The Peace Tower’s last song

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Feb 23, 2022 View in browser   By Nick Taylor-Vaisey Send tips | Subscribe here | Email Nick l Follow Politico Canada WELCOME TO OTTAWA PLAYBOOK. I'm your host, Nick Taylor-Vaisey. Prepare yourself for another Playbook virtual trivia night. Our next game is March 10 at 8 p.m., and we're giving returning teams early access to the tables. Watch for our email today. On Thursday, we'll open the remaining tables for sign up. Playbook will have all the details. THE FINAL RECITAL — It's an eerie time on the Hill, what with all the police checkpoints barring anyone who doesn't have official business from entering a secure zone. But amidst the silence, anyone within earshot of the Peace Tower at 12 o'clock will hear a dose of aural history. Dominion Carillonneur ANDREA MCCRADY , the master of the bells since 2008, will play her last recital before the tower's bells are swept up in Centre Block's decade-long mega-renovation — which will see them quieted for several years. The carillon's boosters hope it'll be tolling again in time for its 2027 centennial. Meanwhile, the carillon itself will be spiffed up. Workers will even install a manual keyboard that meets a World Carillon Federation modern standard (finally!). Listen to the show here at noon. Don't miss the penultimate "Final surprise," arranged by McCrady herself. Driving the Day THE SHIFTING SANDS — Parliament is feeling the push and pull of the two biggest items on the Trudeau government's political agenda. Public Safety Minister MARCO MENDICINO was scheduled to appear Tuesday before a House committee to discuss the Emergencies Act. But his appearance was cancelled at the last minute because, says the minister's spox, he was part of urgent meetings around another major, swiftly emerging concern: Ukraine. —Standby: A new date for Mendicino's committee appearance has yet to be made public, but he's expected to appear before the committee by the end of the week. 'THE INVASION HAS STARTED' — "Our response begins today," Foreign Affairs Minister MÉLANIE JOLY said Tuesday during a press briefing on Parliament Hill. Just a few hours earlier, U.S. President JOE BIDEN announced a raft of sanctions to cut off Russia's government from Western financing. Prime Minister JUSTIN TRUDEAU opened the late-afternoon presser warning that Russia's disregard for international law will be met by "severe consequences" and sanctions. Backed by Canada's finance, foreign affairs and defense ministers, the PM announced that Canada will deploy up to 460 members of the Canadian Armed Forces to Operation Reassurance, and has pledged to boost its support for the NATO Response Force. — Round 1: Trudeau said Canada will sanction members of the Russian parliament who voted to recognize two breakaway territories in eastern Ukraine. "This is a further invasion of a sovereign state," the PM said. "And it is completely unacceptable." Canadians will be banned from financial dealings with the so-called Luhansk and Donetsk People's Republics, he added. Trudeau announced that Canadians will be banned from purchasing Russian sovereign debt. "We will apply additional sanctions onto state-backed Russian banks and prevent any financial dealings with them," he added. Joly said the actions — "just the beginning" — will make it illegal for Canadians to fund Russia, directly or indirectly. "We are prepared to target even more of Russia's financial sector and oligarchs." — What's next: Joly laid the groundwork for a "significant announcement" related to Canadian exports to Russia. Biden has also repeatedly said the U.S. could impose additional sanctions on Russia going forward. A senior White House administration official said Tuesday that could include steps to block Russia's access to critical technologies through export controls if Putin escalates his invasion of Ukraine. Keep up to the latest on POLITICO's liveblog with news from Ukraine, Russia, across Europe and the U.S. TEAM BERGEN'S SHAKEUP — Prepare yourself for Boldnameapalooza. Tory interim leader CANDICE BERGEN shuffled the decks of her parliamentary inner circle and shadow Cabinet. She'd already given two senior O'Toole-era MPs the boot by replacing House leader GÉRARD DELTELL with JOHN BRASSARD and party whip BLAKE RICHARDS with BLAINE CALKINS. Tuesday's announcement dismantled even more of the House that O'Toole built. — Promotions: SHANNON STUBBS and MARILYN GLADU were both on the outside looking in as ERIN O'TOOLE crafted his post-election caucus. Stubbs criticized O'Toole's leadership and faced harassment allegations heavily rumored to have leaked from the leader's office. Gladu helped launch a civil liberties caucus widely seen as a thorn in her leader's side. Neither cracked his shadow cabinet. But they're back in the fold. Stubbs takes on Rural Economic Development Minister GUDIE HUTCHINGS , and will also push the government on a rural broadband strategy that's overseen by a posse of ministers. Gladu nabs a lower-profile role as associate shadow minister for international trade and supply chains. — New visions: MICHELLE REMPEL GARNER is out. But hers is a lateral move. She'll join ROB MORRISON on the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians. O'Toole had been boycotting that particular all-party group until Liberals acquiesced on opposition demands for documents related to the firing of two scientists from the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg. Bergen is done with that approach. She says her party will "continue to work towards substantial reforms" at NSICOP, and keep on demanding those outstanding lab docs, but she'd clearly rather be at the table than outside the room. — On the outs: ERIC DUNCAN is off the leadership team as caucus-party liaison. He'll be replaced by WARREN STEINLEY, a Saskatchewanian once spotted by Playbook joyfully doing the rounds at a mid-campaign Roughriders game with ANDREW SCHEER. Duncan also resigned from the party's influential Leadership Election Organizing Committee. "An unfortunate mistake by the interim leader," tweeted former Hill staffer RICK ROTH. — Demotions: GÉRARD DELTELL, O'Toole's former House leader, is FRANÇOIS-PHILIPPE CHAMPAGNE's foil at innovation, science and economic development. MICHAEL BARRETT, O'Toole's deputy House leader and co-chair of QP planning, takes over at health — which LUC BERTHOLD vacated when Bergen named him deputy leader. JAMES BEZAN was O'Toole's other QP planning co-chair, as well as deputy whip and strategic adviser. He shifts to ethics. — Musical chairs: ED FAST is back as finance critic, replacing leadership hopeful PIERRE POILIEVRE. MATT JENEROUX remains shadow minister for housing, but DAN ALBAS slices off housing inflation from that sprawling bailiwick. GREG MCLEAN is JONATHAN WILKINSON 's primary foe in Rempel Garner's former digs at natural resources. KYLE SEEBACK will focus his efforts on Environment Minister STEVEN GUILBEAULT. GINETTE PETITPAS TAYLOR also gets a new critic at official languages: JOËL GODIN. BEN LOBB , digital government critic, gains a new gig as special adviser on blockchain technologies and crypto assets. Playbook devotees will recall that Lobb declared Bitcoin assets in his latest disclosures to the ethics commissioner. — For the record: To no one's surprise, the former leader was left off the list of shadow ministers. O'Toole also didn't speak during the Emergencies Act debate. — In related reading: CBC reports this morning that their sources say Jean Charest is considering a Conservative leadership run. And La Presse reports: Stephen Harper wants a 'true Conservative' to lead the party. AROUND THE HILL  FROZEN OUT — The House finance committee heard from ISABELLE JACQUES, assistant deputy minister with the Finance Department, as MPs studied the government's innovation of the Emergencies Act. POLITICO's ANDY BLATCHFORD notes that Jacques acknowledged that someone who gave as little as C$20 to a crowdfunding platform in support of the convoy technically could have had their account frozen. "It would appear to be unlikely that this occurred but not impossible," she said. — Remaining fears: "Members of Parliament have received thousands of calls and emails from Canadians who are concerned that even a small contribution to a then-legal cause could result in their financial ruin," said Conservative MP PHILIP LAWRENCE. — Committee news: The Star's TONDA MACCHARLES reports the RCMP is working to 'unfreeze' protesters' bank accounts. — What's next: The RCMP and FINTRAC, Canada's financial intelligence unit, will face MPs on Thursday. Committee chair PETER FONSECA told Tuesday's meeting that he's seeking testimony on March 7 from the country's five major banks, Desjardins and the Canadian Bankers Association. 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 — PM TRUDEAU will chair a meeting of the Incident Response Group on Ukraine. He'll also deliver remarks to the Ukrainian Canadian Congress's board meeting. — Senators will debate the government's invocation of the Emergencies Act every day this week. The chamber opens at 9 a.m. and adjourns at 9 p.m. each day. Don't miss Sen. PAULA SIMON's speech from Tuesday. EXIT INTERVIEWS THE PM'S POLLSTER — Way back when people used words like "blogosphere," DAN ARNOLD was a regular on #cdnpoli blogrolls. Just kidding. He started blogging so long ago that hashtags weren't yet a thing. Arnold's moniker was CALGARY GRIT , and he guarded his name to such an extent that his coming-out party was a big deal — even if his real name was never much of a secret to Liberal insiders. Arnold endorsed GERARD KENNEDY's leadership run in 2006, which had him on the same side of history as KATIE TELFORD, GERRY BUTTS and a certain future PM. Arnold studied Canadian history and statistics, and landed a research analyst gig at Pollara. He topped out as associate vice-president before decamping for Team Trudeau in the ramp-up to the 2015 campaign. When the Liberals pulled off a majority, Arnold ran point on research, advertising and correspondence. He was the poll guy, and had hundreds of presentations to Cabinet committees, ministers' offices and caucus retreats to prove it. Arnold left the Prime Minister's Office late last year for his old stomping grounds at Pollara. He recently indulged Playbook in an exit interview, which we've edited and condensed for clarity. — On political radar: I used correspondence in some respects as a bit of an early warning system on the question of what Canadians think. A poll is going to take a week at least, if not longer, until what's happening percolates through the broader public, and they get opinions. But when people are angry, they'll send an email to the prime minister the next day. — The best weekends: I always found Cabinet retreats the most interesting. You actually got the whole weekend, you're at a hotel with them. You give a presentation, but also people can grab you and ask you about issues. It's much more of a collaborative environment and an opportunity to spread ideas around and make sure all knowledge gets shared between people there. — How to win on climate: It's an issue people took on knowing that if it was done wrong, it certainly could have been lethal as an election issue. And that has happened in other jurisdictions before. Even as the decision was being made to roll out the price on pollution, the polling was quite mixed. The rebate did help dull a lot of the opposition. Communication shops helped to build support for it over time. And if we're being honest about it, even setting up some of the members of "The Resistance" as the opposition to it. [Editor's note: That's a reference to JASON KENNEY, SCOTT MOE, DOUG FORD, BRIAN PALLISTER and ANDREW SCHEER's appearance on the cover of Maclean's.] — On that infamous Maclean's cover: I certainly slipped that cover into quite a few presentations. Most of the gentlemen on that cover had quite low approval ratings within a year or two after it, so I would usually tongue-in-cheek put the cover up there when I gave the updates on the provincial landscape. — On attention spans: You can't force people to pay attention, and you can't force people to notice things. As they say in Mean Girls, you can't just make fetch happen if people don't want it to happen. You can do all the polling in the world to figure out that something is popular, and this is the way you should say it, but if you can't actually force people to notice, it doesn't have that same political payoff that you would hope. It's usually a safe bet to assume that anything you do is not going to get attention. In the 2019 budget, we had two big centerpieces. One was the first-time home buyers plan. Housing was a growing concern for young people. I thought that was something that would get a lot of attention. We had some really big measures in there on skills training, too. We had research that showed that in increasing numbers, people didn't feel they had the skills they needed to be successful. You do polling two weeks later, and it's 2 percent awareness of these things. — On making things up: I'd test fake news stories or fake announcements as a comparison point. On a poll, if you ask people if they've heard about something, you're always going to get 8 percent of people who don't want to sound stupid and say, "Oh, yeah, I've heard about that." I would test the Treaty of Algeron, which was a treaty between the United Federation of Planets and the Klingon Empire in Star Trek. I'd put it up in a presentation: 8 percent of people have heard of the National Housing Strategy. And 7 percent have heard of the Treaty of Algeron. So in reality, it's like 1 percent who've actually heard of this thing that you've done. PAPER TRAIL FROM THE TENDERS — The Old Port of Montreal found C$3.4 million for advertising campaigns meant to showcase the port and nearby science center. … The Valour Building on Sparks Street will undergo a C$640,000 LED facelift. … The Canadian Armed Forces are renting dozens of sedans and vans, starting today, as a military contingent conducts "flying operations" in San Diego. THE TOP PETITION — A three-week old e-petition sponsored by Tory MP JAMIE SCHMALE is the most popular active petition on the Commons' digital repository. The petitioners call on the House of Commons to pass "recall and initiative" legislation that would allow average Canadians to legally remove elected officials and repeal laws at the federal level. (British Columbia is the only province that has enacted these kinds of mechanisms.) — The current tally: As of Tuesday night, the petition had amassed more than 33,200 signatures. MEDIA ROOM — LEAH WEST is on The Law Bytes Podcast where she and MICHAEL GEIST discuss the ins and outs of the Emergencies Act. — On The Hub Dialogues, SEAN SPEER and law professor DWIGHT NEWMAN discuss Charter rights, religious freedom and, of course, the Emergencies Act. — ANNA MARIA TREMONTI spoke with Best Health's ISHANI NATH about her personal experience with intimate partner violence: "I knew I shouldn't carry this shame. And yet I did." Tremonti recently launched a podcast, Welcome to Paradise. — The Financial Post's JAKE EDMISTON breaks down an epic food fight between two grocery-store giants. The headline: Frito-Lay refuses to ship its products to Loblaws stores. — At iPolitics, ANDREW PEREZ offers tips to divided Tories: "This isn't the perennial division between red Tories and blue Tories; it's a split between a variety of principled conservatives and those willing to embrace Trump-style populism at all costs." PROZONE If you're a POLITICO Pro subscriber, don't miss the latest edition of our afternoon policy newsletter: 'Roadmap' at 1: Where to now? In other headlines for Pros: — Pentagon weighs request for D.C. National Guard help ahead of trucker protests — U.S. imposes sanctions on Russian banks, sovereign debt and elites after Ukraine invasion — ' Massive opportunities': CHIPS bill poised to boost diversity in industry — Gas tax holiday has a long road despite Ukraine-driven gas price spikes PLAYBOOKERS Birthdays: HBD to MARC GARNEAU, 73 today. … Former MP LAVAR PAYNE is 78. A hearty happy birthday to the Roadmap for a Renewed U.S.-Canada Partnership, born in the early days of the Biden administration when hope for a renewed cross-border relationship sprang eternal. Both sides have a year to mend fences on a long list of irritants before the roadmap enters its Terrible Twos. Spotted: On the Curse of Politics pod, CHRISTY CLARK giving JEAN CHAREST two thumbs up as the next federal Conservative leader (if he decides to take the leap). Curse alum JENNI BYRNE has a rather different view. ... JAMES MOORE, arguing that one man's globalist conspiracy (ahem, BRIAN JEAN) is another man's "global reach." Innovation Minister FRANÇOIS-PHILIPPE CHAMPAGNE, talking "inclusive, sustainable economic growth" with the ubiquitous Coalition for a Better Future tag team LISA RAITT and ANNE MCLELLAN. … Transport Minister OMAR ALGHABRA, flying to Windsor to talk to locals about the recent cross-border bridge blockade. Rideau Hall, clearing the air after its switchboards were inundated with requests that the vice-regal express non-confidence in the government (that's not a thing). BRUCE ANDERSON, pondering deep questions. Movers and shakers: CORY PIKE, whose last Hill gig was chief of staff to then-fisheries minister BERNADETTE JORDAN, starts a new gig as Procurement Minister FILOMENA TASSI's senior adviser for COVID response. ADAM MIRON, a former national director of the Young Liberals who later helped launch iPolitics, left the board of Gatineau-based cannabis producer HEXO. Miron thanked local politicians who "helped, supported and played a role" in building the company: GREG FERGUS, STEVEN MACKINNON, STÉPHANE LAUZON and WILL AMOS. Sandstone Group's KEVIN BOSCH recently got the ear of Liberal MP and health committee chair SEAN CASEY. His client: Nova Oculus Canada Manufacturing, the maker of a "pioneering medical device that treats age-related macular degeneration" — and hopes for regulatory approval. Canadian American Business Council CEO SCOTTY GREENWOOD talked economic development and international trade on Monday with ISED DM SIMON KENNEDY and CHARLES VINCENT, ISED's assistant deputy minister for small business and marketplace. The U.S. embassy is hiring an economic specialist in Ottawa. They'll focus on the hot-button energy and the environment file, "with an emphasis on climate and energy transition to advance U.S. economic interests in Canada." Media mentions: CBC Toronto's LAUREN PELLEY is back on the job after an appendectomy. The CANADIAN ASSOCIATION OF JOURNALISTS handed out a Code of Silence Award for Outstanding Achievement in Government Secrecy to the ROYAL CANADIAN MOUNTED POLICE. The Mounties scored a rare double-citation for mistreatment of journalists at the Fairy Creek logging site and the police force's stunningly poor record on access-to-information disclosure. Said CAJ President BRENT JOLLY: "This year's Code of Silence jury agreed that the efforts demonstrated by the RCMP to suffocate press freedom and the public's right to know about events taking place at Fairy Creek deserves the spotlight." Farewells: Sen. DENNIS DAWSON paid tribute to Guy Saint-Pierre, who died at 87 last month. Saint-Pierre was a former Quebec education minister who also served as president of the Canadian Council of Chief Executives. Dawson also noted Saint-Pierre's role in uniting SNC and Lavalin in 1991 — a merger that created an engineering giant. "He strongly believed his entire life that it was education first and foremost that would make it possible for French-speaking Quebecers to make their mark, achieve their potential and aspire to fully take their place in the North American environment." TRIVIA Tuesday's answer: The first prime minister to experience the miracle of human flight in an airplane was WILLIAM LYON MACKENZIE KING, who boarded a B-24 Liberator. Props to CULLY ROBINSON, BOB GORDON, ROBERT MCDOUGALL, JANE DOULL, DOROTHY MCCABE and SOPHIA NICKEL. Wednesday's question: Everyone knows that JEAN CHRÉTIEN loves to golf. But can you name the other former prime minister who loved the links? The mystery man's biographer, Robert Craig Brown, wrote the PM in question was "competent enough to enjoy the challenge of a good course and often chose his vacation hotel in Virginia or the Carolinas with an eye to the quality of its fairways and greens." (h/t to J.D.M. STEWART's "Being Prime Minister") Send your answers to ottawaplaybook@politico.com.   Follow us on Twitter Nick Taylor-Vaisey @TaylorVaisey Sue Allan @susan_allan Andy Blatchford @AndyBlatchford Maura Forrest @MauraForrest Zi-Ann Lum @ziannlum POLITICO Canada @politicoottawa   Subscribe to the POLITICO Playbook family Playbook  |  Playbook PM  |  California Playbook  |  Florida Playbook  |  Illinois Playbook  |  Massachusetts Playbook  |  New Jersey Playbook  |  New York Playbook  |  Ottawa Playbook  |  Brussels Playbook  |  London Playbook View all our political and policy newsletters Follow us

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