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A daily look inside Canadian politics and power. | | | | |  | | By Nick Taylor-Vaisey and Zi-Ann Lum | Send tips | Subscribe here | Email Nick | Follow Politico Canada WELCOME TO OTTAWA PLAYBOOK. I'm your host, Nick Taylor-Vaisey. Today is Thursday, and Ottawans might spot the first wave of visiting truckers on the streets of the city's downtown core. We also have the latest on Canada's position on Russia-Ukraine tensions. Plus, a senior trade negotiator unretires himself.
|  | Driving the Day | | GO TO MANOTICK — That's the advice to local residents from DIANE DEANS, the chair of Ottawa's police services board, as the nation's capital braces for the arrival of the Freedom Convoy. Families in search of weekend activities, she says, are better off avoiding the downtown core. The official word from local police is that traffic disruptions "may occur on a large scale," but authorities are hard-pressed to be more specific. — Oh, the uncertainty: Police Chief PETER SLOLY told a special meeting of the police board Wednesday that police have made contact with organizers of the main convoy, but he added an 18 wheeler-sized caveat: "Please consider that literally an hour from now, the nature of the event may have changed, the risks associated to it changed, therefore the plans associated may have changed." Translation: Sloly doesn't know exactly what to expect. TAMARA LICH, one of the organizers, insists the convoy comes in peace. "I just want to put it out there that nobody in this convoy will be inciting violence or uttering threats. That is not what we’re here to do," she said in a Facebook video. — What might be coming: "We are planning for a range of potential risks including but not limited to counter-demonstrations, blocking of intersections, interfering with critical infrastructure, and unlawful and violent activity," TRISH FERGUSON, acting deputy police chief, told Wednesday's meeting. On Fox News with LAURA INGRAHAM , former hockey star and present-day anti-vaxxer THEO FLEURY laughably predicted 1.4 million people are headed to Ottawa — a total that would temporarily more than double the city's population. Regina police estimated the convoy's size at 1,200 vehicles at that point in the journey — still enough to utterly clog major downtown Ottawa streets with ease. The acting deputy chief said the cops are trying to reach feeder convoys. "Efforts are being made to establish communications with all other actors that may also engage in related demonstrations and/or counter-demonstrations." Presumably the police would love to hear from one particular trucker who promised in a posted video that the military "ain't gonna be there. They're gonna be on our side. So stop with that bulls--t." — Jurisdictional cooperation: The local briefing mentioned consultation and communication with every conceivable law enforcement agency in town. They name-checked the Ontario Provincial Police, the Mounties and the Parliamentary Protective Service. The National Capital Region Command Center will oversee it all. Earlier this month, former Privy Council clerk MICHAEL WERNICK reminded Playbook how much that cooperation has improved since the 2014 Ottawa shooting. "The House ran its own security system, which was different from the one in the Senate. They didn't talk to each other. They had literal turf wars. They used different radio systems. They weren't connected well to the Ottawa Police or the RCMP. It was a complete shambles of interagency rivalry and competition." — The PM's response: Prime Minister JUSTIN TRUDEAU had little time for some of the enraged truckers. When asked about it Wednesday, he dismissed some of them as a "small fringe minority of people … who are holding unacceptable views that they are expressing." — Playbook's pick for Most Serene Weekend Escape Without Leaving City Limits: Mer Bleue, the biggest bog in town with an impressive boardwalk.
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Anita Anand, Chrystia Freeland and Mélanie Joly look on as Justin Trudeau speaks following a cabinet retreat. | Photo by Adrian Wyld/CP | THE LATEST ON UKRAINE — Trudeau emerged from a two-day Cabinet meeting with Deputy PM CHRYSTIA FREELAND, Foreign Minister MÉLANIE JOLY and Defense Minister ANITA ANAND. The headline: Canada won't send ammunition to Ukraine, but the military will send more troops for an extended training mission. — Related reading: With the world watching for a possible war, POLITICO Magazine reached out to Russia and Putin watchers to ask what might be next. — Related listening: Are we facing Europe's biggest war in 80 years? Or are we panicking because we don't understand Ukraine and Putin? What have Russia's other neighbors done to fend off Moscow? For answers to all these questions and more, POLITICO’s RYAN HEATH talked to European Council on Foreign Relations senior fellow KADRI LIIK. Catch the interview here. “War tomorrow?” Heath asks at one point. Liik’s reply: “We are going to see more rounds of talks. And then it will all go back to the two presidents. Vladimir Putin, he is the decision maker. … I think if Moscow had decided that they will go to war one way or another, they wouldn't invest all that energy in these talks.” RECONCILIATION — When Prime Minister JUSTIN TRUDEAU was asked about legislative priorities for next week's return of Parliament, he listed four priorities in this order: Covid, climate change, economic recovery, affordability. The PM slotted lower-cost childcare and measures to fight what he termed a "housing crisis" under that final plank. — Nothing urgent? Indigenous reconciliation didn't crack the Cabinet retreat's public agenda. It is of course still a major part of the broader Liberal agenda. MARC MILLER and PATTY HAJDU are still focused on Indigenous affairs, they still have robust mandate letters, and there is still a Cabinet committee on reconciliation that includes seven more ministers. And Trudeau opened his remarks Wednesday by acknowledging the tragic discovery of possible burial sites at St. Joseph’s Mission Residential School in B.C. But the PM's response could speak volumes about Government House Leader MARK HOLLAND's biggest priorities this spring.
| | AROUND THE HILL | | THE GOAT IS BACK — Word last year was that über-talented international trade negotiator STEVE VERHEUL was retiring from the public service after 33 years. But he's now unretired , reports the Hill Times. Verheul is taking up an advisory role in the office of deputy finance minister MICHAEL SABIA. His bailiwick: global trade issues. — The second acts: Playbook spotted Verheul and Unifor boss JERRY DIAS at a ByWard Market eatery last November, around the time the senior public servant was hanging up his skates. They had a history together. The way Dias describes it, they played good cop-bad cop with the Americans during NAFTA renegotiations. Now, Dias is chairing Ontario Premier DOUG FORD's new council on U.S. Trade and Industry Competitiveness. Keep an eye on the Market for more dynamic duo sightings. Our bet is on a hole in the wall that's equal parts affordable and classy. INDUSTRIAL COMPLEXES — Innovation, Science and Industry Minister FRANÇOIS-PHILIPPE CHAMPAGNE will take questions at the House industry committee today during meeting No. 2 of a critical minerals study. MPs want to know why Ottawa decided to not launch a formal national security review of a pending takeover of Canadian lithium mining firm Neo Lithium Corp by a Chinese state-owned company. Former Canadian ambassador to China GUY SAINT-JACQUES was among the first round of witnesses Wednesday. The key question for him, he said, is looking at where Neo Lithium Corp is active. “It has no mine in Canada. But one mine project in Argentina. I must say that it is not obvious to me to see how Canadian national security would be directly threatened by this acquisition.” But the more important question, he said, is what is the Canadian government’s policy to support the production of critical minerals in Canada? — Notable quotable: Automotive Parts Manufacturers' Association President FLAVIO VOLPE warned against navel gazing and making assumptions about potential national security risks. “I was part of the CUSMA rewrite. We cannot use lithium from Argentina in production of vehicles in Canada, U.S. or Mexico and meet the CUSMA/USMCA compliance rules of origin. So we're, we're talking about a hypothetical use here that in practice would never happen.” — Repetition, critical: Industry committee MPs unanimously agreed in the last Parliament that the government should introduce legislation to amend the Investment in Canada Act so that every time a state-owned or state-controlled enterprise is involved with a deal, “every transaction triggers a review, including a net benefit test and a national security test.” — Race against clocks: Legislation wasn’t introduced and an election was called four months after the committee tabled its report. The Neo Lithium decision can’t be undone, said International Governance Innovation senior fellow WESLEY WARK, calling it a mistake. “But it seems to me this case offers important lessons for the conduct of national security review in future.”
| | TODAY'S HIGHLIGHTS | | — Prime Minister JUSTIN TRUDEAU is scheduled to speak with Barbados PM MIA MOTTLEY and then ARTURS KRIŠJĀNIS KARIŅŠ, prime minister of Latvia. — The Conservative caucus meets today for a two-day retreat. 9:45 a.m. The Supreme Court delivers judgment in a number of leave applications. 1 p.m. Environment Minister STEVEN GUILBEAULT will hold a virtual presser to announce details of the Low Carbon Economy Fund. 2 p.m. The PM will kick off the Liberals’ “virtual National Caucus Winter Retreat” with remarks you can catch on CPAC. Deputy PM CHRYSTIA FREELAND will attend. 7 p.m. TRUDEAU and NDP Leader JAGMEET SINGH will join the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies for a virtual event to mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
| | HOUSE BUSINESS | | — The House industry committee will hear from Innovation Minister FRANÇOIS-PHILIPPE CHAMPAGNE at 5:30. They'll also put a few senior bureaucrats in the hot seat. On the docket: CHERIE HENDERSON from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service; SIMON KENNEDY, the deputy minister of industry and KATHERINE BURKE, director general of the investment review branch; JEFF LABONTÉ, assistant deputy minister at Natural Resources Canada; and DOMINIC ROCHON, a senior assistant deputy minister at Public Safety Canada.
| | PAPER TRAIL | | WE ALL WANT TO CHANGE THE WORLD — Former industry minister NAVDEEP BAINS and one of his former chiefs of staff, ELDER MARQUES, penned a Jan. 18 op-ed in Maclean's about Canada's role in what they called the climate-tech revolution. "The challenges ahead are big and urgent," they wrote, "and they'll require courage and leadership from both business and government." Bains and Marques are both free of government. Bains is CIBC's vice-chair of global investment banking. Marques is a partner at Blake, Cassels & Graydon. But they're no outsiders and their ideas undoubtedly hold sway in the PMO. One of their recommendations? "We need to find ways to translate research into marketable innovation, and then help our dynamic young climate tech start-ups grow to match the scale of the climate crisis." — Welcome to our wheelhouse. Playbook contacted Bains, eager to pick up the conversation. — We have questions: What is marketable innovation? Who are the dynamic young climate tech start-ups? What's stopping them from matching the scale of the crisis? — We also wanted to know: What is the federal government not doing that it should be doing? Where do the federal superclusters, launched by Bains in 2017, fit into the bigger picture? And how should most Canadians engage with what he and Marques are writing about? — The response: Bains doesn't want to talk about it — at least not with us. The op-ed, he said, speaks for itself.
| | ASK US ANYTHING | | What are you hearing that you need Playbook to know? Send it all our way.
| | PROZONE | | Pro s should not miss ANDY BLATCHFORD’s Pro Canada PM memo: How fast — and how far — will rates climb? For s: Join POLITICO journalists Scott Bland, Ally Mutnick, Sarah Ferris and Natalie Allison for a briefing focused on U.S. midterm elections and what each party is doing to sway voters. In other headlines for s: — Retirement of Justice Stephen Breyer hands Biden open Supreme Court seat.
— House Democrats launch 3 climate-focused task forces.
— In win for China, WTO allows retaliatory tariffs on $645M U.S. goods.
— Cities see ‘opportunity’ after lockdown clean air saved hundreds of lives.
| | MEDIA ROOM | | — In this Twitter thread, First Nations advocate and residential school survivor CELESTE GEORGE responds to news that Williams Lake First Nation says it has found dozens of potential human burials around the former St. Joseph’s Mission Residential School. “You will see new graphics with higher numbers,” she writes. “Each was more than a number. More than a statistic.” — “The walls are closing in on federal Conservative Party Leader Erin O’Toole,” reads the lead of GARY MASON’s curtain-raiser on caucus. — CP’s STEPHANIE TAYLOR says Conservatives are not likely to see the complete campaign report from former MP JAMES CUMMING when caucus meets. — In Policy Magazine, JAMES MUNSON reviews Cobalt: Cradle of the Demon Metals, Birth of a Mining Superpower, a just-published book from MP CHARLIE ANGUS. — The Pearson Centre hosted a Tuesday conversation between former New Brunswick Premier BRIAN GALLANT and former PM PAUL MARTIN. Gallant quizzed the PM on how the G20 and other multilateral institutions can be most effective. PMPM's response: Don't wait for the prime minister to show global leadership at a summit with fancy communiqués. Empower ministers to own their portfolios on the world stage. Watch the whole conversation here.
| | ALSO FOR YOUR RADAR | | TRIVIA: ROUND TWO — We're sold out! Watch Friday's Playbook for the results of Politico Canada's second virtual trivia night. And if you're joining tonight, read on. CHEERS TO US — We asked the multi-talented BRUCE DEACHMAN of the Ottawa Citizen for a cocktail worthy of trivial pursuits. It’s the second recipe he’s served up for us, which surely makes him our resident mixologist. Allow us to present ⟶
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The official drink of Politico Canada trivia night: The S.O. 106(4) | Photo courtesy Bruce Deachman | The SO106(4) 2 oz. bourbon
1/2 oz. maple syrup
3 dashes Angostura bitters
2 brandied maraschino cherries
1 slice dried sugared orange slice For those who don’t watch Parliament for a living, Standing Order 106(4) pertains to when the chair of a committee convenes a meeting upon written request from four members of that committee. Should you prefer to imbibe in The SO31, you’ll find that recipe here.
| | PLAYBOOKERS | | Birthdays: WAYNE GRETZKY is 61 — not 60 as reported in some editions of Wednesday’s Playbook. In today’s news: Former Conservative Cabinet minister TONY CLEMENT is 61. Spotted: Forbes' ranking of Canada's best employers , in which the Canada School of Public Service took third place. The feds were no stranger to the Top 50: Health Canada (9), Defence Construction Canada (22), Export Development Canada (25), Global Affairs Canada (32), Department of Finance (35), Veterans Affairs Canada (36), and the Canada Revenue Agency (40). No. 1 overall? Hydro-Québec. CTV's ANNIE BERGERON-OLIVER, a figure skater before she was a Hill journalist, twirling on ice. Ottawa mayor JIM WATSON, naming a street in an east-end suburban subdivision after celeb RYAN REYNOLDS. Add it to the list of Atlas Obscura oddities in the capital that tourists will flock to for the 'gram. Movers and shakers: Maglio's MAXIM BERGERON is lobbying for EV Technologies, a Quebec-based company that develops innovative batteries. Counsel Public Affairs consultant BRAD LAVIGNE is repping Tourmaline Oil, which hopes to unlock "Strategic Infrastructure Fund opportunities to expedite decarbonization projects for large emitters." Lavigne, a longtime senior NDP staffer on the Hill, has already lobbied NDP MP CHARLIE ANGUS. SIMON JEFFERIES, a consultant with JENNI BYRNE + Associates, has School Bus Ontario as a client. His goal is to engage with Transport Canada on "mandatory vaccination for federally regulated school bus operators." The ethics files: Tory MP BEN LOBB declared cryptocurrency — bitcoin, specifically — in a recent filing with the ethics commissioner. Media mentions: MARTHA TROIAN is senior producer on Canadalandback, a new pod hosted by RYAN MCMAHON . The team also includes CASSIDY VILLEBRUN-BURACAS. MIKE LE COUTEUR is taking his talents to CTV News next month. He bids adieu to Global News after 21 years. … CBC's CHRISTIAN PAAS-LANG has upgraded to coveted permanent status . He'll keep splitting his time between weekday producing on The House and weekend duties in the Hill bureau. Farewells: The Makivik Corporation shared news of the death of BERN PENNEE, who had been head of its legal team since its start in 1978. “He dedicated his life to and contributed so much towards the betterment of the Inuit in Nunavik,” said Makivik President PITA AATAMI.
| | TRIVIA | | Wednesday’s answer: MP LORI IDLOUT won the NDP nomination in Nunavut by a coin toss. For more on that, check out this report from MÉLANIE RITCHOT of the Nunatsiaq News. Props to BOB GORDON, LEIGH LAMPERT, ROBERT MCDOUGALL and SHEILA GERVAIS. Thursday’s question: Today’s trivia test is courtesy Playbook reader BOB ERNEST: Name the rookie MP with a son who is a Toronto city councillor. 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, Sue Allan and Andy Blatchford.
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