancelled.

Ottawa welcomes Biden as ally in climate fight

OTTAWA - Federal cabinet ministers are welcoming Joe Biden's election as the next U.S. president as an opportunity to advance the fight against climate change after four tumultuous years dealing with Donald Trump.

Environment Minister Jonathan Wilkinson and Infrastructure Minister Catherine McKenna were among those to specifically mention climate change as they welcomed Biden's victory over the weekend.

McKenna also appeared to take a veiled shot at the Trump administration as she noted Biden's promise to have the U.S. rejoin the Paris Climate Agreement after the country formally left the treaty last week.

"This is really sinking in," McKenna, who previously served as Canada's environment minister, wrote on Twitter. "It's been a long, tough slog these past four years internationally on climate action."

Canadians welcome Biden's win with open arms

Canadians across the country ushered in what they hoped would be a new, calmer era of relations with the United States on Saturday, welcoming U.S. president-elect Joe Biden with open arms.

Relations with Canada's nearest neighbour and largest trading partner grew strained at times during President Donald Trump's reign, as he insulted Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and imposed punitive steel and aluminum tariffs using a section of U.S. trade law that called its long-time ally a national security threat.

Hours after Biden and vice-president elect Kamala Harris obtained enough electoral college votes to secure the White House, Canadians began offering optimistic takes on how the next chapter of American-Canadian relations will read.

"Trudeau -- I don't think he had much respect for Trump," said Paul Shepherd of Newmarket, Ont. "...So I think it'll open up some more things for Canada and (we'll) have a better relationship."

Harris's Canadian classmates hail election win

A collection of breaking news briefs filed on November 12, 2020

• Sobeys introduces lockdown bonus for employees

• Steinbach Liquor Mart employee tests positive for COVID-19

• Man shot while hunting

• COVID-19 testing sites to open in Winnipeg, Portage

• One dead after two-vehicle crash in Portage la Prairie

• Manitoba reports 474 new COVID-19 cases Thursday, nine more deaths

• No injuries after Thompson apartment complex shot at

• Suspicion unfounded in cases of girls invited into white car: police

• MJHL puts season on pause, plans Jan. 1 restart

• No one injured in overnight house fires

Trudeau congratulates Biden on victory

A collection of breaking news briefs filed on November 12, 2020

• Sobeys introduces lockdown bonus for employees

• Steinbach Liquor Mart employee tests positive for COVID-19

• Man shot while hunting

• COVID-19 testing sites to open in Winnipeg, Portage

• One dead after two-vehicle crash in Portage la Prairie

• Manitoba reports 474 new COVID-19 cases Thursday, nine more deaths

• No injuries after Thompson apartment complex shot at

• Suspicion unfounded in cases of girls invited into white car: police

• MJHL puts season on pause, plans Jan. 1 restart

• No one injured in overnight house fires

Five ways a Biden victory could affect Canada

OTTAWA - The election of Democrat Joe Biden as the next president of the United States is expected to have wide-ranging implications for Canadian politics and policy.

Environment

The day after the election, the United States became the first and only country in the world to withdraw from the Paris climate change pact.

Biden has promised to put the U.S. back into the agreement as soon as possible, and that, plus his own domestic environmental policies, could be a boon for Canada, including by opening markets for Canadian clean energy technology.

Biden win prompts flood of elation on U.S. streets

WASHINGTON, D.C._ America's political fever finally broke Saturday, sending frustrated and fed-up U.S. voters pouring into city streets across the United States, giddy with unbridled delight at Joe Biden's long-awaited presidential win.

Four days after the election, the all-important battleground state of Pennsylvania finally turned Biden blue, giving the former vice-president the electoral votes needed to put him over the top and deny Donald Trump a second term.

The reaction was spontaneous and almost instant.

On the streets of downtown Washington, D.C., a procession of cars paralyzed traffic around the White House, the din of their horns audible for blocks. Passengers pumped their fists and leaned out car windows to high-five passersby. A motorcyclist looking to join the parade gunned his engine in tribute.

Pot, psychedelics industries cheer U.S. election

TORONTO - Canadian cannabis and psychedelics companies that have been eyeing the U.S. market have a few new reasons to celebrate.

Through U.S. election ballot questions, five states — Arizona, New Jersey, South Dakota, Mississippi and Montana — this week voted in favour of legalizing recreational or medical cannabis, while Oregon supported the sale of psilocybin mushrooms and Washington, D.C. decriminalized some psychedelic drugs.

Experts say the growing support for cannabis and psychedelic drugs in the United States could be a boon for its neighbours to the north.

“The size of the market dwarfs the overall opportunity in Canada,” said Omar Khan, Hill+Knowlton Strategies’ national cannabis sector lead.

Cutting off Trump: thorny dilemma for broadcasters

TORONTO - Deciding on the fly whether to air in real time U.S. President Donald Trump's baseless allegations of election fraud is a tricky dilemma that defies easy solutions, broadcast journalists and observers said on Friday.

Differing approaches were apparent on Thursday, when some networks simply cut away from covering Trump's invective from the White House, while others stayed with his statements but offered real-time disclaimers.

CNN and Fox, for example, opted for the latter approach as did CBC News and CTV News Channel.

"It ain't easy. These are really tough decisions to make in the moment," Brodie Fenlon, CBC's editor-in-chief, said in an interview. "You have a guy who is still the president and at a moment when he is still potentially competitive, and his words matter as we see and they still have an effect on the ground."

Trudeau affirms faith in U.S. democracy

OTTAWA - Prime Minister Justin Trudeau affirmed his faith in the American people and their democratic institutions on Friday as the U.S. election results continued to trend in Democrat Joe Biden's favour.

Trudeau refused to be directly drawn in to responding to President Donald Trump's complaints — without evidence — that the counting of ballots in the U.S. election is corrupt.

Trudeau said foreign countries should not pronounce on the American electoral process, and that his job is to stand up for Canada's interests with its top trading partner and closest neighbour.

“We are watching, as everyone is, the processes in the United States unfold as their electoral process is underway," Trudeau said Friday in Ottawa in response to questions at a COVID-19 briefing.