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The Lead

La Presse is reporting that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will only participate in two of the five major leaders’ debates scheduled for this fall’s election campaign.

Citing sources, the outlet reports that Trudeau will only take part in the English and French language debates organized by the new federal Leaders’ Debates Commission, while skipping out debates organized by Maclean’s/Citytv, TVA and the Munk Debates, the latter of which will focus on foreign affairs.

Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer, the NDP’s Jagmeet Singh and the Greens’ Elizabeth May have all accepted invitations for the Munk and Maclean’s/Citytv debates.

In Canada

The Federal Court of Appeal has ruled that six appeals to cabinet’s approval of the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion can proceed. Those legal challenges all focus on consultations with affected Indigenous communities.

Justice David Stratas gave approval for the applications for judicial review in a ruling issued Wednesday, while dismissing six others.

The federal government didn’t take any position on the applications because it considered the threshold to win approval from the court to be “quite low,” though the Alberta government successfully won intervener status in the case and opposed all 12 applications, according to Stratas’ ruling. Marco Vigliotti reports.

Dominic Barton on Wednesday was named Canada’s new ambassador to China, with the Trudeau government filling the important diplomatic post that has sat vacant for most of 2019 only days before an expected election call.

The Prime Minister’s Office announced the appointment in a statement hailing Barton’s business and public service experience, including chairing Finance Minister Bill Morneau’s Advisory Council on Economic Growth. Vigliotti has this story too.

The Canadian Press is reporting that ousted Liberal candidate Hassan Guillet says he met with officials from the federal party on Aug. 8 to discuss controversial old social media posts that would eventually cost him his nomination and they reassured him they were convinced he was neither racist not anti-Semitic.

But the party revoked his nomination in Montreal’s Saint-Leonard-Saint-Michel riding last Friday after Jewish advocacy group B’nai Brith unearthed a series of old statements he made on social media that they described as anti-Israel and anti-Semitic.

Guillet said he and the Liberals had already discussed an action plan that involved outreach to the media and the Jewish community to counter any bad press, and claimed that action plan was to be set in motion the day he was sacked. He maintained that the party knew or should have known about the social media posts when they first approached him to run for them in 2017.

The federal government announced $57 million in new funding to combat human trafficking on Wednesday, and a new national plan that includes the appointment of a special adviser on human trafficking and an advisory committee made up of former victims.

The federal funds will be spread over five years, with the government pledging another $10 million per year from that point onward. Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale made the announcement in Regina, on the cusp of the federal election. Victoria Gibson reports.

Gibson also takes a hard look at each of the major federal parties’ climate policies and pledges, and the contentious debate around carbon pricing heading into this fall’s election.

A Quebec senator is urging his colleagues on the chamber’s legal and constitutional affairs committee to reject a call from the Conservatives to have Ethics Commissioner Mario Dion testify before them about his SNC-Lavalin report.

Independent Sen. Pierre J. Dalphond says the Senate committee doesn’t have enough time before the dissolution of Parliament, expected in the coming days, to “properly consider” Dion’s report on the controversy and to “draft a report [worthy] of a place [of] sober second thought.” Vigliotti reports.

The Drilldown: Greens won’t prop up minority government based on current climate plans

The Sprout: New Ambassador to China named

In Other Headlines

Jane Philpott stands by commitment she made as a Liberal not to oppose abortion (Canadian Press)

Race a factor in NDP’s poor outlook in N.B. ahead of election: ex-party executive (Canadian Press)

Internationally

MPs in the U.K. have blocked Prime Minister Boris Johnson from calling a new election, amid ongoing Brexit turmoil.

Johnson wanted MPs to agree to an early general election on Oct. 15 after they supported a bill that would force him to ask for an extension from the European Union to the Brexit deadline if no deal had been reached by the Oct. 31 deadline. He said the legislation left him unable to negotiate a deal.

He needed two thirds of all MPs to vote in favour under the Fixed Term Parliaments Act for the early election, but only 298 did, 136 short of the number he needed, BBC News reports.

Before tonight’s CNN town-hall about climate change, three more Democratic presidential candidates have revealed climate plans that would cost trillions and require a complete overhaul of the “American energy economy.”

All previous supporters of the Green New Deal, Kamala Harris of California, Cory Booker of New Jersey, and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts rolled out their own climate plans Wednesday, joining fellow presidential hopefuls Bernie Sanders, Joe Biden, and Beto O’Rourke.

While each of the new climate proposals have different costs — ranging from $1 trillion to $10 trillion — each “promises to rejoin the Paris climate agreement, to create new jobs through investment in renewable and other carbon-free energy, and to bar new fossil-fuel leases for government lands,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

In Featured Opinion

(PREMIUM ELECTION SUBSCRIBERS ONLY) Maggi: Populism in Canada is failing

The Kicker

Apparently, you can pick up some useful life skills by grabbing a controller and diving into the latest Mario game.

At least, that’s what school administrators in the United Kingdom are claiming.

Digital Schoolhouse is a not-for-profit scheme, supported by Nintendo and backed by the U.K. government, that uses video games to help teach computing and other life skills to young people, Sky News reports.

Kalpesh Tailor, head of communications at Nintendo UK, said the program, which is also backed by gaming industry trade body Ukie, would “inspire the next generation of young minds across the UK.”

Until tomorrow.