Month: April 2019

Arrest of ‘yellow vest’ figurehead prompts calls for ‘hardening’ of French protests

Posted on by pirhi

The arrest of a figurehead of the “yellow vest” anti-government protest movement provoked defiant calls for “harder” demonstrations and outrage among French far-Left and far-Right leaders on Thursday. 

Éric Drouet was arrested on Wednesday night on his way to a protest on the Champs-Elysées in Paris. Riot police grabbed him from a crowd of dozens of supporters and marched him to a van in front of television cameras.

A charismatic 33-year-old lorry driver, Mr Drouet had called for a rally “to shock public opinion”. He is under investigation for allegedly organising a demonstration without official permission, an offence in France punishable by up to six months in prison and a €7,500 (£6,760) fine.

An influential voice in the leaderless movement, which has no formal structure, Mr Drouet was charged in December for carrying a club to a protest.

Mr Drouet’s supporters called on social media for a “hardening” of protests this weekend following what they said was a “political arrest”. 

The numbers of protesters have dwindled in recent weeks following concessions by Emmanuel Macron, the president, including a rise in the minimum wage and tax cuts for low-income pensioners and households.

However, the two-month-long protests, which have often degenerated into clashes with police, have raised doubts about Mr Macron’s ability to push forward with business-friendly economic reforms.

He further incensed the demonstrators by branding them as a “hate-filled mob” in a combative New Year’s message, vowing to maintain law and order “without compromise”. 

The government now appears determined to quash the protests across France, threatening to arrest “yellow vests” who continue to occupy roundabouts. At least 10 people have died in car accidents as “yellow vests” blocked roads. Some 216 people were jailed for public order offences and thousands arrested during the first month of the “yellow vest” protests.

Mr Drouet claims to have no political alignment, but many Left-wingers accuse him of far-Right sympathies because of he has expressed anti-immigration views on social media. However, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, a far-Left leader, has expressed admiration for Mr Drouet, comparing him to an 18th century revolutionary with the same surname, Jean-Baptiste Drouet.

Marine Le Pen’s National Rally leapt to Mr Drouet’s defence on Thursday. “The protest he was trying to organise would have been harmless,” said Wallerand de Saint-Just, the party treasurer. “Once again Mr Macron has revealed himself to be a cold technocrat who favours repression. He has failed to understand the political and moral authority of the protests.”

Émilie, one of Mr Drouet’s supporters who witnessed his arrest, told reporters: “He always called for peaceful demonstrations.”

Mr Drouet was later released but must appear in court on February 15 to answer both the latest allegation – which he denies – and the weapons charge. 

Opposition leaders said the treatment of Mr Drouet contrasted with the leniency shown to the president’s former security aide, Alexandre Benalla, who has not been charged despite being filmed beating May Day protesters.

Meanwhile Mr Macron’s spin doctor announced his resignation as the president struggles to restore his authority, with his approval ratings down to about 20 per cent. 

Sylvain Fort, 46, will quit his post as head of Elysée Palace communications before the end of January “for personal reasons”. However, his once close relations with Mr Macron  have soured, partly because he objected to clumsy off-the-cuff remarks by the president that have repeatedly offended members of the public, government sources said.

You Now Need $100,000 In Income To Buy A Typical Condo In Toronto

Posted on by pirhi
  • Condo rents up 10.7 per cent as fewer buy homes
  • One-third of would-be buyers have exited the market
  • Some relief ahead for homebuyers, Urbanation predicts

If this keeps up, home ownership in Toronto could soon be solely for the wealthy.

The income needed to qualify for a mortgage on an average Greater Toronto Area condo has soared by nearly a third over the past year, according to a new report, and it’s due to both rising prices and tougher new mortgage rules.

Homebuyers needed an income of at least $100,000 to qualify for a mortgage on an average-priced condo in the first quarter of this year, according to numbers released Wednesday by real estate consultancy Urbanation.

As recently as a year ago, that figure was just $77,000, Urbanation noted, and two years ago, it was $64,000.

The new federal mortgage rules — which require buyers to qualify for a mortgage at a higher interest rate than the one being offered by the lender — also played a role, Urbanation said.

Without the new mortgage rules, qualifying income for a mortgage would have been $86,000, the report said.

Earlier on HuffPost: New Brunswick private island listed for less than a house in Toronto

Evidence is mounting that a great deal of would-be homebuyers have been priced out of the market. A study from realtor Re/Max, released this week, found one in three prospective buyers has simply given up on buying a home in the wake of new mortgage rules and higher prices, while another four in 10 have scaled back their home-buying ambitions.

That’s having an impact on the housing market. The Toronto Real Estate Board reported that condo sales in the region were down 32.7 per cent in March, compared to a year earlier — though prices were still up by 6.1 per cent year over year.

But Urbanation senior vice president Shaun Hildebrand says homebuyers can expect at least some relief in the years to come.

“Close to 60,000 condos are under construction right now, and another 40,000 are pre-sold and awaiting construction,” Hildebrand told HuffPost Canada. “So I would anticipate that supply is going to be better than what it is right now, and that will have a dampening effect on price growth over the next few years.”

Condo rental prices soar 10.7%

With a growing number of would-be buyers priced out of the market and staying put in rental housing, pressure is growing on the rental market, Urbanation’s data shows.

Average monthly condo rents jumped 10.7 per cent over the past year, to $2,206 for a typical 740-square-foot condo, the report found. (The numbers don’t include the city’s rental apartment stock, which is overall less expensive than the rental condo market.)

There’s relief coming for tenants in the rental market as well, Urbanation says, albeit at a slower pace. It notes that the number of rental units under construction rose to a 25-year high of 7,937 in the fourth quarter of 2017, up from 5,832 units in the same period a year earlier.

Japan’s resumption of commercial whaling may kill industry

Posted on by pirhi

Japan may have harpooned itself in the foot with its decision to withdraw from the International Whaling Commission and to resume commercial whaling, with fisheries companies here warning that the industry will quickly become economically unviable. 

The Japanese government announced earlier this week that it will formally withdraw from the IWC in June and resume commercial whaling after a 30-year hiatus in July.

Coastal communities that have traditionally engaged in whaling have applauded the government’s decision and Toshihiro Nikai, a senior member of the government who represents a constituency in Wakayama Prefecture with a whaling industry, declared the announcement as “a decisive response”. 

Leaving the IWC, however, means that Tokyo can no longer exploit the loophole in IWC rules that permitted “scientific whaling”, meaning that the teeming waters of the Southern Ocean are no longer open to its whalers. Instead, Japan will be limited to conducting whaling within its own territorial waters and exclusive economic zone. 

“Even if commercial whaling is resumed, it will not be viable as a business”, Hideki Tokoro, a member of the board of whaling firm Kyodo Senpaku Co., told the Mainichi newspaper. 

Nippon Suisan Kaisha Ltd and Maruha Nichiro Corp, both of which in previous years carried out whaling in the Southern Ocean, have announced that they will not resume whaling operations. 

Officials say that there is little demand for whale meat because so few people now purchase it. In 1962, around 233,000 tons of whale meat were sold in supermarkets and restaurants across Japan; in recent years, that figure has fallen to around 3,000 tons and the industry has only survived because it was heavily subsidised by the government. If those subsidies are no longer available as the whaling is commercial instead of government-sponsored research, then the industry will struggle to survive. 

As a result of the lack of interest in the by-product of the “scientific whaling” programme, much of the annual haul has been served in school lunches in whaling communities, while a large portion of the remainder ends up as pet food and thousands of tons from previous years’ hunts are still in cold storage.

Specialist restaurant operators have expressed concern about a sharp rise in prices if the industry is no longer subsidised, while others are worried about a backlash from the international community over the decision.

Tokyo decided to withdraw from the IWC as it had become frustrated at its demands to be permitted to resume commercial whaling – which the government and whaling companies insist are part of the nation’s “food culture” – being blocked.

Environmental groups have proclaimed victory in their campaign for Japan to respect the 19 million-mile whaling sanctuary in the Southern Ocean, although an official of the Humane Society International told The Telegraph that a resumption of commercial whaling in home waters “puts Japan beyond the boundaries of international law and effectively makes Japan a whaling pirate nation”.

In an editorial, the Mainichi newspaper said the government’s decision to leave the IWC “is a misguided move made through a questionable process”, claiming that Tokyo acted without fully examining the impact or carrying out an open and public debate. It added that the decision shows that Japan will walk away from international cooperation and the rule of law when it does not get its own way. 

Canadian Food Inspection Agency Recalls President's Choice Organics, Love Child Organics Baby Food

Posted on by pirhi

OTTAWA — Sixteen flavours of organic baby food pouches are being recalled due to a packaging defect.

Eight flavours of President’s Choice Organics and eight flavours of Love Child Organics baby food are being pulled from the marketplace due to an issue that may allow “spoilage micro-organisms” to permeate the packaging and cause the products to spoil.

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency says the recall was triggered by consumer complaints, although no illnesses have been reported.

The agency’s website lists all affected products that were sold in 128-millilitre pouches and have best before dates up to and including May 25, 2019.

Also On HuffPost:

Bangladesh slows internet ahead of election to fight ‘propaganda’

Posted on by pirhi

Bangladesh’s authorities have severely restricted internet services across the country in an effort to fight "propaganda" ahead of Sunday’s general election, an official said.

At the end of an election campaign marked by deadly violence, internet services were slowed across the country with 3G and 4G services suspended for several hours, a Bangladesh Telecommunications Regulatory Commission (BTRC) official said Friday.

"We asked telecom operators to halt 3G and 4G services temporarily on Thursday night. We have done it to prevent propaganda and misleading content spreading on the internet," the official said on condition of anonymity.

He said higher speed internet services resumed on Friday morning after a 10-hour blackout, but could be suspended again later in the day.

Bangladesh will hold a parliamentary election on Sunday with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina seeking a record fourth term in power.

She is being challenged by an alliance led by the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) which says thousands of its activists have been arrested in a nationwide crackdown during the campaign.

BNP leader Khaleda Zia was  jailed for 17 years on graft charges this year and the party says its candidates were attacked to prevent them from campaigning.

Shut out by mainstream media, the BNP has been reduced to social media such as Facebook to lobby for votes.

Its leaders have posted series of videos to canvass support from Bangladesh’s 100 million voters ahead of the election.

Earlier this month, the BTRC blocked the BNP website along with 53 news websites and portals including several pro-BNP sites saying they spread "obscene" and malicious content.

Bangladesh, which has more than 92 million internet users, has a history of blocking websites and key social media such as Facebook and YouTube.

In August 2016, the BTRC blocked 35 websites including several popular among opposition supporters.

 

 

British teenager released after two weeks in ‘hell hole’ Egyptian prison

Posted on by pirhi

A British teenager arrested in Egypt on spying allegations has been released from the “hell hole” prison where he was being held. 

Muhammed Abulkasem, 19, was detained on November 21 at Alexandria airport after he took a photograph on his phone which included a military helicopter. Egyptian authorities accused him of “collecting information on a military facility”. 

Mr Abulkasem, originally from Cheetham Hill, Manchester, was freed from detention last week and has been reunited with his family. He left Egypt on Friday.

In an audio message posted online, he said: “I’m not ready to talk right now but I feel I owe you all, due to your support, to inform you I’m out.” 

He described his prison as “a hell hole” and said the last two weeks had been “dark, troubled times”. “I was ready to give up mentally and physically,” he added.

Shareen Nawaz, Mr Abulkasem’s cousin, said in a Facebook post that he had been “cleared of all of the ridiculous charges and [thank God] he has finally been released from a disgusting prison in a corrupt country.” 

“Enjoy your holidays but please check local country rules before travelling and be careful what pictures you take. I know I defo won’t be travelling to Egypt ever again,” she said. 

It is not clear exactly why Egyptian authorities decided to release Mr AbulKasem. There was no immediate comment from the Egyptian government. 

A spokeswoman for the Foreign Office said: ”The Foreign Office provided consular assistance to a British national following his arrest in Egypt. He has since been released."

Mr Abulkasem, who was due to return to the UK next year to finish his A-levels, moved to Libya two years with his family to support an elderly relative.

He and a Libyan friend booked a hotel in Egypt together ahead of their visit to Alexandria. Both men were arrested after landing at the airport.

Miniso To Expand To 500 Stores As Canada Sees Major Influx Of New Retail Brands

Posted on by pirhi
  • Retailer’s aggressive expansion seen as potential threat to Dollarama
  • Toronto the top North American city for new retail brands
  • ‘Asian invasion’ promises to change the face of Canadian retail

Things might be looking decidedly shaky in the brick-and-mortar retail world these days, and Canadian retailers — from Sears Canada to Le Chateau — have not been spared the carnage caused by the rise of Amazon.

But in the midst of this shift to online retail, Canada is seeing a tidal wave of new brick-and-mortar retailers entering the market, hoping to take a chunk of the business in one of the fastest-growing developed economies in the world.

In one sign of the confidence global retail investors have in Canadian shoppers, discount retailer Miniso says it plans to open 500 stores in Canada within three years. That’s nearly half as many as it has in its home market of China, though it’s just one part of an ambitious plan to grow to 6,000 locations worldwide.

Since it opened its first Canadian store in the Vancouver area in the spring of 2017, Miniso — founded in 2013 by a Chinese entrepreneur and a Japanese product designer — has grown to a dozen stores in Greater Vancouver, 11 in Toronto and southern Ontario, and a handful in Montreal, Calgary and Edmonton. It expects to have 100 stores up and running in Canada by the end of this year.

The chain’s basic concept is low-cost items combined with appealing design. It sells apparel, cosmetics, household goods and electronics in the $2.99 to $34.99 price range — not exactly the dollar store’s range or selection, but close enough that many market observers say it’s Dollarama and similar chains that will feel the pressure most from Miniso.

The rapid pace at which Miniso is expanding across Canada may remind some observers of another hasty retail expansion, and one that did not end well — Target’s move north of the border, which saw the Minnesota-based retailer quickly open 133 stores across Canada, before shutting them down just as quickly, having sunk billions of dollars into the failed expansion.

Watch: Amazon’s cashier-less grocery store is officially open (story continues below)

But market observers are optimistic about Miniso’s chances.

“I think there’s an opportunity for someone to come in and say: We know you want inexpensive stuff, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t have nice design at the same time — kind of like what Ikea did for furniture,” said Doug Stephens, a retail industry futurist with Retail Prophet, as quoted at the Toronto Star.

“If Miniso gets it right … I think they could take a chunk out of Dollarama.”

For its part, Dollarama doesn’t seem worried. The retail chain, which has some 1,000 locations in all 10 Canadian provinces, doesn’t see Miniso as direct competition, given the higher prices at the newly-arrived chain.

“We will consider them as competition as we consider all the other retailers in Canada as competition. But there’s nothing for us to react to at this time,” CEO Neil Rossy said last December.

Miniso is not the only Asian retailer moving into the Canadian market. It’s following in the footsteps of Japanese casual apparel chain Uniqlo, which opened its first store in Canada in 2016, and Muji, the minimalist retailer which opened its first Toronto location in 2014.

Like the other “Asian invasion” retailers, Miniso is following a simple expansion pattern: Break into the Toronto and Vancouver markets first, then expand to the rest of the country.

The trend is part of what is making Toronto and Vancouver among the hottest locations in the world for retail expansion — and reshaping Canada’s shopping scene along the way.

According to a report released this month by commercial real estate agency CBRE, Canada is a top magnet for international retail investment, with a record high 40 new international chains opening up shop in the country in 2017.

All 40 established a presence in Toronto, placing the city first among North American cities for new retail chains, well ahead of New York or Los Angeles. Vancouver saw 11 new retail entrants in 2017, CBRE’s data showed.

“Luxury brands were a key driver of expansion into the Americas, with a sizable proportion of these brands opening in Canada, particularly in Vancouver with strong demand from local consumers within the city’s growing high-income bracket and from affluent Asian tourists,” CBRE noted.

Toronto, meanwhile, is “gaining in appeal as a global gateway city,” CBRE reported.

That’s despite the struggles of many traditional retailers in Canada, perhaps best exemplified by the collapse of Sears Canada, which closed its last stores at the start of this year.

Yet the situation isn’t as dire in Canada as it is in the U.S. One clear example: The Canadian part of the Toys ‘R’ Us chain survived the parent company’s bankruptcy, and will live on under new management.

There are many reasons for Canada’s stronger retail performance compared to the U.S., from a middle class that has more spending cash to slower adoption of online retail, to a “wealth effect” created by rising house prices.

But many market analysts note that Canada never built as much shopping space per capita as the U.S. did, meaning stores have a larger pool of customers in Canada than they do in the U.S. That may be helping them weather the shift to online retail better than their U.S. counterparts.

Pokémon Go’s Dortmund Safari Zone event was a fumbled success

Posted on by pirhi

My legs are still aching, but what an amazing weekend I’ve just had. I’m just back from Pokémon Go’s first big live event of the summer, in Dortmund, Germany, where a Safari Zone full of ludicrously generous Pokémon spawns attracted hundreds of thousands of players – some of whom had travelled from all over the world.

Safari Zone was a free event – spread over Dortmund’s enormous and beautiful Westfalenpark, and then across the whole inner city centre – but the associated costs of travel and accommodation for attendees (the entire city was booked up) meant the pressure was on for Niantic to deliver an event without the widespread technical troubles which marred Chicago last year. It had a whole year to take stock – and you could see the extra provisions around the park: mobile cell towers for extra coverage, areas of wireless internet. And yet, as players dribbled into the park from lengthy queues, things did not go to plan.

A little before midday, with network coverage in some areas of the park beginning to show signs of the 50,000 people – the site’s quickly maxed out capacity – playing, a major bug erupted in Pokémon Go’s game code. Anyone using Incense, a premium item bought to boost nearby Pokémon numbers, was locked out. And they continued to be – for up to five hours. Players were left listening to regular announcements over tannoys that Niantic was aware of the issue, and that those like me who could still patchily play would find better results back in Dortmund city centre.

Niantic had always planned to use the whole of central Dortmund, but had also heavily promoted Westfalenpark as the place to be. For the groups of players I spoke to from Cambridge and London, who had queued at the park gates from 3am and 6am, being told to leave the place they had waited hours to get into was – to put it lightly – something of a communications fail. Outside of the park on Saturday afternoon, things continued to be wobbly. I spoke with furious players from Germany, Mexico, Scotland, and a lady from Belgium affected by the Incense bug who’d slept in her car to get there.

But then, miraculously, around 4pm Niantic found a fix to the Incense issue and – with everyone better distributed around Dortmund city centre, plus some likely having headed home for the day – the network issues calmed. Baffled locals looked on as thousands of players walked the streets and stopped to sort through their catches in its squares. I have never seen as many valuable Pokémon within the game in such volume, and it was clear from the group I was walking with – players I’d found from Brighton – that Niantic had boosted the rate of encounters for the ultra-rare Shiny Pokémon variants. The mood quickly lifted, and I ended up playing until past 10pm, hoovering up everything I could in the good company of others doing exactly the same.

Day two brought nothing more than the odd network wobble – a need to reset the game and go again – as the crowds once again surged through the city. Niantic managed queues at Westfalenpark by quietly opening its gates early to those who had turned up, meaning easy access by the time I got there. WiFi was now advertised as available throughout the park, not just in specific spots. And players had now learned from experience that the same spawns were available across the city, allowing everyone to spread out. Up until I had to leave in the early afternoon, I chatted to players from Finland and Wales, Oxford and London, all playing fine. Why hadn’t it been like this on day one?

Saturday’s issues had put a dampener on the first day, and there was disbelief Niantic had hosted another event which hadn’t gone to plan. But throughout it all, and despite the understandable griping, the event never hit the stage-heckling lows of Chicago. Dortmund this past weekend was a baking 30C hot. Throughout, there remained a rock festival atmosphere to the event, Westfalenpark filled with players enjoying the weather on bean bags in the shade and under the enormous team-coloured pavilions. People proudly wore their free Pikachu headbands, many already dressed up for the occasion. The shouts of “Shiny!” – the same in any language, apparently – were loud and constant. Goodness knows how hot the cosplayer in a full furry Squirtle suit was, but bless him for asking for “ein euro” for a photo. In those temperatures you deserve it, mate.

I love Pokémon Go for its unexpected, unique moments of social interaction. Not the circle of people silently staring at their phones, but the groups of mums and dads and kids and couples and retirees playing together. Over the weekend I spoke to dozens of these. I remember the family from Margate – mum a wheelchair user – who had found a disabled parking spot just outside the park. Their kids were having a whale of a time. The party from Nebraska, over especially for the event. The guys from my home city of Norwich, who’d hired a bus and got there on the overnight ferry, their specially-printed T-shirts proudly displaying PoGo Norwich and their trainer names. The couple from East Grinstead who usually play with their dog, who has an account himself and plays wearing an auto-catching Go-tcha device on his collar. The rush of people from one side of the park to the other after a hoax call of a rare spawn, prompting a hurried tannoy announcement that “there was nothing behind the stage!”.

Sunburned and exhausted, Pokémon Go-account stuffed to the brim, I left Dortmund remembering these people and moments and everything that went right from Saturday afternoon onward. On the way to the station, small stampedes were taking place, as people shouted about a high-level Pokémon a block away. Niantic pulled it off – just – although I had plenty of questions to ask its boss John Hanke during an interview on the second day – look for that online soon. With Pokémon Go’s even bigger return to Chicago up next in just a fortnight, Niantic needs to deliver.

This article was based on a press trip to Dortmund, Niantic paid for travel and accommodation.

Homosexuality is to blame for sexual abuse, not Catholic church, claims German cardinal

Posted on by pirhi

A German cardinal on Friday provoked anger and controversy when he claimed the Catholic church was not responsible for sexual abuse by its clerics, and instead sought to pin the blame on homosexuality.

“What has happened in the church is no different from what is happening in society as a whole,” Cardinal Walter Brandmüller said. “The real scandal is that the Catholic church hasn’t distinguished itself from the rest of society.”

A study commissioned by the German Bishops Conference and published last year found that more than 3,600 children were sexually abused by Catholic clergy in Germany between 1946 and 2014.

But Cardinal Brandmüller claimed that only a “vanishingly small number” of clergy had committed abuses. He said the real problem was homosexuality and claimed it is “statistically proven” that there is a link between homosexuality and abuse.

Society “forgets or covers up the fact that 80 per cent of cases of sexual assault in the church involved male youths not children,” he told Germany’s DPA news agency in an interview a few days ahead of his 90th birthday.

Cardinal Brandmüller’s outburst comes days after the Pope urged Catholic bishops in the US to confront the “sins and crimes” of sexual abuse by the clergy and “the efforts made to deny or conceal them”.

“Everything we do risks being tainted by self-referentiality, self-preservation and defensiveness, and thus doomed from the start,” Pope Francis wrote in a letter to American bishops ahead of a spiritual retreat to reflect on the issue.

“As we know, the mentality that would cover things up, far from helping to resolve conflicts, enabled them to fester and cause even greater harm to the network of relationships that today we are called to heal and restore.”

Cardinal Brandmüller has been one of Pope Francis’ most outspoken critics within the Catholic church, and is one of four cardinals who have repeatedly challenged the Pope’s teachings on love and family life.

The cardinal’s comments were swiftly condemned on social media and by leading German commentators.

“What a shameful way for the Catholic Church to relativise guilt and defame homosexuals. Disgraceful,” Ulf Poschardt, the editor of Welt newspaper, wrote on Twitter.

NAFTA Deal Could Be Reached As Early As This Week: Sources

Posted on by pirhi

WASHINGTON — Negotiations have entered an around-the-clock phase in an effort to get a new NAFTA agreement within days, with top political staff converging in Washington for meetings stretching into the night Tuesday and beyond.

Top officials in the office of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau flew down to join Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland for talks at the U.S. trade building, and President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner also made an appearance.

After a three-hour meeting with her U.S. counterpart Robert Lighthizer, Freeland emerged to announce that she was remaining in Washington for at least another day.

“At this point everyone is working 24-7,” Freeland told reporters. “It’s about sending each other proposals and being ready to respond to them … We are going to be working hard late into the night based on some of the points that were raised today.

“We’ll be back at it tomorrow.”

The source of this flurry of activity is the political calendar, with a confluence of events about to hit: a legislative deadline next month for the current Republican-led Congress to vote on the deal, the Mexican presidential elections, a short-staffed U.S. trade team trying to shift its focus to Asia — and fresh news that Lighthizer is being sent to China for talks next week.

Four people briefed on the NAFTA developments said they see a deal being possible as early as this week, based on a variety of factors. For one thing, the talks are drawing the political heavy-hitters of each country.

Trudeau’s chief of staff Katie Telford and his director of U.S. affairs Brian Clow are at the talks, as are the U.S. and Canadian ambassadors to each country, Kushner, and top Mexican minister Luis Videgaray — all making rare appearances alongside the ministers leading the NAFTA file.

One industry stakeholder said: “The negotiation has been elevated to the political level.”

Trump himself said an agreement could come soon. “We’re doing very nicely with NAFTA. I can make a deal very quickly,” Trump said Tuesday, though he added that he wasn’t sure.

No deadline pressure

Canada’s official position is that there is no deadline pressure.

In fact, Freeland made a point of alluding to ongoing irritants, after repeating her oft-stated view that autos would be the key to a new deal: “There are other issues that still need to be resolved,” she said.

But she repeated that autos remained the main focus at the table.

According to sources familiar with the autos negotiations, a new agreement would adopt a Buy North American approach to steel in autos, with a requirement that high-value parts consist mainly of steel from this continent. One source pegged the steel requirement at 70 per cent.

In addition, the new rules would significantly ramp up the North American content requirement for all other parts, from the current 62.5 per cent of a car to 75 per cent.

Rules for individual pieces would change, with a focus on keeping high-value manufacturing on this continent.

Items like engines and batteries would have to be 75 per cent North American; the standard for mid-value parts like the electronics in seats would be 70 per cent; and it would be 65 per cent for cheaper products like seat-belts.

Now, says Flavio Volpe, head of the Canadian Automotive Parts Manufacturers Association, the challenge is getting the fine print crafted properly so that there is no accidental damage to the industry.

He said a particular concern is the number of years it will take to phase in the new rules. The U.S. has been proposing a two-year transition, but Volpe said auto investments are already locked in a few years in advance as companies work on five-to-seven-year planning cycles.

He said companies could simply ignore the NAFTA rules and pay the tariff if they find the rules impossible to meet. He added that there aren’t any idle North American plants to which production could be immediately shifted.

“If you make it happen quickly, it won’t happen,” Volpe said of the changes.

“They’ll have to break contracts with current suppliers (if it’s done too quickly), pay for the moving (of supply chains) … and compensate now-former suppliers.”

Freeland said her team is indeed sifting through the finer details on autos.

“We are the diligent, do-your-homework, fact-based country,” she told reporters, describing the auto talks. “We’re very, very focused right now on digging into some of the details, making sure there are no unintended consequences — being sure we get things right.”