Jonathan Vance, Canada’s chief of the defence staff, Michel\u00a0Coulombe, the head of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, and\u00a0Greta\u00a0Bossenmaier, the country’s top digital spy at the Communications Security Establishment, flew in to Calgary Sunday afternoon to provide briefings on “a range of issues that relate to their files,” a spokesperson said.<\/p>\n
The meeting, billed as a sort of “fireside chat,” comes at at time when relations between Trump and those in the U.S. intelligence community are strained. Trump has criticized leaks about an unconfirmed Russian report<\/a>, while comparing the actions of some agents\u00a0to “Nazi Germany.”<\/p>\n The newly-minted president also earned a strong rebuke this weekend from John Brennan, Obama’s\u00a0outgoing CIA director,\u00a0who said the billionaire businessman “should be ashamed of himself” for standing in front of a memorial for fallen agents<\/a>\u00a0while scolding the media for reports about the size of his inaugural crowds<\/a>.<\/p>\n One of the top billings at the cabinet retreat this week will be a meeting with Stephen Schwarzman, the CEO\u00a0of the Blackstone Group, a top U.S. hedge fund and investment group, who was appointed in December to head Trump’s Strategic and Policy Forum.<\/p>\n The group, a team of economic advisors who will help the president implement his ambitious agenda “to bring jobs back to America,” includes some of the biggest names from\u00a0Wall Street and Silicon Valley.<\/p>\n Schwarzman will counsel cabinet on Trump’s thinking\u00a0and how his promised plan to recast trade deals “could play out,” a Trudeau spokesperson said.<\/p>\n The cabinet will reiterate to Schwarzman a message that has become familiar in Ottawa since Trump’s election, namely that the economic relationship between the countries is too important to imperil as 35 U.S. states call\u00a0Canada their top export destination, the spokesperson said.<\/p>\n Trump told reporters in Washington on Sunday\u00a0that he will soon meet separately\u00a0with both Trudeau and Mexican President\u00a0Enrique Pena Nieto\u00a0to discuss continental affairs.<\/p>\n U.S. President Donald Trump said Sunday he’d soon meet with Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto, left, and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to renegotiate NAFTA. (Henry Romero\/Reuters)<\/p>\n He said he would begin the process of renegotiating\u00a0the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with\u00a0Pena\u00a0Nieto and Trudeau soon, and will address ongoing\u00a0border issues with the Mexican leader.<\/p>\n The White House website, updated since Trump’s inauguration Friday<\/a>, says\u00a0that if Canada and Mexico refuse to accept a renegotiation of NAFTA\u00a0that provides a “fair deal” for U.S.\u00a0workers, then the U.S. will move to withdraw from it entirely.<\/p>\n A spokesperson for the prime minister said a date has not yet been set for a meeting between Trump and Trudeau.<\/p>\n Traditionally, the first foreign trip by a U.S. president is to Canada as it was for former president Barack Obama, who visited Ottawa in early February\u00a02009.<\/p>\n Retired lieutenant-general Andrew Leslie was considered a shoo-in for a cabinet spot when he announced he was running for the Liberals. (Patrick Doyle\/Canadian Press)<\/p>\n Liberal MP Andrew Leslie, who recently left his post as party whip\u00a0to serve as parliamentary secretary to the minister of foreign affairs with a special focus on the Canada-U.S. relationship, is also on the\u00a0trip \u2014 an unusual move\u00a0for a cabinet retreat, which is\u00a0traditionally reserved\u00a0to members of the Privy Council and their chiefs of staff.<\/p>\n Leslie is said to have a good relationship with certain senior members of Trump’s administration, owing to his time as a top general in the Canadian Forces, with experience working abroad with U.S. counterparts who are now serving close to the president, and will be a key ambassador for Trudeau’s government in the coming months.<\/p>\n Before his arrival in Calgary, Trudeau took to Twitter to send a message of support to the tens of thousands of protesters who turned out in cities across the country\u00a0Saturday<\/a>\u00a0to assert women’s rights in an era of uncertainty with the election of a right-leaning and populist president who is seen by some as a threat to the advances women have made in recent years.<\/p>\n\n Congratulations to the women and men across Canada who came out yesterday to support women’s rights. You keep your government inspired.<\/p>\n \u2014 The marches were billed by organizers as a progressive response to Trump’s inauguration \u2014\u00a0a chance to show the president that, despite his victory, there is a formidable alternative.<\/p>\n It is not clear what impact, if any, Trudeau’s tweet will have on his relationship with Trump. The 45th presiden\u00a0and his team are known to actively monitor\u00a0the social media site.<\/p>\n Article source: http:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/news\/politics\/trudeau-cabinet-calgary-trump-1.3947545?cmp=rss<\/a>\r\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his cabinet colleagues have arrived in Calgary for a three-day retreat to ready themselves for the\u00a0realities of governing in the Donald Trump era, and to hear from experts who they’ve tapped to help guide them through a potentially tumultuous time with the new U.S. president. “Discussions throughout the retreat will […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":64220,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[84],"class_list":["post-64219","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-political","tag-political"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64219","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64219"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64219\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/64220"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64219"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64219"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64219"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}‘Renegotiate’ NAFTA<\/h2>\n
![\"USA-ELECTION\/\"](\"http:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/wp-content\/plugins\/RSSPoster_PRO\/cache\/4b8e5_usa-election.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"FedElxn](\"http:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/wp-content\/plugins\/RSSPoster_PRO\/cache\/4b8e5_fedelxn-20151019.jpg\")
<\/p>\nWomen’s March<\/h2>\n
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\n @JustinTrudeau<\/a>\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n