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Apr 29 2023

Clinton coming. Smith’s hero. DeSantis Ad.

Apr 29, 2023
David Akin's Roundup
Clippings of #cdnpoli, #media, and #tech content aimed at those with an interest in Canadian politics and policy. And sometimes Canadian postage stamps.
The writs may not be written up until Monday but the 31st Alberta general election is most definitely underway. United Conservative Party leader and Premier Danielle Smith is set to speak at campaign launch rallies today at 1000 MT in Calgary and at 1700 MT in Edmonton.

That pic in the header of this newsletter, BTW? I took it this summer just outside Vulcan AB while driving from Swift Current to Calgary. Planning to be back in Alberta in late May for the final days of the election there but will pitching in from Ottawa until then to assist colleagues in Alberta who will be covering this race.
Canada
Trudeau Foundation board pushed back on audit of alleged China-linked donation: ex-CEO
Former CEO Pascale Fournier was a witness at the House of Commons ethics committee this morning as part of its study on foreign interference in Canada. [Global]
Trudeau linked the production of lithium in China with "slave labour" as he discussed his country's efforts to ramp up production of the metal used in electric vehicle batteries. [Global]
Former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, the first woman to run as a major party candidate for United States president, will headline the Liberal Party of Canada's national convention on May 5. [CP]
King Charles III has officially been appointed the commissioner-in-chief of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police at a ceremony, where he was also presented a horse from the RCMP. [Global]
From the provinces
Smith lauds freedoms in DeSantis' Florida and Noem's South Dakota
Premier Danielle Smith's comments at a central Alberta conference last week are raising eyebrows after she referenced thoughts she had about "freedoms" residents in Florida and South Dakota are enjoying. [CTV]
Don Braid: When Danielle Smith comments on things that concern her, she often seems unaware of a dangerous larger context. [Calgary Herald]

Provincial Opposition leader comes to town to boost fortunes of Innisfail-Sylvan Lake candidate Jason Heistad [MountainView Today]

After a months-long wait, Public Safety Minister Mike Farnworth revealed the government’s recommendation that Surrey phase out the RCMP, and implement the fledgling Surrey Police Service (SPS) as its force of jurisdiction. [Global]
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Elsewhere
Sudan crisis: Window closing to evacuate Canadians by air, officials say
Canadian Armed Forces are working with allies to examine land and sea evacuation routes after a Turkish plane was hit with gunfire at Khartoum airfield. [Global]
DeSantis PAC drops its first video spot
Though Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has not officially announced his candidacy to be the Republican nominee for president, this ad, from the PAC "Never Back Down" comes pretty close to that. David Frum -- the Canadian who was once George W Bush's speechwriter and who yearns for his old Republican Party -- has a Twitter thread about this ad. - DA [YouTube]
Republican Ron DeSantis would not have to resign as Florida governor to run for president under a bill approved by GOP-dominated state Legislature. [LA Times]
King Charles III lives in a palace, travels in a chauffeur-driven Bentley and is one of Britain’s richest men, but he's similar to many of his subjects in one very basic way: His family life is very complicated. There’s a second wife, an embarrassing brother, and an angry son and daughter-in-law, all with allies who aren’t shy about whispering family secrets in the ears of friendly reporters. Charles will hope to keep a lid on those tensions when his royally blended family joins as many as 2,800 guests for the new king’s coronation on May 6 at Westminster Abbey. All except Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, are attending. [AP]

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is expected to attend the coronation of King Charles in London next week alongside dignitaries from around the world. [CP]
Media
Most weekday mornings, the reporters and producers for Global National gather for a conference call to go over the day's assignments and likely story treatments. On Friday's call, we learned about our audience numbers for Wednesday night's edition of Global National. It was a whopper: 985,000 viewers caught us -- and that was more than the combined viewership of CTV National News and CBC's The National. Thanks for watching! - DA
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Tech

The results were pretty striking, as shown in the graph below. For quality, the evaluators preferred the ChatGPT response 79% of the time; the quality score of good and very good was 79% for the chatbot vs 22% for physicians, a near 4-fold difference. [Ground Truths]
The Acceleration Consortium designs new materials with AI and synthesizes them in-house with autonomous robots — a process that speeds up scientific discovery by decades, it says. [Global]
Issued this day ...
... in 1999: Scott # 1673: Traditional Trades Definitives: Bookbinding. Design: Monique Dufour and Sophie Lafortune.

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