Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is planning a snap election for September 20 to seek voter approval for the government's costly plans to combat Covid-19, four sources familiar with the matter said on Thursday.
Mr Trudeau is set to make the announcement on Sunday, said the sources, who requested anonymity given the sensitivity of the situation. Aides have said for months that the ruling Liberals would push for a vote before the end of 2021, two years ahead of schedule.
The prime minister has a minority government and relies on other parties to push through legislation. In recent months, he has complained about what he calls opposition obstruction.
The Liberals racked up record levels of debt as they spent heavily to shield people and businesses from Covid-19. They plan to inject an extra CAN$100 billion (US$80bn) — between 3 per cent and 4 per cent of GDP — into the economy over the next three years.
Mr Trudeau came to power in 2015 with a majority of the 338 seats in the House of Commons, but in 2019, his party was reduced to a minority after old photos surfaced of the prime minister wearing blackface.
“Circumstances have changed massively since 2019. We need to know whether Canadians support our plans for economic recovery,” said one of the sources.
Growth is set to rebound in the third quarter and Canada currently has one of the world's best inoculation records.
Liberals acknowledge a call for an election now would be a gamble, given that recent opinion polls suggest the party is not yet guaranteed a majority and as the country is facing down a fourth wave of Covid-19.
Chief Public Health Officer Teresa Tam on Thursday reported a strong resurgence in cases of the virus. The number of people being treated in hospital has risen by 12 per cent compared to last week, she told a briefing.
“After several months of declining severity trends, we are now seeing early signs of increase in severe illness,” she said. “Fortunately, the number of deaths remains low.”
The official opposition Conservatives, Mr Trudeau's main rivals, say his spending is excessive and will leave future generations hobbled by debt.
That said, a survey by Abacus on Thursday put the Liberals at 37 per cent and the Conservatives at 28 per cent.
The online poll of 3,000 people, conducted between August 6 and 11, suggests Mr Trudeau could well regain control of the House of Commons. The Liberals currently hold 155 of the 338 seats.
To formally launch the campaign, Mr Trudeau will need to visit Governor General Mary Simon, the personal representative of head of state Queen Elizabeth, to ask that Parliament be dissolved.
That visit is currently planned for Sunday morning, the sources said. Constitutional experts say Ms Simon will agree to the request.
The Liberal party did not immediately respond to a request for comment
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
How Alia's experiment will help humans get to Mars
Alia’s winning experiment examined how genes might change under the stresses caused by being in space, such as cosmic radiation and microgravity.
Her samples were placed in a machine on board the International Space Station. called a miniPCR thermal cycler, which can copy DNA multiple times.
After the samples were examined on return to Earth, scientists were able to successfully detect changes caused by being in space in the way DNA transmits instructions through proteins and other molecules in living organisms.
Although Alia’s samples were taken from nematode worms, the results have much bigger long term applications, especially for human space flight and long term missions, such as to Mars.
It also means that the first DNA experiments using human genomes can now be carried out on the ISS.
