OTTAWA — The federal government is shopping around for a retired federal judge to help guide a renewed consultation with Indigenous communities on the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion.

The Federal Court of Appeal last month quashed the approval given to the project, saying the consultation with Indigenous communities wasn’t good enough and criticizing the lack of attention paid to the environmental impact of increased tanker traffic off the coast of British Columbia.

The Liberals are still considering whether to appeal the decision, but at the same time are looking at how they can do what the court said was lacking in order to get the pipeline work back underway.

An official close to the plan said one option being closely considered is hiring a former senior judge, possibly a retired Supreme Court of Canada justice, to advise the government on what would constitute meaningful consultation with Indigenous communities to satisfy the conditions of the court.

The Liberals intend to announce the next steps in their pipeline plan before the end of September.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Monday night during a live interview event with Maclean’s Magazine that if the pipeline was still privately owned “the project would be dead.”

He said his government has a larger tolerance for risk and wants to get the project done because it is in the country’s interest to get oil resources to markets other than the United States.

“So we say, OK if we do these two things, then we will be able to get it built the right way and that will provide a path for private corporations and private investors to create projects that will follow those kinds of instructions,” said Trudeau.

The government wants to have the pipeline’s fate decided within the next six to eight months so it is no longer an issue for the opposition parties to use against the Liberals in next year’s federal election, or potential fodder for the Alberta Tories against Premier Rachel Notley’s NDP government in May’s provincial election.

An official in Natural Resource Minister Amarjeet Sohi’s office would only say that multiple options were on the table.

Martin Olszynski, a professor in environmental and natural resource law at the University of Calgary, said talk of hiring a Supreme Court judge is usually intended to send a signal that a government is “taking its task seriously.”

“It will be interesting to see what role such a judge will have — whether it will be strictly advisory, or whether they may play a role in mediating the consultations themselves,” he said.

Tories press Liberals in question period

The pipeline project is at a standstill while the government figures out how, or if, it can redo Indigenous and environmental consultations to satisfy the courts.

Canada spent $4.5 billion in August to buy the existing Trans Mountain pipeline and associated assets from Kinder Morgan Canada after political opposition in British Columbia spooked investors enough that the company walked away from the project.

Conservative MP Lisa Raitt demanded in question period that the government explain how it was going to get the project completed, noting that Finance Minister Bill Morneau said the whole point of buying the pipeline was to ensure the expansion got built.

Morneau seemed to confirm the government’s plan is to go back and talk to Indigenous communities another time, as well as do the additional environmental reviews the court wanted.

“We must create international access for our resources and that’s exactly what we’re going to do promptly by listening and having meaningful consultation with Indigenous Canadians and considering environmental impacts that are so important,” Morneau said in the House of Commons.

The Trans Mountain pipeline has carried both raw and refined oil products from Edmonton to a marine terminal in British Columbia for several decades. The expansion plan is to build a second pipeline, roughly parallel to the first, to triple the capacity and carry diluted bitumen from Canada’s oil sands to oil tankers and eventually Asian markets that are currently not Canadian customers.

The pipeline was partly reviewed during the tenure of the previous Conservative government, but after another pipeline was rejected by the courts because of a lack of proper Indigenous consultation, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau pledged to learn from that mistake with this one. In 2016, the government added another round of consultations with Indigenous communities.

The government was extremely confident it had done what the court desired, but in late August found out that was not the case when the Federal Court of Appeal tore up the federal approval certificate.

The court decision is, in many ways, a blueprint for what Canada still needs to do.

“The concerns of the Indigenous applicants, communicated to Canada, are specific and focused,” wrote Justice Eleanor Dawson in the 266-page decision.

“This means that the dialogue Canada must engage in can also be specific and focused.”

OTTAWA — Donald Trump’s administration is giving Canada until Friday to sign onto a bilateral trade deal between the U.S. and Mexico or be treated as “a real outsider” against whom punishing tariffs on autos will be imposed.

But trade experts are dismissing the take-it-or-leave-it threat as political theatre aimed at pressuring Canada to acquiesce, with some even questioning whether the president has the legal authority to pursue a deal that doesn’t include Canada.

And even if he does, some doubt Congress would accept an agreement that excludes the United States’ largest trading partner.

At issue is the trade promotion authority Congress has granted Trump to fast-track renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement. That authority was for a trilateral deal involving all three NAFTA partners, not a bilateral pact between just two of them.

“The Congress gave trade promotion authority to the USTR (United States Trade Representative), to the White House based on a trilateral deal so there are some, including many in Congress who are saying, ‘We’re not going to review a bilateral submission, you don’t have authority for that.’ So they could kick it back to the curb,” says Laura Dawson, director of the Canada Institute at the Wilson Center in Washington.

That said, Dawson says it’s not clear how Congress would respond if Trump were to simultaneously give notice this Friday of a bilateral pact with Mexico and termination of NAFTA.

‘Not clear’ Congress would support bilateral deal: expert

Carleton University political scientist Laura Macdonald agrees the situation is “very murky.”

“Theoretically, they should not be able to just switch to a bilateral deal at the last minute,” she says.

“But on the other hand, the whole system is governed by Congress, so if Congress agrees, I guess theoretically they could go ahead with a bilateral deal. But it’s not clear to me there would be support in Congress for a bilateral deal.”

The Washington Post reported Tuesday that the idea of leaving Canada out of the deal “was met with near universal condemnation” among Republican senators, some of whom maintain Trump does not have congressional authority to turn NAFTA into a two-way deal — a view echoed privately by Canadian officials.

However, Ohio-based trade lawyer Dan Ujczo believes it’s perfectly legal for Trump to turn the trilateral deal into a bilateral one — he just doesn’t think it will happen.

“I see no procedural barrier to a bilateral deal,” he says. “That being said, there are countless political and practical reasons why this will be a trilateral deal.”

The White House intends to send Congress a notice on Friday that it has entered into a trade agreement with Mexico and that Canada might join the pact in the future. Within 30 days, it will have to provide Congress with the full text of the agreement.

Ujczo predicts Congress will give Canada at least those 30 days in which to negotiate its way into the deal. He believes Congress will insist, at least initially, on including Canada, possibly passing a disapproval resolution to signal opposition to the bilateral deal cooked up with Mexico.

“In my view, Congress will hold the line and give Canada as much time as possible to work out its issues with the White House,” he says, adding that “that timeline is not infinite” but better than the few days Trump is currently giving Canada to take it or leave it.

Trade expert Eric Miller, who runs a Washington consulting firm, Rideau Potomac Strategy Group, agrees the Friday deadline set by Trump is not in the cards. Like other experts, he sees the deadline as a “pressure tactic” but not a real threat.

“The reality is you can’t do in three and a half days … what the Mexicans did in five weeks of very intense, non-stop negotiations,” he says. “So this notion that somehow there has to be a deal by Friday is just wrong, I think.”

Negotiations will go for weeks: expert

Dawson says the real question is not whether it’s legally possible to push the bilateral deal through Congress but whether Congress will accept what’s in that deal. Based on the few details released by the Trump administration thus far, she’s doubtful.

“I don’t see this reflecting a full, comprehensive deal, the kind of full, comprehensive deal that U.S. industry and Canada have said they want to see … I don’t see Congress agreeing to that,” she says.

Consequently, Dawson suspects Friday’s deadline will come and go, and negotiations will continue for weeks to come.

“How many times have we had this conversation? We’ve been, ‘Oh, at the eleventh hour something critical is going to happen on the NAFTA’ and (then) it’s like, ‘Oh no, not so much’ and it goes back and resembles a normal trade negotiation.”

TORONTO — Uber Technologies Inc. is revving up its Canadian operations with a new engineering hub in Toronto and the expansion of its self-driving vehicle centre in the city.

On Thursday, during his first visit to the city as Uber’s chief executive officer, Dara Khrosrowshahi announced the hub and expansion and said they will help the San Francisco-based tech giant build and update its infrastructure so it can continue to scale and offer more features and products to riders, drivers and cities.

“At Uber, we recognize Canada’s commitment to innovation and the vibrancy of Toronto’s tech ecosystem,” he said in a statement. “We want to support the innovation coming out of this great, diverse region.”

Khrosrowshahi and the company said the engineering hub — Uber’s eighth outside the U.S. — will be complete by early 2019 and will form the “building blocks” for stronger and faster global deployment of new offerings the company has been toying with like Jump bike and e-scooter rentals, public transit partnerships and Express Pool.

Uber has yet to announce plans to roll out Jump bike and e-scooter rentals in Canada, but Express Pool, which allows Uber customers to share a ride and the cost of the trip with other users travelling similar routes, will be arriving in the country soon, said Khrosrowshahi.

He also announced Uber will invest more than $200 million over the next five years on expanding its Advanced Technologies Group Research & Development Centre in Toronto, which has focused on self-driving vehicles since it opened in May 2017.

Uber’s self-driving vehicle efforts have been marred in controversy since March, when it paused testing of its autonomous cars in Toronto, San Francisco, Phoenix and Pittsburgh after a woman was struck and killed by one of the company’s self-driving vehicles in Tempe, Ariz.

The company decided to shut down the Arizona centre responsible for the fatal test in May, but said it was “doubling down” on its Toronto efforts.

Uber was testing self-driving vehicles in Toronto months prior to the incident, but the cars had not been picking up passengers.

“Building best-in-class self-driving technology will take time, and safety is our priority every step of the way,” the company said on Thursday in a release.

It credited Toronto’s self-driving centre with delivering “significant technical breakthroughs” and advancing the performance and capabilities of Uber’s autonomous fleet.

When the centre’s expansion and construction of the forthcoming engineering hub is complete, Uber said it will have over 500 employees in the city.

We’ve finally seen Meghan Markle’s wedding dress!

Kensington Palace confirmed this morning that British designer Clare Waight Keller is behind Markle’s stunning gown.

The palace noted that Waight Keller became the first female Artistic Director of the fashion house Givenchy last year.

We first got a glimpse of Markle in her wedding dress as she departed Cliveden House in a car with her mother, Doria Ragland, on their way to St. George’s Chapel in Windsor Castle.

According to the palace, the Queen lent Markle the Queen Mary’s diamond bandeau tiara. The tiara was made in 1932, and the brooch in the middle dates to 1893.

“After meeting Ms. Waight Keller in early 2018, Ms. Markle chose to work with her for her timeless and elegant aesthetic, impeccable tailoring, and relaxed demeanour,” the palace said in a statement. “Ms. Markle also wanted to highlight the success of a leading British talent who has now served as the creative head of three globally influential fashion houses — Pringle of Scotland, Chloé, and now Givenchy.”

“Ms. Markle and Ms. Waight Keller worked closely together on the design. The dress epitomises a timeless minimal elegance referencing the codes of the iconic House of Givenchy and showcasing the expert craftsmanship of its world-renowned Parisian couture atelier founded in 1952.”

The pure white gown is made of bonded silk cady and features an open bateau neckline, three-quarter sleeves, and an underskirt in triple silk organza.

The five-metre long veil is made from silk tulle, with hand-embroidered flowers along the trim. Each flora represents a Commonwealth country — 53 in total. Canada is represented by the bunchberry.

“Each flower was worked flat, in three dimensions to create a unique and delicate design,” the palace noted. “The workers spent hundreds of hours meticulously sewing and washing their hands every thirty minutes to keep the tulle and threads pristine.”

“Ms. Markle wanted to express her gratitude for the opportunity to support the work of the Commonwealth by incorporating references to its members into the design of her wedding dress,” the palace said.

In the months leading up to the royal wedding, media outlets predicted a variety of potential designers who could take on the monumental task. Names thrown about included Ralph & Russo, who designed Markle’s engagement dress, Erdem, Victoria Beckham, Stella McCartney and Alexander McQueen.

According to reports, Markle’s BFF, Canadian stylist Jessica Mulroney helped her pick out the gown and advised her on other aspects of the wedding, such as the flowers and decorations, according to The Telegraph.

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It’s also expected that Markle will change into a second outfit between the afternoon and evening receptions.

Earlier this month, Priyanka Chopra, one of Markle’s good friends, hinted that Markle got emotional when she chose her wedding dress.

When asked by Andy Cohen whether Markle cried when she found her gown, Chopra, who is attending the wedding, smile and buried her face in her hands, prompting Cohen to say, “Yes.”

As recreational marijuana legalization looms, some industry insiders are predicting a hot niche in the market for less potent products.

At the centre of the shift is an expected influx of new consumers more interested in dabbling than getting blitzed, creating demand for pot products with lower doses of psychoactive ingredients.

Newer recreational customers 35-54 years old

A report by Deloitte forecasts that legalization on Oct. 17 will bring a consumer into the market who is more risk averse, older and less likely to consume the drug as regularly as existing recreational users.

“Today’s consumer is what we describe as a risk taker. They’re young, typically with a high school or college education. In their quest to live life to the fullest, they’re more likely to put their health or safety at risk, even going so far as to skirt or break the law,” it says.

Newer recreational customers will typically be 35 to 54 years old, and three-quarters of them will have some experience with recreational pot but only 41 per cent will have used it in the last five years, it says.

“This consumer is more of a conservative experimenter — typically middle-aged, with a university or graduate school education. They don’t tend to put their personal interests before family needs or other responsibilities,” the report says.

It says almost half of current consumers say they would move to the legal market if there were more choices in terms of product potency.

Producers are paying attention.

Andrew Pollock, vice-president of marketing for The Green Organic Dutchman said many consumers are asking for products with higher concentrations of non-psychoactive cannabidiol, also know as CBD, rather than tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, which is the main mind-altering ingredient in the plant.

“CBD is becoming kind of an ‘it’ word in cannabis. We see a real trend there,” Pollock said.

Watch: Cannabis compound may reduce psychotic symptoms. Story continues below.

CBD and THC are some of the most common compounds found in marijuana.

Plants with high CBD give more clear-headed relief to symptoms of anxiety, pain and inflammation. THC gives users a “high,” an appetite and relieves symptoms like pain and nausea, Pollock said.

“What we’re finding is more and more consumers are just looking for something to help them relax, to take away the stress, maybe to help them sleep. What most consumers are looking for in this day and age is calm,” he said.

The Green Organic Dutchman is building 130,000 square metres of cultivation facilities in Ontario, Quebec and Jamaica.

CBD, lower-dose THC products already popular

Ali Wasuk, store manager of WestCanna dispensary in Vancouver, says CBD products are already popular among the company’s medical clients, especially older users without recreational experience who are wary “getting high.”

“That crowd was the main one who kind of wanted to dabble, get their feet wet with the lower dose stuff,” he said. “Generally the medical side of it is mainly lower dose THC.”

South of the border, less potent products have already entered a market once dominated by black market pot that packed a punch.

“Products are now being scored and packaged and marked in low doses,” said Tom Adams, managing director of BDS Analytics in Colorado.

Part of that comes as a result of what industry members refer to as the “Maureen Dowd Effect,” he said. The New York Times columnist wrote a piece detailing her experience sampling a cannabis-infused chocolate from one of Colorado’s newly legal pot shops in 2014 that left her “curled in a hallucinatory state” for eight hours in her Denver hotel room.

Since then, the industry has made a concerted effort to cater lower-dose products to new users and emphasize responsible consumption, especially with edibles.

“The industry has very much harped on the theme of, ‘Start low, go slow,’ ” Adams said.

There are also regular users in the market who want to take some edge off without getting high.

“(They say) two milligrams or three milligrams just has a mild relaxing effect and doesn’t interfere with you going about your day,” Adams said.

The shift is occurring mostly at the processing level where the plants are used to create concentrates, oils, edibles and other products, he said.

Some companies are banking on recreational consumers having less fluency in dosages or chemical components and who are instead looking for an “experience.”

Adine Carter, chief marketing officer for High Park, based in a Nanaimo, B.C., said the company is highlighting its recreational products’ effects instead of its medicinal components.

In other words, you can buy “Sun” under its Irisa brand if you want energy or “Earth” for balance and focus.

“It’s a very different approach to product development than the medical products that are geared toward having the patient understand exactly what the potency is for their condition,” Carter said.

“We believe that telling them what the products are designed to do will resonate better with them as consumers.”

Also On HuffPost:

It was barely nine months ago when Meghan Markle told Vanity Fair she’s “always loved [her] freckles,” so it should be no surprise that her beauty marks were proudly on display as she walked down the aisle to marry Prince Harry in Windsor, England on Saturday.

Her minimal, natural-looking makeup came courtesy of her longtime friend Daniel Martin and lasted throughout the ceremony at St. George’s Chapel, and the carriage procession in Windsor.

Martin, a brand ambassador for Dior and a creative colour consultant for Honest Beauty, has been applying Markle’s makeup in an on-and-off capacity for seven years. They first met back in 2011, at a New York City network presentation for her TV show, “Suits,” and they have been close ever since.

The two’s playful bond was made evident in an interview Martin did on Friday with ABC’s 20/20, where he shared that Markle had confirmed her relationship status with Prince Harry by using a “winky face emoji” text.

According to Martin, “She has the best memes.”

But it’s her glowing complexion, pink lips and subtle smoky eye that’s now forever immortalized in both photographs, and perhaps, emojis or memes. Markle highlighted her Cartier diamond earrings by keeping her hair pinned back in a low updo, with the Queen Mary’s diamond bandeau tiara holding it all in place.

As for beauty, her eyes were a big focal point for Martin, who used a slate grey eyeshadow and black eyeliner to accentuate one of her best features, all while boosting her lashes.

Martin also coloured in her Audrey Hepburn-esque eyebrows. Markle sported some sheer foundation too, and a pale pink lip gave her that final bridal polish that was perfect for a May wedding.

This subtle and classic look went hand-in-hand with Markle’s regal and elegant Clare Waight Keller for Givenchy dress. And while Martin was responsible for creating Markle’s beauty vibe, he initially did not realize he was getting the call to be a formal part of her “I do” entourage.

“I was really flattered to know that I was going to be a guest at the wedding and to be able to share this incredible moment with her,” said Martin, on ABC’s 20/20. “I didn’t assume anything, [so] when I got the invitation, of course, I was flattered and so stoked.”

Of course, beyond his friendship with Markle, Martin has the experience to go along with the gig, having collaborated with famous faces including Elisabeth Moss, Rachel McAdams and Priyanka Chopra. His Instagram page also includes a berrylicious video of Markle from her pre-royal days.

Markle’s simple, sheer wedding look was the toast of social media, with one user writing, “Meghan showed what a no makeup makeup look is SUPPOSED to look like.”

Harper’s Bazaar reports that the list of makeup products that Martin used for Markle’s nuptials have not yet been released, but speculates that several Dior items, including Dior’s Backstage Face and Body Foundation, were used.