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A daily look inside Canadian politics and power. | | | | | |  | | By Nick Taylor-Vaisey | Send tips | Subscribe here | Email Nick | Follow Politico Canada WELCOME TO OTTAWA PLAYBOOK, I’m your host, Nick Taylor-Vaisey. Today is Tuesday, which means we're only a day away from the first House committee meeting of 2022. Plus, we read the ethics rules so you don't have to as a certain former ambassador to China finds himself in the headlines for accepting a job shortly after leaving his post in Beijing. |  | Driving the Day | | TRADING UP? — When news broke that ex-ambassador to China DOMINIC BARTON would be taking up a post-diplomatic job as Rio Tinto chair, the Politico bureau in Ottawa was abuzz in Slack. Can he do that? What are the rules? The Globe's BOB FIFE and STEVE CHASE caught wind of a letter penned by a pair of NDPs, HEATHER MACPHERSON and MATTHEW GREEN. They reportedly asked Ethics Commissioner MARIO DION to investigate Barton's move from top envoy to top board guy. But what are the rules? And if Barton broke them, what did he break? — Conflict of interest, explained: The traffic on this page , which explains post-employment rules to former public office holders, might've spiked Monday. We'll run through the basics, which start here: "You are required to observe what is commonly called a 'cooling-off period' following your last day in public office. The cooling-off period is two years for former ministers and ministers of state, and one year for all other former reporting public officers." Barton qualifies for one year. What can’t he do for those 12 months? "Work for, contract with or serve on the board of directors of an entity … with which you had direct and significant official dealings in the year preceding your last day in public office." What exactly counts as dealings? "Dealings include negotiations, briefings, contracts and the making of representations." And who decides whether significant dealings have occurred? The commissioner's website says that is "a question of fact that must be determined based on the circumstances of each case." The commissioner's advice? "Please contact your advisor for guidance." — The accusation: Rio Tinto, a mining giant, does a lot of business in China. Federal lobbying records show the company met with Barton on Oct. 8, two months before he announced his end-of-year departure as ambassador. The subject matter at that meeting was the environment, international trade and mining. Rio Tinto told the Globe no job offer was made that day, and the ethics commish was in the loop. — What's next: The commissioner's office wouldn't confirm that an investigation is underway to the Globe (which is the standard response). But if there is one, expect a fact-finding mission on exactly what happened behind closed doors between an ambassador and a global multinational. For hints of what might be in store, catch up on POLITICO reporter ANDY BLATCHFORD's digging on the saga of ex-ambassador to Washington DAVID MACNAUGHTON. Spoiler alert: MacNaughton did break the rules. FROM THE DESK OF SCOTT BRISON — As future homeowners grapple with the ever-rising cost of four walls to call their own, the former Treasury Board president and current banking executive chimed in on Twitter about the overheated market. — The fix: Brison's advice to federal, provincial and municipal governments: support densification, amend "sclerotic" permitting processes and — prepare for some drama at community associations across the land — "oppose nimbyism." | | ASK US ANYTHING | | What are you watching in 2022? What are you hearing that you need Playbook to know? Send it all our way. | | TODAY'S HIGHLIGHTS | | — Prime Minister JUSTIN TRUDEAU will speak with Ukrainian President VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY. Our bets on future "readout" content: more potential sanctions against Russians, prospective weapons exports to Ukraine. — ERIN O'TOOLE will deliver remarks at a virtual event convened by three Nova Scotia chambers of commerce: Yarmouth, Bridgewater, and Annapolis Valley. The event starts at 12 Atlantic. — Trade Minister MARY NG has an announcement on the Women Entrepreneurship Strategy Ecosystem Fund at 10:15. — Quebec Premier FRANÇOIS LEGAULT will reportedly announce a replacement for HORACIO ARRUDA, the province's public health director who resigned from the position Monday. | | HOUSE BUSINESS | | FINA AND HESA AND ETHI, OH MY — As soon as PIERRE POILIEVRE and ERIN O'TOOLE floated the idea of emergency committee meetings last week, it didn't take a Master's in political management to predict the inevitable. The Tories convinced fellow opposition MPs to join them in their quests. — FINA: The finance committee was first to confirm its intention to dig into what the non-Liberals who called the meeting are calling "Canada's housing inflation crisis." They'll sit Wednesday at 2:30 for a televised session (how else would Poilievre churn out his next batch of YouTube content?). — HESA: Conservative MP LUC BERTHOLD and the five other opposition members of the health committee are also gunning for a meeting this week. Their wish list of witnesses is lengthy: Health Minister JEAN-YVES DUCLOS, DM STEPHEN LUCAS, Public Health Agency President HARPREET S. KOCHHAR , PHAC VP for vaccine logistics and operations BRIG.-GEN KRISTA BRODIE, Chief Public Health Officer THERESA TAM and NACI chair SHELLEY DEEKS. — ETHI: The third plank in the Tories' committee campaign is over at ethics, where JOHN BRASSARD co-signed a letter with three other MPs that called for an emergency meeting on PHAC's reported collection of Canadians' mobile data. The agency has been tracking anonymized cell location data to better understand pandemic travel patterns. Bloc MP RENÉ VILLEMURE, a vice-chair, joined DAMIEN KUREK and LIANNE ROOD, and NDP MP MATTHEW GREEN voiced his own concerns. Tory PAT KELLY chairs the committee. Liberal MP IQRA KHALID is the other vice-chair. GREG FERGUS, the parlsec to both JUSTIN TRUDEAU and MONA FORTIER, is also at the table. The Liberal roster is filled out by YA'ARA SAKS, PARM BAINS and LISA HEPFNER. A few hours after Brassard et al called for a meeting, Kelly had one on the sked: Thursday at 11. | | HALLWAY CONVERSATION | |
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24 Sussex Drive, as viewed from across the Ottawa River | Photo by Sean Kilpatrick/CP | 24 SUSSEX DIVE — Your Playbook correspondent drives past the prime minister's official residence on a regular basis, and the vehicles parked outside serve as a constant reminder that, yes, the house exists and federal employees are still on site. Monday's Playbook featured an expert’s appeal to the government to finally make a decision on Huawei's future role in Canada's 5G infrastructure. Today in overdue decisions, we can't stop thinking about 24 Sussex. The most recent National Capital Commission calculation on necessary repairs includes C$36.6 million in deferred maintenance on the main residence that features 34 rooms and spans 12,000 sq.-ft. The 2021 report concluded that 24 Sussex's condition is "critical," the most dire score a federal building can receive. The electrical system is a fire hazard. The plumbing fails on a regular basis. The walls include asbestos, lead and mould. There's more. "The building has no universally accessible entrances or washrooms, the kitchen is not appropriate to serve official functions, and the dining room is both too large for a family and too small for state or official dinners." Harper-era staffers sometimes scoff at the doomsday tone of perennial conversations about 24 Sussex. The Harpers, they say, clearly made it work. But nobody denies that generations of PMs have let the place go to seed, and spending taxpayer money on a potentially lavish residence is political poison. Playbook enlisted J.D.M. STEWART, a history teacher and author of Being Prime Minister , to chart a path forward for the dilapidated mansion atop the Ottawa River: — Campbell Clark reminded us in the Globe and Mail last week about the unloved child that is 24 Sussex Drive, the official residence of Canada’s prime ministers. The home of every PM since Louis St. Laurent in 1951, no leader has lived in the home since Stephen and Laureen Harper were fostering cats and dealing with cold drafts in 2015. The only animals running around now are likely raccoons. But what is to be done? It’s time for some leadership. All living former prime ministers should come forward with a declaration that they support a decision to move forward to repair 24 Sussex. After all, these are the very people responsible for letting the edifice fall into its current, decrepit state. “We all made a mistake,” JEAN CHRÉTIEN once told me. “We all did virtually the same thing.” Which was essentially nothing. Monsieurs Clark, Mulroney, Chrétien, Martin and Harper, along with Ms. Campbell, can all issue a statement and give the current prime minister some political cover. Fix 24 Sussex. We're asking every former PM what they think about Stewart's idea. What do you think should be done with 24 Sussex? Playbook is all ears. Email us. | | PLAYBOOKERS | |
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Jean Chrétien on the staircase at 24 Sussex | Photo by Fred Chartrand/CP | Birthdays: Former PM JEAN CHRÉTIEN is 88 today. The former world leader who always has something to say boasted about his excess energy in the early pages of his most recent memoir . Playbook won't spoil the details, but here's Chrétien's condensed itinerary for a pre-pandemic business trip: "When I got home, Aline told me that I seemed very tired. No surprise: I had travelled to New York, Vancouver, Kelowna, Montreal, Paris, and Ottawa in only nine days and worked from morning to night. As they say in Mauricie, not too bad for a guy who's 85." Chrétien recently sat down with MARK SUTCLIFFE on the Digging Deep pod. Spotted: Natural Resources Minister JONATHAN WILKINSON on a Zoom call with chief of staff CLAIRE SEABORN and the rest of his team — parlsecs, too. Movers and shakers: It didn't take long for DAN ARNOLD, JUSTIN TRUDEAU's research and advertising whisperer for six years, to land on his feet away from the Hill. Arnold is back at Pollara Insights, where he toiled pre-Trudeau. Now he's chief strategy officer. And that's not all. Arnold will oversee PoliScience, a "new standalone sister company that will exclusively meet the needs of partisan political clients clamouring for cutting-edge research and analytics insights exclusively in the political sphere." LAURA PENNER, a former strategy and ops advisor to CHRYSTIA FREELAND who's now VP of business development at iPolitics, adds a new gig to her post-Hill CV: senior adviser at Wellington Dupont Public Affairs. KRYSTINA WALER, a two-time Tory candidate who also worked in policy and stakeholder relations for Ontario Transportation Minister JEFF YUREK, is now director of Ukrainian initiatives at the Temerty Foundation. … MATTHEW DON TRAPP, a lobbyist and former Tory staffer, is the new director of public affairs at the Sandstone Group. KAREN RESTOULE takes on a new role as chief executive at the consultancy Shared Value Solutions. … DIANA LUU is now country manager for LinkedIn Canada, an endless source of movers and shakers news. Media mentions: Politico Media Group has a new CEO, GOLI SHEIKHOLESLAMI, whose résumé includes stints at Time Warner, Condé Nast, Washington Post, Everyday Health and Chicago Public Radio. She was most recently CEO of NY Public Radio. VANMALA SUBRAMANIAM starts a new role as future of work reporter at the Globe and Mail. Farewells: The life and legacy of EARL MULDON, CHIEF DELGAMUUKW, was remembered by the federal government as an icon of Indigenous rights, a renowned carver and artist who sought to preserve Northwest Coast design and Gitxsan culture. “It is clear that his memory and work will live on in his community and all Canadians should be grateful for the efforts he made to improve the lives of those in his community and Indigenous communities across Canada,” said a statement from Justice Minister DAVID LAMETTI, Crown–Indigenous Relations Minister MARC MILLER and Indigenous Services Minister PATTY HADJU. In a statement of her own, Assembly of First Nations National Chief ROSEANNE ARCHIBALD said: “His passing allows us to reflect on how we can stand up, protect and implement our own First Nations laws, languages and legal systems. I thank him for his unwavering leadership in the assertion of rights and their broad impacts for First Nations in British Columbia and across Canada.” Carleton's School of Journalism marked the tragic death of student Olivier Dundas this past weekend. | | PROZONE | | If you are a , catch the latest Pro Canada PM newsletter from ANDY BLATCHFORD and ZI-ANN LUM: Memo reveals scramble to get Canadians home from Wuhan. In the newsletter, Blatchford reports on a newly released internal memo that sheds light on the scramble to get Canadians home from Wuhan, China. In other news for Pros: — Last 7 years were hottest on record.
— The doctor who sees you now may have Covid.
— Omicron is surging — and Democrats aren’t shutting things down this time.
— Biden administration lays out rules for reimbursing at-home Covid tests.
— Damages from billion-dollar disasters surged in 2021, NOAA says. | | MEDIA ROOM | | — CHRISTINE FRANGOU writes for Maclean’s on long Covid: Chronic exhaustion, derailed lives and no way out. “It feels like being wrapped in a lead blanket,” community health worker Carrie Anna McGinn says. “It kind of feels like my cells are dying.” — On The Backbench pod out later today, FATIMA SYED talks to three generations of Indigenous people about the federal government's crucial next steps on reconciliation: ROMEO SAGANASH, RILEY YESNO and LEENA MINIFIE — At Policy Options, KATHRYN MAY explains why last week's deputy minister shuffle was such a big deal — and speculates why it took so long. — ANDREW POTTER watched MICHAEL IGNATIEFF 's recent reading of Pericles on the Acropolis. At The Line, Potter briefly poked fun at the former Liberal leader's video quality, but mostly he meditated on the Athenian statesman's centuries-old words. — And from SEAN SPEER and ROBERT ASSELIN: Time for Ottawa to make good on its bipartisan commitment to “radical innovation.” | | TRIVIA | | Monday's answer: 51 nations — including Canada — were represented at the first session of the United Nations General Assembly in January 1946. Props to GANGA WIGNARAJAH, MICHAEL MACDONALD, GOZDE KAZAZOGLU, DOROTHY McCABE, JOHN ECKER, JOHN GUOBA, BOB GORDON, BRAM ABRAMSON, SHEILA GERVAIS and ROBERT McDOUGALL. Tuesday’s question: What sitting MP, also a professional musician and recording artist, hosted a weekly radio show called Jazz Sessions? Send your answers to ottawaplaybook@politico.com Have a petition you want signed? A cause you’re promoting? Seeking to increase brand awareness amongst this key audience? Share your message with our influential readers to foster engagement and drive action. Contact Alejandra Waase to find out how: awaase@politico.com. Playbook wouldn’t happen without Luiza Ch. Savage, editor Sue Allan, Andy Blatchford and Zi-Ann Lum.
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