Well, that was anticlimactic. Tuesday’s Speech from the Throne turned out pretty thin—short on length and short on substance, too, despite all the big themes the Liberal government signalled to in their parliamentary scene-setter. The warning that “Earth is in danger” made it into a Globe and Mail headline, sure, but that statement didn’t come with any major adjustment of the Liberal climate plan. Not a very ambitious outing for a crew that was not so long ago claiming September’s pandemic-era election was the “most important” in our lifetimes.
Long on pomp: Our Shannon Proudfoot watched the ceremony in person. Her deft analysis tracks Trudeau-era throne speeches, points out Liberal defensiveness on inflation and sums it up as a “polished and sanded version of reality”:
Long on pomp, symbolism and positive spin, short on specifics or the blunt acknowledgement of any unpleasantness, the Throne Speech perhaps resembles nothing so much as a stereotypical family Christmas letter: Dear family and friends, here is what we celebrated this year and what we hope for next year. In those things, job losses are recast as a “change of career,” mortal illness is nodded at with hope and optimism, and the strain and messiness of family life is airbrushed into tidy, appealing vignettes suitable for someone else’s fridge door.
If you’re looking for the Coles Notes, here’s a handy list of five takeaways from yours truly, including which key campaign promises were repeated in the speech—and why Governor General Mary Simon makes the same old promises on reconciliation sound a little different. That’s a theme expanded on in our image of the week post, which also gets you a look at (we can’t resist) the governor general’s very cool hair.
Ouch: It’s not shocking to see Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s rivals panning the speech, but the colour commentary sounded especially exasperated this time around. The NDP’s Jagmeet Singh accused the government of running “out of ideas” and “out of steam”—though we’d be surprised if he found within it any poison pills to vote against. The Bloc’s Yves-François Blanchet said it was full of “buzzwords” but had nothing else to say, and could’ve been written by a college student. “This government’s platitudes are becoming barriers to real action,” Conservative leader Erin O’Toole said.
Threading needles: Conservative whip Blake Richards brought forward a point of privilege Tuesday afternoon on the House of Commons vaccine mandate that requires MPs to be double-vaxxed to enter the building (or have a medical exemption plus a recent negative test result). It’s the fruition of a Conservative promise to challenge the way the policy was handed down—not with a vote of the full House of Commons but with a decision by a small group of MPs who sit on the Board of Internal Economy, whose meetings aren’t made public. Despite suspicions across the aisle, Richards insists they’re not looking to question the role of vaccines in fighting the pandemic.
“This question of privilege doesn’t relate in any way to disputing vaccines, or their very vital role in conquering the COVID-19 pandemic,” Richards said, as reported by CTV News. “What I’m questioning here is the jurisdiction of the board to be able to make that decision.”
Coming down the pipes: TC Energy is asking for U.S. government compensation, by way of arbitration, after the Biden administration cancelled the Keystone XL expansion project. … And Alberta legislators spent time Tuesday debating a motion to condemn David Suzuki for the pipeline comments we caught you up on in yesterday’s newsletter.
Going down the pipes? Tuesday’s dumbest Canadian politics fight came thanks to a tweet from O’Toole that pointed out the rising cost of groceries with an image of “one of the most important meals of the day.” (It’s gotta be in the top three, at least.) Former Trudeau principal secretary Gerry Buttsasked if the full breakfast came with a defibrillator on the side. And. Well. Sigh.
Tuesday’s Speech from the Throne was intended to lay out the Trudeau government’s plan to, as the Liberals like to say in their public communications, “keep moving Canada forward.” But at least one constituency following the speech felt a distinct lack of progress by the time the Governor General wrapped up her address.
Academics, researchers and community advocates worried by swelling rates of food insecurity and the rising cost of living were watching closely, hoping the government would promise substantive moves to help the one in seven Canadians now struggling to access sufficient amounts of nutritious food. Their hopes had risen after last year’s Throne Speech, which signalled support to address surging rates of food insecurity, strengthening local food supply chains, supporting farmers in building resilience against climate change and protecting Canadian and migrant workers who play an indispensable role in the food system.
But as the list of this year’s commitments and aspirations unfurled, disappointment set in. There was no direct mention of food insecurity; the labour shortage in the agriculture and agri-food industry; the impacts of climate change on Canada’s food supply or financial assistance for millions of employed Canadians who fall below the poverty line.
The speech did commit for the Canada Child Benefit (CCB) monthly payment amount to be adjusted for inflation, claiming it had “already helped lift hundreds of thousands of children out of poverty.” But research from PROOF, an interdisciplinary research group examining food insecurity in Canada, had previously found that the monthly amount for the CCB was not sufficient in bringing hundreds of thousands of households out of food insecurity, the root cause of which is poverty.
“I’m dismayed by the continued rhetoric around the CCB being an effective poverty reduction tool,” said Valerie Tarasuk, who leads the PROOF research team tracking rates of food insecurity. “There are debates surrounding how many people really got moved out of poverty as a result of this the benefit, but there’s no debate about the fact that we still have a horrific problem of food insecurity and families of children.”
The speech also committed to “combatting hate and racism with a renewed Anti-Racism strategy”—and it is true that food insecurity is an issue that differs across racial lines. Recent research conducted by PROOF and FoodShare Toronto found that Black, Indigenous, and racialized communities are more likely to be food insecure than white Canadians.
“When we’re thinking about how we approach solutions [to food insecurity], we not only have to think about income,” said Melana Roberts, a board member at Food Secure Canada. “We also have to think along racial equity lines and understand how an anti-racism approach is a critical piece in building healthier, more sustainable communities, which were key priorities in the Throne Speech.”
Still, without evidence-based income policy solutions, the “food insecurity crisis” is only going to get worse, Roberts said. “We’re not going to see the significant benefits in the commitments around disaggregated race-based data, commitments around an Indigenous-led approach to mental health interventions, or the benefits of investment in housing unless we also see an anti-racism and a decolonization lens across the board.”
The Throne Speech was heavily sprinkled with calls to action—action on reconciliation, action on collective health and well-being, action on climate change, action on rising prices and action on systemic racism. But advocates have heard many of those calls before.
“Action would look like creating new political frameworks that would support regenerative food systems or agriculture,” said Dawn Morrison, founder and curator of the Working Group on Indigenous Food Sovereignty, who thought the speech fell short in addressing the depth of social justice issues that lie at the heart of climate action and reconciliation.
Morrison says viewing climate change through the lens of food is vital, “because drivers of climate change exist in the food system.”
“We need a new framework for thinking of the food system beyond the settler-colonial narrative of just agriculture,” Morrison added. “Of course, agriculture feeds a lot of people. But the model of agriculture that dominates is having serious impacts on the climate and was designed to favour the top one per cent of the corporations who control the food system.”
[Speaking in Inuktitut] Congratulations to each of you and welcome to the new Parliamentarians who will together with their colleagues make their mark on Canada.
[Speaking in English] I would like to acknowledge that we are gathered on the unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinabe people. This land acknowledgement is not a symbolic declaration. It is our true history. In each of your own ridings, I encourage you to seek out the truth, and to learn about the lived realities in First Nations, Inuit and Métis communities. Although each community is distinct, we all share a desire to chart a way forward together towards reconciliation.
[Speaking in French]
The discovery of unmarked graves of children who died in the residential school system shows how the actions of governments and institutions of the past have devastated Indigenous peoples, and continue to impact them today. We cannot hide from these discoveries. They open deep wounds. Despite the profound pain, there is hope. Already, I have seen how Canadians are committed to reconciliation. Indigenous peoples are reclaiming our history, stories, culture and language through action. Non-Indigenous peoples are coming to understand and accept the truth impact of the past and the pain suffered by generations of Indigenous peoples. Together, they are walking the path towards reconciliation.
We must turn the guilt we carry into action. Action on reconciliation. Action on our collective health and wellbeing. Action on climate change.
[Speaking in Inuktitut]
Action on reconciliation. Action on our collective health and wellbeing. Action on climate change.
[Speaking in French]
Action on reconciliation. Action on our collective health and wellbeing. Action on climate change.
Our earth is in danger. From a warming Arctic to the increasing devastation of natural disasters, our land and our people need help. We must move talk into action and adapt where we must. We cannot afford to wait. From the grief and pain of residential schools to the fear of threats to our natural environment to the profound impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, this year has been hard on all of us.
[Speaking in English]
I want to thank all workers across Canada, especially those in health care, for their efforts to keep us safe and healthy, and offer my deepest condolences to those who have experienced loss of loved ones during the pandemic. It has touched us all, including those in this chamber who lost a cherished colleague just a few days ago, Senator Forest-Niesing.
[Speaking in French]
To her family and to all of you, my deepest sympathies.
The pandemic has shown us that we need to put a focus on mental health in the same way as physical wellbeing because they are inseparable. As you begin this 44th Parliament of Canada and as we recover from the effects of the pandemic and build a better relationship between Indigenous peoples and non-Indigenous peoples, I urge you to transform discussion into concrete results for us and for our country.
[Speaking in Inuktitut]
Collaborate with and listen to each other.
[Speaking in English]
Collaborate with and listen to each other.
[Speaking in French]
Collaborate with and listen to each other.
[Speaking in Inuktitut]
Listen to the diverse voices who speak a multitude of languages and who shape this country.
[Speaking in English]
Listen to the diverse voices who speak a multitude of languages and who shape this country.
[Speaking in French]
Listen to the diverse voices who speak a multitude of languages and who shape this country.
Confronting the hard questions will not always be easy or comfortable, and it will require conviction, but it is necessary. The outcome will be a sustainable, united Canada for you, for me, for our children and for every generation to come.
[Speaking in English]
As we speak, British Columbians are facing immeasurable challenges as their homes, their communities and their well-being are impacted by terrible flooding. But in a time of crisis, we know how Canadians respond. We step up and we are there for each other. And the government will continue to be there for the people of British Columbia.
In 2020, the Canadians did not know they would face the crisis of a once-in-a-century pandemic. But, as always, no one should be surprised by how Canadians responded. We adapted. We helped one another. And we stayed true to our values. Values like compassion, courage and determination. Values like democracy. And in this difficult time, Canadians made a democratic choice. Their direction is clear: not only do they want Parliamentarians to work together to put this pandemic behind us, they also want bold, concrete solutions to meet other challenges that we face. Growing an economy that works for everyone. Fighting climate change. Moving forward on a path of reconciliation. Making sure our communities are safe, healthy and inclusive.
Yes, the decade got off to an incredibly difficult start, but this is the time to rebuild. This is the moment for Parliamentarians to work together to get big things done and shape a better future for our kids.
[Speaking in French]
This is the moment to build a healthier today and tomorrow. Priority number one remains getting the pandemic under control. The best way to do that is vaccination.
[Speaking in English]
Already, the government has mandated vaccination for federal and federally-regulated workers, and for everyone travelling within Canada by plane, train or ship. It has also ensured a standardized Canadian proof of vaccination for domestic and international use. The government is securing next generation COVID-19 vaccines, boosters and doses for kids from 5 to 11. And around the world, Canada will continue working with its partners to ensure fair and equitable access to vaccines and other resources.
To build a healthy future, we must also strengthen our healthcare system and public health supports for all Canadians, especially seniors, veterans, persons with disabilities, vulnerable members of our communities, and those who have faced discrimination by the very system that is meant to heal.
There is work to be done. On accessibility. On care in rural communities. On delayed procedures. On mental health and addictions treatment. On long-term care. On improving data collection across health systems to inform future decisions and get the best possible results. The government will work collaboratively with provinces, territories and other partners to deliver real results on what Canadians need.
This is the moment to grow a more resilient economy. The best thing we can do for the economy remains ending the pandemic for good. But as we do, we should rebuild an economy that works for everyone. At the height of the lockdowns, the Government made historic, necessary investments so families could keep paying the rent and small businesses could stay afloat.
Now, with one of the most successful vaccination campaigns in the world, and employment back to pre-pandemic levels, the Government is moving to more targeted support, while prudently managing spending. To ensure no one is left behind, support will be extended or added for industries that continue to struggle. At the same time, the government will also continue making life more affordable for all Canadians.
Inflation is a challenge that countries around the world are facing. And while Canada’s economic performance is better than many of our partners, we must keep tackling the rising cost of living. To do that, the government’s plan includes two major priorities: housing and child care. Whether it is building more units per year, increasing affordable housing, or ending chronic homelessness, the government is committed to working with its partners to get real results. For example, the Housing Accelerator Fund will help municipalities build more and better, faster. The government will also help families buy their first home sooner with a more flexible First-Time Home Buyer’s Incentive, a new Rent-to-Own program, and by reducing the closing costs for first-time buyers.
[Speaking in French]
Supporting families will make life more affordable for the middle-class and people working hard to join it.
[Speaking in English]
The Canada Child Benefit has already helped lift hundreds of thousands of children out of poverty and will continue increasing to keep up with the cost of living.
The government will also continue building the first-ever Canada-wide early learning and child care system. By the end of 2022, average fees for regulated child care will be cut in half in most of the provinces and territories. And in some places, this will even happen as early as the start of the year. Families will save thousands of dollars.
Four jurisdictions have not yet reached agreements on child care. Two are territories with unique infrastructure challenges, and the government will keep working together to ensure we meet the needs of the North. The government will continue working with the remaining two provinces to finalize agreements that will deliver $10-a-day child care for families who so badly need it. Investing in affordable child care—just like housing—is not just good for families. It helps grow the entire economy. And so does immigration. That is why the government will continue increasing immigration levels and reducing wait times, while supporting family reunification and delivering a world-leading refugee resettlement program.
This is the moment for bolder climate action. Building a resilient economy means investing in people. But the work does not stop here. After all, growing the economy and protecting the environment go hand in hand. By focusing on innovation and good, green jobs and by working with like-minded countries, we will build a more resilient, sustainable and competitive economy. As a country, we want to be leaders in producing the world’s cleanest steel, aluminum, building products, cars and planes. Not only do we have the raw materials and energy to do that, most importantly, we have skilled, hard-working Canadians to power these industries.
As we move forward on the economy of the future, no worker or region will be left behind. The government will bring together provinces, territories, municipalities, and Indigenous communities, as well as labour and the private sector, to tap into global capital and attract investors. Canada will emerge from this generational challenge stronger and more prosperous.
[Speaking in French]
The government is taking real action to fight climate change. Now, we must go further, faster.
[Speaking in English]
That means moving to cap and cut oil and gas sector emissions, while accelerating our path to a 100 per cent net-zero electricity future. Investing in public transit and mandating the sale of zero emissions vehicles will help us breathe cleaner air. Increasing the price on pollution while putting more money back in Canadians’ pockets will deliver a cleaner environment and a stronger economy.
Protecting our land and oceans will address biodiversity loss. In this work, the government will continue to strengthen its partnership with First Nations, Inuit and Métis, to protect nature and respect their traditional knowledge. Creating the Canada Water Agency will safeguard that vital resource and support our farmers. And to address the realities communities across the country already face, the government will also strengthen action to prevent and prepare for floods, wildfires, droughts, coastline erosion and other extreme weather worsened by climate change. The government will be there to build back in communities devastated by these events. This will include the development of Canada’s first-ever National Adaptation Strategy.
[Speaking in Inuktitut]
This is the moment to fight harder for safer communities. While we address climate change. While we fight COVID-19 and its consequences. While we grow our economy for everyone. We cannot turn away from other challenges.
[Speaking in English]
This is the moment to fight harder for safer communities. While we address climate change. While we fight COVID-19 and its consequences. While we grow our economy for everyone. We cannot turn away from other challenges.
Gun violence is on the rise in many of our biggest cities. While investing in prevention and supporting the work of law enforcement, we must also continue to strengthen gun control. The government has taken important actions like introducing lifetime background checks. The government will now put forward measures like a mandatory buyback of banned assault-style weapons and move forward with any province or territory that wants to ban handguns.
During the pandemic, we have also seen an unacceptable rise in violence against women and girls. The government is committed to moving forward with a 10-year National Action Plan on gender-based violence, and will continue to support organizations providing critical services. When someone in our country is targeted because of their gender, or who they love, or where they come from, the way they pray, the language they speak, or the colour of their skin, we are all diminished. Everyone should be—and feel—safe.
The government will continue combatting hate and racism, including with a renewed Anti-Racism Strategy. This is the moment to stand up for diversity and inclusion. Canadians understand that equity, justice and diversity are the means and the ends to living together. Fighting systemic racism, sexism, discrimination, misconduct and abuse, including in our core institutions, will remain a key priority.
The government will also continue to reform the criminal justice system and policing. This is the moment to rebuild for everyone. The government will continue to invest in the empowerment of Black and racialized Canadians, and Indigenous peoples. It will also continue to fight harmful content online, and stand up for LGBTQ2 communities while completing the ban on conversion therapy.
[Speaking in French]
As Canadians are two official languages are part of who we are. It is essential to support official language minority communities and to protect and promote French, outside and inside Quebec. The government will reintroduce the proposed Act for the Substantive Equality of French and English and the strengthening of the Official Languages Act.
[Speaking in English]
To support Canadian culture and creative industries, the government will also reintroduce legislation to reform the Broadcasting Act and ensure web giants pay their fair share for the creation and promotion of Canadian content.
This is the moment to move faster on the path of reconciliation. This year, Canadians were horrified by the discovery of unmarked graves at former residential schools. We know that reconciliation cannot come without truth. As the government continues to respond to the Calls to Action, it will invest in that truth, including with the creation of a national monument to honour survivors, and with the appointment of a Special Interlocutor to further advance justice on residential schools. To support communities, the government will also invest significantly in a distinction-based mental health and wellness strategy, guided by Indigenous peoples, survivors and their families.
Everyone in our country deserves to be safe. That is why the government will accelerate work with Indigenous partners to address the national tragedy of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls and 2SLGBTQQIA+ People. The government will also make sure communities have the support they need to keep families together, while ensuring fair and equitable compensation for those harmed by the First Nations Child and Family Services program.
Reconciliation requires a whole-of-government approach, breaking down barriers, and rethinking how to accelerate our work. Whether it is eliminating all remaining long-term drinking water advisories or implementing the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, the government is committed to closing the gaps that far too many First Nations, Inuit and Métis communities still face today.
[Speaking in French]
This is the moment to fight for a secure, just and equitable world.
[Speaking in English]
The last 19 months have underscored that we live in a deeply interconnected world. Canada must stand up on the pressing challenges of our time, through our own commitments and by increasing our engagement with international partners, coalitions, and organizations. In the face of rising authoritarianism and great power competition, Canada must reinforce international peace and security, the rule of law, democracy and respect for human rights.
Canada’s prosperity—and middle class jobs—depend on preserving and expanding open, rules-based trade and ensuring our supply chains are strong and resilient. At home, the government will continue to protect Canadians from threats to our communities, our society and our democracy. A changing world requires adapting and expanding diplomatic engagement. Canada will continue working with key allies and partners, while making deliberate efforts to deepen partnerships in the Indo-Pacific and across the Arctic.
Increasing Canada’s foreign assistance budget each year, and investing in sustainable, equitable and feminist development that benefits the world’s most vulnerable and promotes gender equality will continue to be priorities. We will always stand up for a brighter future for all.
[Speaking in French]
This decade is still young. With compassion, courage and determination, we have the power to make it better than how it started. But, that can only happen by standing together.
[Speaking in English]
Parliamentarians, never before has so much depended on your ability to deliver results for Canada. That is what people expect and need from you. In relation to ending this pandemic, their priorities for this 44thParliament are clear: a more resilient economy, and a cleaner and healthier future for all of our kids. I do not doubt that you will honour the trust that has been placed in you.
Members of the House of Commons, you will be asked to appropriate the funds to carry out the services and expenditures authorized by Parliament. Members of the Senate and Members of the House of Commons, may you be equal to the profound trust bestowed on you by Canadians, and may Divine Providence guide you in all your duties.
Nothing to see here, folks. Well. Nothing surprising, anyway. While Speeches from the Throne are sometimes used to announce major new initiatives, that was not the case on Tuesday, as Liberals previewed their priorities for the new Parliament.
We saw, instead, the repetition of promises from a couple of months ago, and statements of values that are very well understood as Liberal mainstays. Even to the point that the much-mocked phrase “the middle class and people working hard to join it” earned a mention.
It’s a cautious approach that reflects the minority situation in Parliament and seems to lay the groundwork for easy cooperation with the New Democrats in the House.
Here are a few key takeaways.
The speech sounds like the Liberal campaign platform
Coming in at just over 2,700 words, this short Throne Speech broadly resembles what the Liberals were promising in September’s election campaign. There are seven sections, on health, the economy, climate, public safety, diversity, reconciliation and foreign policy.
The pandemic is still billed as “priority number one,” but the only new promise there is a vague assertion that “support will be extended or added for industries that continue to struggle.”
Highlights from the Liberal housing plan, including a Housing Accelerator Fund and a Rent-to-Own program, earn mentions.
On climate, though urgent language is used, the actual policies proposed here are those from the campaign: caps to oil- and gas-sector greenhouse gas emissions; a “100 per cent net zero electricity future;” zero-emission vehicle mandates and the creation of a Canada Water Agency and National Adaptation Strategy.
There is a promise to move forward with the mandatory buyback of banned assault-style weapons, to “move forward with any province or territory that wants to ban handguns,” and to continue with “a renewed Anti-Racism Strategy.”
And, of course, Liberals are continuing their efforts to negotiate child-care deals with the remaining provinces and territories that haven’t signed on (Ontario, New Brunswick, Nunavut and the Northwest Territories).
Someone needs a dance partner
There’s a bit of creative framing near the beginning of Tuesday’s Speech from the Throne. “Canadians made a democratic choice,” it reads, alluding to a federal election that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau ostensibly called to secure himself a majority, but from which the governing Liberals emerged with more-or-less the same mandate they already had. “Their direction is clear: not only do they want Parliamentarians to work together to put this pandemic behind us, they also want bold, concrete solutions to meet the other challenges we face.”
There’s much debate to be had about whether Liberals really did get a “clear” direction from the minority of Canadians who voted them, grudgingly, back into power.
What is clear—and wholly unsurprising—is that Liberals are presenting a vision that Jagmeet Singh and his NDP caucus can broadly get behind as the government looks for voting partners in the House of Commons. There do not seem to be any poison pills here that would impede their collaboration. Neither does there seem to be any attempt to move closer to the Conservative Party or seek its support.
Legislation will pick up where it left off
In a speech that’s supposedly about the agenda of Parliament, the word “legislation” is only said once, in the context of the reintroduction of controversial Bill C-10, a renewal of the Broadcasting Act that the government says would “ensure web giants pay their fair share for the creation and promotion of Canadian content.”
The speech also promises to reintroduce an Act for the Substantive Equality of French and English, and “complete” a ban on conversion therapy, legislation which was still making its way through the Senate when the election was called.
Liberals aren’t promising to put any specific new bills on the table just yet, though many of their promises will require legislative changes.
The promises on reconciliation are the same. The messenger is not.
There are no new promises herein on “reconciliation,” a word that appears eight times in the speech. And there is nothing particularly novel about the way the government’s pledges to Indigenous peoples are written.
But the same promises we have heard this government deliver over many years—to end boil water advisories, to ensure “equitable compensation” for those harmed in child services programs, to implement the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples—seem to carry more symbolic weight in this Throne Speech.
Coming from Canada’s first Indigenous governor general, an opening land acknowledgement sounds less rote. It is not a “symbolic declaration,” Simon says in the speech. “It is our true history. In each of your own ridings”—it’s a speech to MPs, after all—“I encourage you to seek out the truth, and to learn about the lived realities in First Nations, Inuit and Métis communities.”
A mention of victims of the residential school system comes even before talk of climate change or the pandemic. The preamble comes with a call to “turn the guilt we carry into action.”
Of course, that Simon was the messenger does not necessarily have an impact on the government’s ability to do better on this file. But it might add to the pressure.
Foreign policy is still an afterthought
We wouldn’t expect a Throne Speech to contain detailed foreign policy priorities. But it does strike us as weak sauce that the speech’s ultimate section is devoted to the “fight for a secure, just and equitable world,” yet contains so little substance.
There is a line that warns of “rising authoritarianism and great power competition,” but after a strained Three Amigos Summit, there’s no mention of the United States or Mexico. There’s no mention of China. We are left to divine what the speech is trying to say when it ensures that Canadians will be protected from “threats to our communities, our society and our democracy.”
Aside from the existing priority to increase foreign assistance budgets, pat support for “rules-based trade” and “strong and resilient” supply chains and a promise to devote “deliberate efforts” to deepening Indo-Pacific and Arctic partnerships, there’s squat on this government’s vision for where Canada sits in the world. Not much for new Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly to go on.
The gang’s all back: Gone was the large Zoom screen and swaths of empty seats. The first day of Parliament’s 44th session featured a basically full house of MPs for the first time since mid-March 2020. Members and observers alike seemedhappy to be back. All wore masks, and while the seating order isn’t ideal for social distancing, it cannot possibly be any worse than the classrooms millions of Canadian children have sat in for months.
The sea of returning and rookie MPs was most conspicuous in the Conservative benches, after much speculation that Parliamentary rules on COVID vaccination proof would keep some MPs out. Virtually all Conservatives were in attendance, and save for Richard Lehoux (who tested positive) the few others were away for travel or other non-COVID reasons. Aides announced that all of Erin O’Toole’s MPs were either vaccinated or had medical exemptions, though it remained unclear how many were in each camp.
This gave Government House Leader Mark Holland room to pour more salt on this Conservative wound; he noted that the odds that multiple MPs would qualify for medical exemptions is statistically “extraordinarily low,” given that only 1 in 20,000 would normally have legitimate medical reasons to not get immunized. Candice Bergen, deputy Conservative leader, said the Liberal was “disparaging the House of Commons officials and medical experts tasked with overseeing the vaccination verification process,” CTV News reported.
Duly reelected and redragged: After an election that changed so little in the House of Commons, it stood to reason that the Speakers’ election would deliver a status-quo result as well. Anthony Rota, the sixth-term Liberal MP for Nipissing–Timiskaming, was reelected in the secret preferential ballot against six MPs from various parties. It will be his second term occupying Commons’ biggest, greenest chair—and a residence known as The Farm in the Gatineau Hills—after first getting the post after the 2019 election, when he beat the incumbent Geoff Regan. After he was ceremonially dragged through the Commons by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Opposition Leader (he feigned going limp a few times, he sprinkled his victory speech not only with comfortable French and English, but also Italian and Ojibwa.
It will remain a mystery how the other Speaker candidates fared in their peers’ voting. Among them, Conservative MP Joël Godin and New Democrat MP Carol Hughes were unsuccessful in 2019.
Simon says: While the House of Commons had most of the fun ceremonial proceedings on Monday, the pomp and ornate hats shift Tuesday to the Senate chambers, where Gov.-Gen. Mary Simon will deliver her first throne speech at 1 p.m. This is not one with particularly high expectations around it, given the fact the Liberals’ agenda was already laid out by the party election platform. Government House Leader Mark Holland already laid out much of the Liberals’ immediate legislative priorities—bills on conversion therapy, extended pandemic benefits, 10-day paid sick leave and protecting health workers from harassment, all to be passed by the time the House calls it a calendar year on Dec. 22.
Speculation about what’s in the vice-regal address is fairly low-key—many attempts at French by Simon? Hastily added lines about the flooding disaster in B.C.?—but it’s now abundantly safe to say this will not be the Commonwealth’s worst major political speech of the week. Take a bow (and don’t fall on your face in so doing), U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson. From The Guardian:
Boris Johnson has been criticised by senior business leaders and Conservative MPs for a “rambling” speech to top industry figures that saw him extensively praise Peppa Pig World, compare himself to Moses and imitate the noise of an accelerating car…
He said that “the true driver of growth is not the government”, but the private sector, whose energy and originality the prime minister praised. To illustrate this, he explained: “Yesterday I went, as we all must, to Peppa Pig World. Hands up if you’ve been to Peppa Pig World! “I loved it. Peppa Pig World is very much my kind of place. It has very safe streets, discipline in schools, heavy emphasis on new mass transit systems. Even if they’re a bit stereotypical about Daddy Pig.”
Johnson also imitated the sound of an accelerating car with grunts that the official Downing Street release transcribed as “arum arum aaaaaaaaag”.
Manitoba also has a throne speech Tuesday, the governmental reset by newly minted Premier Heather Stefanson, sworn in two weeks ago to replace Tory Brian Pallister. And don’tcha know, vaccination rules are also causing stress in the legislative chambers over in Winnipeg.
Build back or bust: The landslides and floods in British Columbia have soundly discredited the false dichotomies: the greens versus the bean counters, safety of the planet versus Canadians’ pocketbooks, writes Rick Smith of the Canadian Institute for Climate Choices. This climate disaster has been an economic disaster to supply chains and businesses. Smith observes in Maclean’s:
It’s clear from looking at the washed-out highways and rail lines in B.C. that we need a huge investment in climate-resilient infrastructure. B.C.’s current crisis shows that such investment is the most cost-effective way to protect the services that people and businesses depend on. Canada already has an infrastructure deficit, with governments, utilities, businesses and homeowners already struggling to keep what already exists in good condition; we need to ensure that this deficit is addressed with future-fit, low-carbon infrastructure that builds for the climate of today and tomorrow.
Speaking of climate change, Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault delivered his own report from COP26 in Canada’s National Observer. It was his 19th climate summit; the previous ones he attended as a climate activist. You’ll be no doubt shocked to hear how proud he is of what Canada’s doing now. While he insists this isn’t time for victory laps, it does appear time for back-patting: “Amid the ups and downs of summit diplomacy, one thing stood out that I wasn’t fully prepared for in Glasgow. Inside those negotiating rooms, and behind the closed doors of my bilateral meetings, I heard a genuine appreciation and respect for the constructive role Canada is playing in the climate fight.”
Far, far, from inside the corridors of environmental decision-making, David Suzuki raised the spectre of violent destruction by activists if politicians don’t act. “We’re in deep, deep doo-doo,” the legendary environmentalist told an Extinction Rebellion protest on Vancouver Island this weekend. “This what we’re come to, the next stage after this, there are going to be pipelines blown up if our leaders don’t pay attention to what’s going on.”
Suzuki later said he doesn’t support bombing pipelines—“of course not,” he told National Post’s Tyler Dawson—but did say few other options remain for those who feel government isn’t moving rapidly enough. Alberta Premier Jason Kenney was quick to condemn Suzuki’s remark as “dangerous,” and Environment Minister Jason Nixon blasted him for preaching ecoterrorism. More neutrally, B.C. Public Safety Minister Mike Farnworthsaid “statements like that are not helpful,” particularly during so much displacement due to this natural (though climate-change-induced) catastrophe.
Journalists out of jail: It’s unseemly for journalists to spend three nights in jail for doing their jobs, but at least photojournalist Amber Bracken and Michael Toledano don’t get more, at least for now. On Monday, a B.C. judge released them both on bail after their arrests Friday in an RCMP raid along with 13 others while they were chronicling protests of the Coastal GasLink natural gas pipeline that would run through unceded Wet’suwet’en territory. They were released on conditions, including an order to abide by the pipeline company’s injunction limiting access to the pipeline construction site. The journalists remain charged, with Bracken’s hearing set for February.
The Liberals are threatening a showdown today as Parliament sits for the first time since the election amid uncertainty about the vaccine status of CPC MPs, Joan Bryden reports for CP. The issue is coming to a head because Beauce MP Richard Lehoux tested positive for COVID-19 after attending a caucus meeting with his colleagues, an unknown number of whom are not vaccinated. Government House Leader Mark Holland wants the House to verify medical exemptions issued to Tories, while Erin O’Toole is preparing to challenge a mandate on the Hill.
O’Toole has said his party intends to challenge a rule imposed by the board of internal economy, the all-party governing body of the House of Commons, requiring anyone entering the Commons precinct to be fully vaccinated. Given the Conservatives’ mixed views on vaccination, Holland suggested the party can’t be trusted to police its MPs who claim a medical exemption. “I’m deeply uncomfortable with their circumstance,” Holland said in an interview Sunday.
Wheeling, dealing: Holland told the Globe that he is seeking to cut deals with other parties to get the government’s agenda through the House.
One of the Liberals’ top legislative priorities is to obtain approval for an October government announcement that scaled back pandemic wage and rent supports for businesses while extending the duration of the benefits for the hardest hit companies. The government also announced at the time that it was ending the Canada Recovery Benefit pandemic-relief program … Holland told The Globe and Mail he’s continuing to talk with other parties to find agreement on how the new Parliament will function. Mr. Holland is seeking a long-term deal on practical issues, such as continuing to allow “hybrid” meetings, in which MPs can participate either in person or remotely via video link. He is also seeking to determine what parts of the government’s policy agenda other parties may support.
Affordability: MPs would be wise to focus their efforts on the rising cost of living, according to a new poll from Ipsos, which found concerns about rising prices outranks issues like the COVID-19 pandemic, health care and housing as Canadians’ top concern, Global reports.“They’re really focused on what’s going on in their own homes and what’s happening in their own lives, particularly relative to their own personal prosperity,” said Ipsos CEO Darrell Bricker.
Speaker first: MPs will elect a Speaker today, CBC reports, and listen to Mary Simon read the Throne speech tomorrow.
Kenney upbeat:Jason Kenney is feeling confident after a weekend UCP convention, where he received little resistance, CP reports.
Jean on the scene: The Globe‘s Kelly Cryderman reports that although Kenney was not confronted directly, not everyone is united behind him.
Despite the lack of open defiance, divisions in the UCP, and potential challenges to Mr. Kenney’s leadership, were still a key feature of the convention. In conversations on the sidelines, some members and MLAs maintained the Premier lacks introspection on issues of trust, and they criticized his leadership style, which they described as top-down. At least two potential leadership challengers roamed the convention halls at the in-person gathering at a casino hotel on Calgary’s western city limits.
Former Wildrose party leader Brian Jean, a consummate political rival to Mr. Kenney who lost the UCP leadership contest to him in 2017, is seeking the party’s nomination in Fort McMurray-Lac La Biche. He made no bones about his intention to some day seek the leadership of the party. “If the Premier takes this party forward into the next election, we’re going to lose. There’s going to be an overwhelming NDP majority,” he told reporters.
Garneau to stay on: Former astronaut, foreign affairs minister (and leadership rival to Justin Trudeau) Marc Garneau intends to serve out his term as MP, and not, as rumoured, become the ambassador to Paris, La Pressereports (translation).
According to information obtained by La Presse, Mr. Garneau was keen to set the record straight about his political future while Liberal strategists began to speculate on possible Liberal candidates who could run for votes in the constituency of Mr. Garneau, considered a Liberal stronghold, if the latter obtained a diplomatic appointment. The name of former President of the Liberal Party of Canada Anna Gainey was mentioned in particular.
Locked up reporters: The Canadian Association of Journalists is calling for the release of two journalists—Amber Bracken and Michael Toledano—who the Mounties arrested at a weekend B.C. pipeline protest, the Globereports.
“They were doing their job,” said Brent Jolly, the president of the CAJ. “That’s the real coldness of this whole situation. People are there to serve the public – that’s what journalists do – to be the public’s eye and ears, and this is how they’re treated.”
Jabs for kids: The first batch of COVID-19 vaccines for children five to 11 landed in a Hamilton airport on Sunday, CP reports.
Health Canada announced Friday that it had approved a modified version of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for use in that demographic, and Ottawa immediately promised some shots would be on Canadian soil 48 hours later.
Tests waived: CBC reports that B.C. border community residents will be allowed to cross the border to the U.S. and return without requiring a COVID-19 test or quarantining because of the floods, the feds said Sunday.
In the Globe, Robyn Urbankwrites that Canadians should resist the temptation to go to ride roughshod over individual rights in the effort to get everyone vaccinated.
From Liberal cabinet minister to CIBC, vice-chair, global investment banking
(Illustration by Joel Kimmel)
Lisa Raitt
From Conservative cabinet minister to CIBC, vice-chair, global investment banking
(Illustration by Joel Kimmel)
Rona Ambrose
From Conservative cabinet minister to TD Securities, deputy chair
(Illustration by Joel Kimmel)
Scott Brison
From Liberal cabinet minister to BMO Capital Markets, vice-chair, investment and corporate banking
(Illustration by Joel Kimmel)
Brian Tobin
From Liberal cabinet minister and premier of Newfoundland and Labrador to BMO Financial Group, vice-chair
(Illustration by Joel Kimmel)
This article appears in print in the December 2021 issue of Maclean’s magazine with the headline, “Cabinet seat to Bay Street.” Subscribe to the monthly print magazine here.
At least the handshakes went well: When Joe Biden, Justin Trudeau and Mexican counterpart Andrés Manuel López Obrador entered the White House’s East Room for their much-hyped trilateral confab, the three masked hombres sat as far apart from each other as the long table would allow. And it does not appear that Trudeau nudged much closer to getting the U.S. President to inject compromise into Congress legislation that includes an electric vehicle tax credit that could freeze out Canadian-made cars and trucks.
Biden, before his earlier one-on-one with Trudeau, was non-committal on what’s suddenly become the top bilateral issue for Canada, one that could wallop its auto sector. “The answer is: I don’t know,” Biden said, when asked about neighbourly exemptions. “And I don’t know what we’re going to be dealing with, quite frankly, when it comes out of legislation.”
It was the first policy topic Trudeau brought up in the one-on-one, the Toronto Star’s Washington-based Edward Keenan writes:
Meanwhile, over in Congress, the House of Representatives was pushing toward a vote on the Build Back Better economic package—including the Buy American policy—possibly late Thursday night. There appeared a good chance that while Trudeau was still in town making the case against it, the House was going to vote in favour of it. So, maybe not a smashing success story for the Canadian delegation. But then, no one expected success on that file in the form of any kind of decision or announcement in Canada’s favour. The best anyone was hoping for was to keep talking about it as the bill makes its way through the political process. And there’s plenty of process left.
The meeting of the leaders from the old NAFTA zone lasted close to three hours. Their joint statement glided past irritants like trade and (on the U.S.-Mexico border) migration, and was predictably thick with terms like “reiterated” and “commit to launch efforts to enhance cooperation” on matters like climate change, trade and the pandemic.
In a break with tradition, there was no three-headed news conference, leaving Trudeau to hop a few blocks down Pennsylvania Avenue to speak with reporters at the Canadian Embassy. Asked repeatedly about what progress he made on the tax credit issue, Trudeau replied the Americans are “very aware of Canada’s position on this… and the threats it poses to over 50 years of integrated auto-making in our two countries.” The Globe’s Adrian Morrow observed: “Translation: he raised repeatedly, but the Americans aren’t budging.”
Feds go west: Speaking of Team Canada, that’s a term Defense Minister Anita Anand used when talking up the federal response to the catastrophic flooding in British Columbia. Anand was joined at a briefing Thursday by Emergency Preparedness Minister Bill Blair, Transportation Minister Omar Alghabra and Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson, along with Gen. Wayne Eyre, acting Chief of Defence Staff. (Notable absence, given the devastation to Fraser Valley farms: Agriculture Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau, but this was already a personnel-heavy news conference.)
Much of it was platitudinal in these early stages of a (gulp) long crisis to rebuild from, an all-hands-on-deck sort of show, an emphasis on getting people to safety for now—and some clear linkage with climate change, adaptation and rebuilding with resiliency from Wilkinson, the former environment minister. Anand and Eyre had the most concrete messages to send, with 120 pairs of Canadian Armed Forces boots on the ground now in Abbottsford, 350 more ready for deployment from Edmonton for immediate response. “If needed, we have thousands more members on standby ready to help the province,” Anand said.
Logistical support, human support and financial support—British Columbia will need it from Canada. Asked Thursday about any early price tag, Public Safety Minister Mike Farnworthcould only say: “It’s going to be an awful lot.”
Biden offered his thoughts during Trudeau’s visit: “I know we are both keeping our minds close to the families affected by the storms flooding the British Columbia area in the Pacific northwest.” It’s likely B.C. will lean on the Americans for more than thoughts, given how many supply chains were severed—Premier John Horgan is already suggested they’ll need support from U.S. fuel reserves, Global News reports.
Kid, this won’t hurt a bit: The news Canadian parents and their kin have awaited for months finally lands today at 10 a.m. ET, when Health Canada officials announce regulatory approval for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for children aged 5 and up. (Don’t expect a cameo by the Prime Minister; his itinerary says his flight from Washington will still be airborne when briefing begins.)
Canada has expected 2.9 million of Pfizer’s kid-sized doses of the mRNA shot to arrive “shortly” after this approval—a first dose for every child eligible, the Toronto Star’s Alex Boyd explains.
From there, provincial governments will rush to set up and announce their own vaccination approaches. A few provinces have offered parents the chance to “pre-register” their kids, but that mostly amounts to signing up for be notified promptly when there’s something to actually register for.
In the United States, which green-lighted the juvenile Pfizer vaccine on Nov. 2, has vaccinated nearly 10 per cent of its newly eligible children in the first two weeks of that country’s COVID immunization program.
Kenney’s dysfunctional family gathering: After the year Jason Kenney’s had, one imagines Alberta’s premier wishes a weekend spent with his United Conservative Party faithful would be a pleasant refuge from all his other challenges. Not so, not at all.
The UCP holds its first in-person annual convention since 2019 this weekend at a casino hotel on Tsuu T’ina Nation, just outside of Calgary. The grassroots are restive, arguing he doesn’t listen much, and more than 20 constituency associations want a fast-tracked and broader leadership review by March. (One’s currently scheduled for April.) There’ve been leaks all over UCP-land pointing to the various ways Kenney’s team will try to tilt the convention votes and motions in his favour—a corporate executive enlisting employees to sign up and rock the convention floor, as Calgary Herald’s Don Braid reports, or the premier’s office telling legislature staffers how to vote to downplay policy motions that don’t jive with Kenney’s agenda, as CBC Calgary’s Elise von Scheel chronicles.
A motion designed to derail an early leadership review gets debated Friday night, and Kenney will shake off the hospitality suite Saturday morning to deliver a pre-lunch address to the delegate’s ballroom. He’ll almost certainly survive this weekend, whether his tacticians prevail or whether the unhappy members do. But it’s hard to see how he emerges stronger, Maclean’swrites in its scene-setter.
Folks were quick to draw comparisons when now-former Conservative Senator Denise Batters publicly declared her petition to depose Erin O’Toole as party leader. Why, it’s open dissent in the ranks, just like the United Conservative Party unrest plaguing Jason Kenney! If you couldn’t see me flailing my hands in disagreement from Calgary, rest of Canada, let me shoot down this for-now facile comparison. For one, the internal strife Kenney faces runs much deeper, broader and has lingered for nearly a year now (about as long as his governing crew has trailed the NDP in Alberta polls).
The bigger difference, though, is that O’Toole has lieutenants leaping to his side. Melissa Lantsman’s “hard no.” Michelle Rempel Garner saying the “Liberals are popping Champagne.” Bob Zimmer: “an unnecessary distraction.” In his many months of turmoil, Kenney has had precious few cheerleaders, though the rural backbencher who called him “the leader God raised up for these times” now has business cards that call him “Minister.”
So when United Conservatives hold their annual convention this weekend at a casino hotel on Tsuu T’ina Nation, the novel utterances won’t be coming from Kenney’s detractors, like the 20-some constituency associations that demanded a fast-tracked leadership review, or the latest caucus member to publicly air grievances. Like the mating call of a strutting sage grouse, rare sounds will be heard in this Alberta habitat: calls in defence of Jason Kenney. A minister’s warble; a lobbyist’s crow; a campus keener’s chirp; a pamphleteer’s… cuckoo?
How full-throated these trills will be, or how ritualistic they will sound, are open questions. If genuine Kenney loyalists exist, after this many disastrously managed COVID waves and a tanker-load of other problems, now is certainly their time to speak out. We’ll hear from the many UCPers who want Kenney to quit as leader, pronto; perhaps new voices from caucus will join that chorus, giving the party and public a truer picture of whether that crowd is pervasive or, as the premier insists, just a disillusioned minority.
More important, though, will be the ones in the middle of the United Conservative base—those who believed in Kenney when he descended from federal Parliament to run Rachel Notley’s NDP out of office, but have found him disappointing as premier. These members are either pragmatically quiet about wanting him gone, or are anxiously hoping he’ll change his ways and become that leader they thought he would be.
Jack Redekop finds himself in that camp, somewhat to his surprise. He’d been a firm Kenneyite before—for a while, he was president of Kenney’s federal Conservative riding association in Calgary, and was an early backer on his provincial leadership bid. This week, Redekop was among the 22 UCP riding presidents who publicly demanded the leadership review now scheduled for next April—a date already advanced once due to internal pressure—be held by March at the latest. The riding presidents also want the vote to be made an all-members, grassroots referendum, not simply an AGM vote among delegates who trek to an Edmonton hotel and shell out convention fees. Those 22 constituencies amount to one-quarter of Alberta ridings, the threshold requiring their wishes be carried out, under rules drafted when Kenney helped birth the United Conservatives in 2017. Now that this grassroots-friendly rule isn’t so friendly to the leader, a party staffer will try during the convention to raise that threshold. To Redekop, that’s the sort of top-down crap that got Kenney into this trouble. “They screw around with this and the party’s dead,” Redekop tells Maclean’s in an interview.
But Redekop doesn’t want others to call him a dissident. Some of the constituency leaders surely want Kenney’s head, many of them rural opponents to COVID restrictions and the vaccine-passport system Alberta eventually imposed. But Redekop counts among those who still think Kenney can regain Albertans’ trust, and even victory in the 2023 election. He can, that is, if he comes out at this convention as contrite for having fallen short on his “grassroots guarantee” to his followers, and seeks to overhaul his approach to governing, with more consultation and listening to United Conservatives and Albertans. “How do you develop a team and a caucus that totally does a 180 in whatever their departments are, [that] becomes completely consultative before they bring in legislation?” he says. “He has to surround himself with a group, ministers and caucus that are totally responsive to listening to Albertans and what they’re saying. Jason has to give very specific direction, and some of those ministers probably need to be changed.”
That’s a mighty big ask, especially of a premier who tends to be stubbornly confident in the rightness of his decisions. Change up his staff, his cabinet and the way he’s led Alberta for the last 2½ years. Yet Redekop believes it’s more simple than it sounds, as long as Kenney remembers and takes seriously the grassroots-y rhetoric that he wooed so many Alberta conservatives with in the first place.
This hope for a radically reinvented Jason Kenney points to one of the premier’s most catastrophic problems in his five years of dabbling in the woolly world of Alberta politics. He got United Conservatives to engage in a tonne of magical thinking. He got his base to believe, among other things, that a wonky referendum on a wonky issue—equalization—would somehow bring the Ottawa Liberals to their knees and rejig federalism in Alberta’s favour. That an inquiry into foreign funding of environmental groups and a well-funded energy war room would humble greenies and give the petro-province an upper hand in the Climate Wars. That by leaning hard on personal responsibility and libertarianism, Alberta could weather the COVID storm and get churning on economic recovery. And that this savvy Ottawa operator under Stephen Harper genuinely wanted to know what Duane and Jane in Two Hills believed should be encoded in legislation, even if that blue pickup truck he toured the province in was an obvious bit of prairie cosplay.
It’s all fizzled—his anti-Ottawa push, his “fight back” antics for the oil patch, his pandemic approach and, in what may be ultimately be the fatal self-blow, his proper care and feeding of the grassroots. Now, even as Kenney nears his political deathbed, there are those who believe he can magically become the leader he claimed to be.
Kenney’s leadership will probably survive this weekend’s convention. There’s no measure that can fell him or trigger an immediate review, and his team will no doubt scheme to gain the upper hand over those meddlesome constituencies. People will say mean things about Kenney; others will say pleasant things. But it’s hard to see how he emerges from all of this stronger.
¡Buenos días! It’s the moment we’ve all been waiting for. Today, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau meets with American President Joe Biden and Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador at the Three Amigos Summit in Washington, D.C. After the requisite small talk (and light cajoling over sports, surely) is out of the way, there are big policy questions on the agenda.
Last-minute warning: Trudeau spent Wednesday on Capitol Hill and raised concerns with Democrats on an electric vehicle tax credit that’s included in a massive bill they’re trying to push through the House of Representatives “any day now,” reports Alexander Panetta for CBC. (It’s a file on which Ontario has been missing in action, while its trade rep post in D.C. sits empty.)
The PM warned lawmakers about a potential “real negative impact” to American trading partners, since the tax credit would eventually apply only to U.S.-manufactured vehicles, Panetta reports: “The prime minister argued that the tax credit plan flies in the face of decades of continental integration of the auto sector, from the signing of the 1965 Auto Pact to the new North American trade deal.”
By the way, quick international trips like the PM’s (lasting less than 72 hours) will no longer require Canadians to produce a negative COVID-19 test upon return, the government is expected to announce Friday (hat tip to CBC). Cue a chorus of colourful commentary on the arbitrariness of the three-day rule.
Look over there! With everyone atitter about how weak Erin O’Toole looked or didn’t look at his caucus meeting after the ouster of Senator Denise Batters and her choice words Wednesday morning, his party decided to blast political inboxes on a wide variety of other topics. There was, naturally, a plea that the PM stand up for Canadian interests at the Three Amigos Summit. (It’s a good thing they suggested this; there’s just so much to say about the sports.) There was also a screed on inflation, a statement on the ongoing disaster in B.C. and a demand that Liberals scrap Bill C-10. It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s a distraction from Conservative existentialism!
…Meanwhile: Amid the flurry of missives came a different sort of press release. Presumably in response to a plethora of media requests, the office of Senate Conservative leader Don Plett sent a one-liner to all Hill journos in the middle of Wednesday afternoon asking them to “please note” a tweet Plett had posted the night before. (The tweet acknowledged O’Toole’s decision to kick Batters out of caucus, and affirmed Plett’s support of the leader.) … And over at Global News, Alex Boutilier has the scooplet that Canada Proud’s Jeff Ballingall is back in action as an “election readiness” adviser to O’Toole.
Child care is for everybody: So argues our Shannon Proudfoot in a fresh clapback to the commentariat as it chews on a newly-inked Alberta-Canada child care deal. (Ontario, the biggest holdout, is still working on it.)
“It is bizarre and immensely counter-productive that even in conversations intended to be progressive, childcare is often presented in an offhanded way as a boutique women’s issue,” she writes. “You know, a little something for the ladies, in case they want to sell Tupperware to earn pin money while Junior is at his playgroup. This messaging only reinforces the idea that children are the natural domain and default responsibility of their mothers—which is presumably not what the architects of this national childcare plan are after.”
And so is the carbon tax? Manitoba’s new premier, Heather Stefanson, is dropping the province’s court fight against the federal carbon tax and getting ready to negotiate. Reports CP: she’s looking for “a more collaborative approach” with Ottawa… that is, if she gets to keep her job.
