Move it or lose it

Feb 16, 2022

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WELCOME TO OTTAWA PLAYBOOK. I'm your host, ZI-ANN LUM. It's Wednesday and Canada's inaugural kindness week continues. There's a law for it. National caucuses are meeting after an extraordinary few days on the Hill where the convoy occupation moves into its 20th day. There's also a law for that, too, but now with more details.

DRIVING THE DAY

DETAILS, DETAILS — A full 24-hours after Prime Minister JUSTIN TRUDEAU announced that, yes, Ottawa will in fact choose the Emergencies Act on the menu of incident response options, senior officials held a briefing with media to go over technical details.

Or, they tried to.

Related read: From POLITICO's ANDY BLATCHFORD: Canada defends emergency action as way to stop 'overthrow'

The briefing came hours after Public Safety Minister MARCO MENDICINO reiterated that Ottawa is taking steps to give banks and financial institutions tools to stop money, be it "conventional currency or cryptocurrency," from flowing to aid and abet illegal blockades.

This prompted questions for senior officials: How will cryptocurrencies be defined and monitored? How will banks be able to prove if funds were involved in blockades?

— Official No. 1 : Banks have procedures to identify suspicious transactions. The new emergency act regulations will give any government institution the ability to share the info of anyone involved in illegal assemblies with banks.

— Official No. 2: "The definitions of crowdfunding and payment service providers are based on activities rather than, for example, a listing of entities.

"The activities for crowdfunding are specific to platforms that raise funds for virtual currency donation and the payment service provider activities are taken from the Retail Payment Activities Act — which provides a definition of payment function so that after it's publicly available. It was passed by Parliament, although it is not yet enforced."

Another question probed the situation facing tow-truck operators: How will the trucks be towed away?

— Official No. 3, with a DIY option: "It may be that we have to look at contracting, for instance, the tow truck … We may have our own people that have the particular licensing to be able to operate a tow truck."

Near the end of the briefing, officials told reporters that the emergency measures regulations and emergency economic measures order, were published mid-call.

"I think unfortunately, everyone on the call probably hasn't had a chance to see those," an official said. "They're now online." The cabinet order was. The details, however, came hours later in the Canada Gazette.

On the Hill

We've plotted the players who'll hold sway in 2022 as the PM works to define his legacy.

We've plotted the players who'll hold sway in 2022 as the PM works to define his legacy. | Photo illustration by Beatrice Jin

TRUDEAU'S OTTAWA — When we published our Trudeau power matrix, ERIN O'TOOLE was Conservative leader. We've since updated our index with interim Conservative Leader CANDICE BERGEN and Conservative leadership hopeful PIERRE POILIEVRE to reflect their growing profiles and influence in federal politics.

THE 37.5 PERCENT — Statistics Canada will release a report today digging into why some Canadians didn't vote in the 2021 federal election.

— Points of reference : Voter turnout last year was 62.5 percent — lower than the previous election. About 77 percent of Canadians voted in the 2019 election.

When StatCan released its last "Reasons for not voting in the federal election" report, being "not interested in politics" was the top explanation given by more than a third of people who didn't vote. One in five said they were too busy to cast a ballot.

— The takeaway: The new report will help us understand to what degree the pandemic factored into people's decisions. Whether the number of people who are "not interested in politics" has increased or shrunk since the last election will be a noteworthy tell to see if the state of Canadian politics has been turning off voters.

It's a relevant trend to watch given how organized and well-financed the convoy occupation is on the Hill and associated encampments around the city and across the country. It remains to be seen how the populist movement, and attempts to engage politically disengaged voters, will impact voting future voting trends and politics.

ASK US ANYTHING

What are you hearing that you need Playbook to know? Any questions about Parliament? Send it all our way.

TODAY'S HIGHLIGHTS

NATO ministers of defense meeting begins in Brussels.

8:30 a.m. Statistics Canada will release its consumer price index for January.

Prime Minister JUSTIN TRUDEAU will attend the National Caucus meeting and QP. His itinerary indicates he'll chair a meeting of the Incident Response Group.

3:30 p.m. RICHARD FADDEN, former national security advisor to the PM, is a witness at the House national defence committee to speak to MPs about threat analysis affecting Canada and the military's readiness to meet those threats.

4 p.m. Ottawa Mayor JIM WATSON has scheduled a special City Council meeting.

MEDIA ROOM

— APTN's LEEANNE SANDERS reports on news from Keeseekoose First Nation in Saskatchewan where ground-penetrating radar has identified 54 potential graves at the two former residential schools.

— What really happened to XIANGGUO QIU? The prolific JUSTIN LING reports for Maclean's.

— PAUL MCLEOD of BuzzFeed reports: Inside the nerve center that keeps the Ottawa trucker protests running.

— CHARLIE PINKERTON and ANDY TAKAGI report on a senior staffer in the Ontario governmentwho was dispatched after it was revealed that she had donated to the Freedom Convoy.

— On The Star's This Matters pod, JACOB LORINC and TONDA MACCHARLES discuss the Windsor and Ottawa protests.

— JEN GERSON reports from the Coutts Front: God, guns, Jenga and Bob Seger.

— DANIEL DALE CNN fact check: Strong majority of Canadians oppose convoy protests, poll after poll finds.

— The Citizen's JOANNE LAUCIUS tells the story of the 'Battle of Billings Bridge.' IYKYK.

PAPER TRAIL

From the tenders: The Canadian Embassy in Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan needs one humidifier … Natural Resources awarded a C$116,760.00 contract to consultancy firm Dunsky Energy + Climate Advisors to produce a clean energy development report focused on remote communities not connected to the intercontinental grid … The House of Commons wants specific wooden visitors chairs.

— ISO: Chat bot: Employment and Social Development Canada's four-year contract for its current automated web chat service is expiring in July. The objective, the tender states, is to find a "commercial-off-the-shelf" service that's able to respond to questions in real time ("within 10 seconds") in either Canadian English or Canadian French.

— Expired: Natural Resources has contracted out work in developing a high-level presentation about Canada's Arctic Ocean submission to the United Nations Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf . The value of the contract is up to C$620,540.00.

PROZONE

If you're a POLITICO Pro subscriber, don't miss the latest edition of our afternoon policy newsletter: Canada eases Covid travel rules.

In other headlines for Pros:
— POLITICO Pro Q&A: Brock Pierce, cryptocurrency titan.
— A 'swift' and 'unified' sanctions slam on Russia? Not exactly.
— U.S. solar tariffs on Canada violate North American free trade pact, panel decides.
— Maine lobstermen had big year, set value record of $725M.
— IEA head urges OPEC+ laggards to boost output to balance markets.
— White House issues clean manufacturing initiatives.

THE BUZZ

Birthdays: HBD to GREG SELINGER, former premier of Manitoba. POLITICO founder ROBERT ALLBRITTON also celebrates today.

Spotted: DOUG FORD's ex-chief of staff DEAN FRENCH rides again.

Globe and Mail reporter CARRIE TAIT, making an accidental detour … Maclean's JASON MARKUSOFF with a gallery of "hyperlocal artists."

Alberta's FORT MCMURRAY-LAC LA BICHE by-election: March 15, 2022.

Movers and shakers: JENNI BYRNE is taking leave of Curse of Politics to work on PIERRE POILIEVRE's leadership campaign.

VASS BEDNAR is a new senior fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation.

Media mentions: RANDY THANTHONG-KNIGHT has joined Bloomberg to report on the economy. Welcome to Ottawa!

Farewells: The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs' DAVID OUELLETTE died Tuesday morning after fighting cancer.

Liberal MP JULIE DABRUSIN spoke in memory of ERNA PARIS in the House. "She was a writer and a thinker," she said Tuesday. "She did not just educate people, she also inspired." Here is the Globe's obituary from earlier this month.

HOUSE BUSINESS

3:30 p.m. Canada-Ukraine Chamber of Commerce President ZENON POTOCZNY, Ukrainian Canadian Congress Executive Director/CEO IHOR MICHALCHYSHYN and the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers' TIM MCMILLAN are discussing Canada-Ukraine free trade modernization with MPs on the House international trade committee.

3:30 p.m. Assistant deputy ministers from Canadian Heritage and Citizenship and Immigration are on deck to discuss government measures to protect and promote French at the House officials languages committee.

3:30 p.m. The House natural resources committee continues its study on a proposed greenhouse emissions cap for Canada's oil and gas sector, it's eighth meeting on the topic.

3:30 p.m. Canada's health workforce is the topic of the day at the House health committee with witnesses that include representatives from the Canadian Association of Radiologists, Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions and Canadian Medical Association.

TRIVIA

Tuesday's answer: Prime Minister LESTER B. PEARSON said, "If our nation by God's grace endures a thousand years, this day will always be remembered as a milestone in Canada's national progress." On Feb. 15, 1965, thousands gathered on Parliament Hill to watch the raising of Canada's new flag.

Props to JOANNA PLATER, KEVIN BOSCH, GORDON PHANEUF, GORD MCINTOSH, ROBERT MCDOUGALL, LEIGH LAMPERT, CHERYL FULLERTON, LAURA JARVIS, MICHAEL SUNG, JOHN ECKER, BOB GORDON, BOB ERNEST, MICHAEL MACDONALD and CULLY ROBINSON.

Wednesday's question: Whose performance was Canadian Idol judge ZACK WERNER talking about when he observed the following: "More than anything, it was like watching a little boy with a really pure love of the song. His love for the piece of music was actually rather infectious."

Send your answers to ottawaplaybook@politico.com

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