THE NEXT THREE WEEKS — Government House Leader MARK HOLLAND has (so far) efficiently shepherded the Liberal agenda through the Commons. CHRYSTIA FREELAND's Covid recovery bill was tabled Friday. SEAMUS O'REGAN and DAVID LAMETTI packaged their top priorities — paid sick leave and targeted protection for health-care workers — in a bill announced the same day. And Lametti will join MARCI IEN and RANDY BOISSONNAULT this afternoon to introduce the government's third attempt to ban conversion therapy. — That's the easy part: One week gone: ✔ Four priorities officially converted into parliamentary business: ✔. That leaves three weeks between now and an extended winter break. No disrespect to the lawyers who draft laws and the ministers who table them, but the test of Holland's parliamentary prowess is still to come. What's missing? Well, House committees have to talk about the bills, and not a single one of them has so far been reconstituted. The House has to debate them, even if the government speeds up the process with time allocation. They also have to make time for Treasury Board President MONA FORTIER's supplementary estimates, and there's still the matter of voting on the Throne Speech. After that, there's the Senate's sober-second thought, a pesky requirement for any government in hurry (see: Liberal government, June 2021). — Anything is possible: Committees can be struck. Debate can be fast-tracked. Bills can be carted off to the Senate in short order. All Holland needs is a dance partner on the opposition benches. HOW TO MAKE PARLIAMENT WORK — If anyone knows the pressure-cooker of negotiation in a minority parliament, it's former NDP House leader LIBBY DAVIES. She served that crucial role from 2003 to 2011. Davies faced a lot of men across the aisle, both Liberal — DON BOUDRIA, JACQUES SAADA, TONY VALERI — and Conservative — ROB NICHOLSON, PETER VAN LOAN, JAY HILL , JOHN BAIRD. — It's all about relationships: Boudria was "perfunctory." Valeri was "much more open." Baird was "quite decent to deal with." Davies's goal was always to establish a solid working relationship with the man tasked with pushing through the government's agenda. That's her advice to the current crop of House leaders. "They don't have to be best buddies. But when things do get rough, and you've got all the ups and downs, having that open channel of communication becomes really important," she tells Playbook. "If there's not any trust, or if there's suspicion, or the government is high-handed, or the opposition is just totally out to lunch by being ridiculous in what they're asking, then you're not going to get very far." — It's all about trust: Discretion is key to the interaction between House leaders. Davies took marching orders from her leader, JACK LAYTON, but he trusted her to do the wheeling and dealing. "There were conversations that I had where I would be very discrete in terms of what I said back to the caucus," she says. She worked to maintain a safe forum with other House leaders that allowed for unvarnished exchanges. "The other person may say, 'I'm going to get s--t if I do that. This is what I can do, this is what I cannot do.' You're not going to go and broadcast that, because the person is actually showing some vulnerability." — It's all about staff: There's wisdom in the underlings, too — especially when they know exactly what makes the Commons tick. "I had ROB SUTHERLAND working for me, a brilliant guy. He was one of the most knowledgeable people in the House about procedure," she says. "His relationship with the Government House Leader staff was also very critical. Often, he would provide intelligence to me." — The big win: Every New Democrat who worked on the Hill in 2005 remembers the "NDP budget" — the popular term for that year's budget bill. In a tense minority setting, Layton's team turned C$4.6 billion initially earmarked for corporate tax cuts into spending on affordable housing, reduced tuition fees, the environment, foreign aid and pension protection. But it wasn't Layton at that negotiating table. Davies repped the NDP alongside Layton's chief of staff, BOB GALLAGHER. Valeri was her counterpart, seconded by TIM MURPHY, then-PM PAUL MARTIN's chief of staff. Their solid working relationship paid off over two days of talks. Layton and Martin had opened the furious weekend of horse-trading by attending a Friday night meeting at Toronto's Royal York Hotel. Between meetings, Davies and Gallagher schemed at then-city councillor OLIVIA CHOW's city hall office. The foursome had hammered out a deal by Sunday afternoon. — It wasn't all Davies: Journalists eventually learned the location of that Friday night chit chat and staked out the entrance. Layton found a different way in. "This is classic Jack," Davies recalls. "He took us to the meeting through the kitchen. When he used to go to big banquet dinners at the Royal York, he always used to thank the kitchen workers. So he knew his way around." DAYS WITH NO DOCS: 34 — More than a month has passed since Cabinet was sworn in, and still the Prime Minister's Office has made no mention of powerful Cabinet committee membership or new mandate letters for ministers — key documents that set the government's priorities. Playbook is counting the days. We'll stop when the documents flow. LOTTO ON THE HILL — MPs got word last week that the traditional draw for private members' business will go down tomorrow in West Block. The lottery will produce the names of the first 30 MPs who will be eligible to place bills or motions that advance their own legislative priorities on the cherished order of precedence — an express ticket to the limelight of Commons debate. The next step for those lucky MPs is to actually fill the order of precedence when it's formally solidified on Feb. 8. Their mission will be to achieve first reading of a private member's bill, or submit the text of their motion, before that date. NEW TO THE LEXICON: OMICRON — Almost nobody in Canada had heard of the latest Covid variant until late last week, but of course most observers were still catching up to the speed of the virus. Sunday brought the inevitable: Two cases of Omicron were detected in Ontario. Health Minister JEAN-YVES DUCLOS was quick with a response in which he acknowledged the new variant "may seem concerning," but that vaccines are still doing their job. G-7 health ministers will meet today to discuss. The Public Health Agency whipped up its own statement that responded to speculation that Omicron may spread more quickly than even the deadly Delta variant. "Early data suggest that the Omicron variant may be more transmissible but evidence is limited at this time," read the release. "There is ongoing international data gathering to determine the impact of this variant on severity of illness and on vaccine effectiveness." | 
