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A daily look inside Canadian politics and power. | | | | |  | | By Zi-Ann Lum | Send tips | Subscribe here | Email Zi-Ann l Follow Politico Canada WELCOME TO OTTAWA PLAYBOOK. I’m your host Zi-Ann Lum with Nick Taylor-Vaisey. Efforts to collect and predictably post Covid data may have fallen off a cliff, but it doesn’t mean the pandemic won’t have another surprise up its nightmare sleeve. A Quebec microbiologist shares two rules of thumb. Plus, we asked experts to decode a Tory leadership candidate’s stump speech. Did someone forward Ottawa Playbook to you today? Save someone’s time by signing up directly. Click here to sign up to this free newsletter.
|  | DRIVING THE DAY | | THE N/A CHAPTER OF COVID — Hospitalizations have jumped 40 percent in Ontario in the past week. Omicron’s BA.2 subvariant is now the dominant variant in communities. Hospitals are strained across the country. And there are eight “N/A” provinces and territories on the federal “current situation” map tracking active Covid-19 cases. Quebec’s interim public health director Dr. LUC BOILEAU responded to the onset of a sixth wave by extending the province's mask mandate to the end of April. “The best thing that could be done for everyone is to take the advantage of the third dose. The third dose,” Boileau emphasized. “This is really important.” — Sign of the times : The Conservatives’ calls to drop federal mandates isn’t aging well with hospitalizations on the rise. To put things into perspective: When the economic and fiscal update dropped Dec. 14, your Playbook host remembers being in the Sir John A. Macdonald Building when mid-lockup, Finance Minister CHRYSTIA FREELAND announced at the last minute that she had to bail from the in-person press conference because of a Covid exposure. Nearly 1,500 people were hospitalized due to Covid across the country at the time. Today, on the eve of the budget, the number of hospitalizations has tripled. — Confidence booster: Roughly two-third of Quebecers who are double vaxxed opted to get a third dose, according to government data. Microbiologist JEAN LONGTIN joined Boileau at Tuesday’s news conference. He boiled down his advice to two pieces of guidance heading into the spring holiday season with Ramadan, Passover and Easter. If you have Covid, you’re contagious, most likely for 10 days , Longtin said. “We ask you to stay home for five days, but from the 6th till the 10th, it's really important not to be in contact with those that are vulnerable.” If you have symptoms, stay home. RATs aren’t perfect and “most cases are acquired actually from small gatherings or from people you know,” he said.
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Pierre Poilievre addresses the crowd at the Infinity Convention Center in Ottawa | Sue Allan/POLITICO | DECODING PIERRE POILIEVRE — Canada’s Conservatives are desperate for a leader who can unite the right and stitch together a winning voter coalition. The race is now on to find that unicorn to take on Justin Trudeau. A growing movement of grassroots Conservatives are convinced they've found their guy. Poilievre is part-happy warrior and part-angsty firebrand. He's all about finding and eliminating gatekeepers — a swamp of government bureaucrats, politicians and special interests who get in the way of people who want to build things, live the lives they want to live and make something of themselves. His stump speech isn't subtle. He rails against government overreach, bloated bureaucracies and corrupt politicians. He promises to make Canada the "freest country on Earth." He implores everyone within earshot to buy a Conservative membership. We gathered some excerpts from a recent stump speech and asked party strategists and policy wonks to decode. Here’s a sample: What he said: "The government's now got this new Bill C-11, which will allow the CRTC to regulate what you see, and say, online. They have another bill. They want to ban you from saying anything that the government deems to be harmful. They now want to extend it so that there will be a group of bureaucrats who can cull through all the posts that go online and determine which ones could eventually lead people to think things that they shouldn't think and therefore should be censored for." What the crowd heard: F-r-e-e-d-o-m. SHAKIR CHAMBERS, a consultant with Earnscliffe who worked on DOUG FORD's provincial campaign in 2018, said railing against a perceived government clampdown on free speech is catnip to the crowd. "It appeals to the people who want that freedom, who feel that libertarian streak," he said. "Less is more, and let me just make my own decisions." Read the decoder here.
| | On the Hill | | INFO GAP ON CAP — Environment Minister STEVEN GUILBEAULT and Natural Resources Minister JONATHAN WILKINSON are a joint tag team at committee today to answer MPs’ questions about a promised emissions cap for the oil and gas sector. Expect natural resources committee chair JOHN ALDAG to be caught in the middle of some back-and-forth off the top. MPs were angry at the end of the committee’s last meeting because they thought they’d have each minister for an hour of Q&A separately — rather than together. — Speed read : The Liberals campaigned on a promise to introduce an emissions cap for Canada's oil and gas sector set at “current levels.” Last week’s Emissions Reduction Plan was void of details about the cap and modeling data didn’t account for the measure. Consultations with provinces, industry and union and environmental groups will take place in the coming months. Details of the cap are expected late 2022 or early 2023. Guilbeault said earlier this week that one of the to-do items is nailing what “current levels” means. It will be either 2021 or 2022, he said. “I can assure you it won't be 2025.” — Industry FOMO: The topic is expected to come up at the 2022 Scotiabank CAPP Energy Symposium today as producers insist there’s more to their companies than GHG emissions. JEFF TONKEN , president and CEO of Birchcliff Energy Ltd. and Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers board vice chair, broached the topic with reporters Tuesday. Tonken is a speaker on the conference’s “What Does the Future Hold for Canadian Natural Gas?” panel. Tonken said since 2015, the U.S. has built its LNG export capacity to 13 billion cubic feet per day while Canada was — and is — still working on its first LNG facility. He brought up JOE BIDEN’s recent promise to send 15 billion cubic meters of additional LNG to Europe this year. “We have to wonder why we are allowing this to take place,” Tonken said. “Why is our country going to allow our neighbor to the south to develop a huge industry … And we're going to sit and watch.” Are you CHRYSTIA FREELAND or someone who wants to chat about new measures Canada will implement to address looming labor shortage challenges to decarbonize entire sectors to spur economic growth in a competitive energy transition era? Drop us a line: ottawaplaybook@politico.com.
| | ASK US ANYTHING | | What are you hearing that you need Playbook to know? Any questions about the budget? Send it all our way.
| | PAPER TRAIL | | National Defence is looking for a black mobile communications vehicle. It must have a mini fridge, microwave, and its countertops must be made of solid hardwood.
| | TODAY'S HIGHLIGHTS | | 9:30 a.m. Conservative Leader CANDICE BERGEN will attend her party’s national caucus meeting. 10 a.m. Prime Minister JUSTIN TRUDEAU will attend the Liberals’ national caucus meeting. The PM has a bilateral scheduled at 3:45 p.m. with UN High Commissioner for Refugees FILIPPO GRANDI. The PMO said Immigration Minister SEAN FRASER will also attend. 10 a.m. Deputy Prime Minister CHRYSTIA FREELAND will attend the Liberals’ national caucus meeting. At 1 p.m., Freeland will “continue the pre-budget tradition of selecting a new pair of shoes” in Ottawa. 10 a.m. NDP Leader JAGMEET SINGH will attend his party’s national caucus meeting. 10 a.m. Enbridge President and CEO AL MONACO delivers a keynote address at the 2022 Scotiabank CAPP Energy Symposium which wraps today. 12 p.m. Conservative MP COREY TOCHOR holds a presser on a petition calling upon the government of Canada to include nuclear energy within the Canada Green Bond Framework. 2 p.m. The Center for Climate and Energy Solutions holds a virtual discussion on how investments in innovation can reduce emissions and encourage ambition to accelerate the transition to a net-zero economy — with U.S. Energy Secretary JENNIFER GRANHOLM. 3:30 p.m. Environment Minister STEVEN GUILBEAULT and Natural Resources Minister JONATHAN WILKINSON are witnesses at the House natural resources committee where MPs are studying the Liberals' pledged emissions cap for the oil and gas sector.
| | HALLWAY CONVERSATION | | | 
An Ukrainian serviceman carrying a weapon walks past a member of the public in Svitylnia, Ukraine. | Anastasia Vlasova/Getty Images | The House committee on public safety and national security is studying Canada’s security posture in relation to Russia. You can watch their latest meeting here. A few highlights from Tuesday’s roster of witnesses: ROBERT HUEBERT, associate professor, department of political science, University of Calgary: “Russia is an existential threat to Canada, and it is growing. … Perhaps the most important element of this threat that Canada has in fact been ignoring is the Russian way of war and [Putin’s] willingness to use that way of war to achieve his policy objectives, which places it on a direct collision course with NATO.” VERONICA KITCHEN, associate professor, department of political science, University of Waterloo: “The threat to Canada is exacerbated by Russia's clear desperation. Missiles over the Canadian Arctic or the use of weapons of mass destruction look more likely than they did a few months ago — even accounting for the fact Russia is clearly preoccupied by its invasion of Ukraine not going as it expected. This may mean that the prospects for widening its targets to include Canada or NATO allies may be smaller in the short term, but possibly only the very short term.” AHMED AL-RAWI, assistant professor, Simon Fraser University: “You can see today a different information strategy that uses Russian government diplomatic missions as its main means to spread propaganda. … The embassy has been active in spreading disinformation and promoting the Russian perspective on the events taking place in Ukraine. Instead of heavily relying on RT or Sputnik, the embassy mostly retweets messages from the Russian foreign affairs minister and other Russian diplomatic accounts and missions from around the world, as well as Russia's foreign allies, like China.” JAMES FERGUSSON, deputy director, Centre for Defence and Security Studies, University of Manitoba: “We have significant gaps in vulnerabilities which have existed for over a decade in terms of the ability of NORAD — and, as a result, Canada — to be able to detect these threats, to track them, to discriminate, and then to be able to cue interception capabilities. “Interceptors are another issue. The F-35 is a step forward. But there's a broad need to rethink the way Canada — in conjunction with the United States via NORAD — undertakes and modernizes North American defense to reduce our vulnerability and to be able to deter potential Russian threats, which will affect the way Canada and North America and the United States respond to threats that originate overseas, as we see today in the Ukraine.” DAVID PERRY, president of the Canadian Global Affairs Institute, was also at the committee. He told MPs that while NATO’s 2 percent of GDP spending target is imperfect, it is a measure allies agreed to meet. “If we remain unprepared to reach our alliance spending targets, we should be prepared for our allies and adversaries to question our commitment to defense and international peace and security.” We’ll have more from Perry on defense and the 2022 budget in this evening’s Pro PM Canada memo for s.
| | MEDIA ROOM | | — CTV reports: Federal budget set to include surtax on big banks' pandemic profits. — Toronto police’s financial crimes unit confirmed to the Canadian Press that it is investigating JERRY DIAS. — ARNO KOPECKY is on CBC’s Front Burner podcast to talk about Canada’s emissions reduction plan. They also discuss Kopecky’s 2019 profile of STEVEN GUILBEAULT. — BILL CURRY of The Globe reports that the federal government will pay IBM an additional C$106-million for a one-year extension to the company’s contract work on the troubled Phoenix pay system. — The Star’s HEATHER SCOFFIELD writes: Canadian politicians are offering solutions to inflation that could make things worse. — Canada's Ambassador to the United Nations BOB RAE joins The Bridge to discuss whether or not the world should negotiate with Putin.
| | PROZONE | | If you’re a POLITICO Pro , don’t miss our latest policy newsletter: Climate watchdog ready to audit the audits. Also from POLITICO's ANDY BLATCHFORD: Canada wants digital giants to compensate local news outlets. In other headlines for Pros: — U.S., U.K., Australia team up on hypersonic weapons with eye on Russia and China.
— Twitter to reduce the reach of Russian government accounts.
— U.S. struggles to contain a deepening global food crisis.
— Brussels proposes new sanctions package against Russia.
— Four takeaways on booster shots as FDA weighs strategy.
| | Playbookers | | Birthdays: HBD to Sen. ÉRIC FOREST (7-0!), Liberal MP BARDISH CHAGGER, former Cabinet ministers ANDRÉ OUELLET, GAIL SHEA and PIERRE CADIEUX and former MPs GUY LAUZON and PETER ELZINGA. Send birthdays to ottawaplaybook@politico.com. Movers and shakers: Senate Majority Leader CHUCK SCHUMER filed cloture on KETANJI BROWN JACKSON’s Supreme Court nomination on Tuesday, setting her up for a confirmation vote potentially Thursday. POLITICO’s story is here. One more from Washington: U.S. President JOE BIDEN is nominating Adm. LINDA FAGAN to head the Coast Guard — a role that would make her, if confirmed, the first woman ever to lead a U.S. military service. PMO alumnus DIAMOND ISINGER has a new job as director of government relations at Co-operatives and Mutuals Canada. There are nine new federal advisory committee members on the charitable sector: CHRISTIAN BOLDUC, OWEN CHARTERS, ANVER EMON, SHEHERAZADE HIRJI, JEAN-MARC MANGIN, SARAH MIDANIK, MARTHA RANS, TANYA RUMBLE and BOB WYATT. Sen. DOUG BLACK is the Canada West Foundation’s new board chair … DAN MUNRO and CREIG LAMB are behind Shift Insights, the newest consultancy focused on “innovation & technology trends, skills, digital currencies, open banking and more .” Watch for the shortlist for the 2022 SHAUGHNESSY COHEN PRIZE today. The award recognizes nonfiction books that have potential to influence thinking on Canadian political life. This year’s jurors: CHARELLE EVELYN, JACQUES POITRAS and LISA RAITT. Spotted: Canadian Press reporter MAAN ALHMIDI,in conversation with the UNHCR about fleeing Aleppo and his journey from lawyer to journalist. Liberal MP RECHIE VALDEZ, hacked. Media mentions: The weeklong Canadian Screen Awards has already recognized a long list of Canadian journos. Here are some of the winners so far: CBC’s THE FIFTH ESTATE:13 Deadly Hours (best news or information program), CBC’s THE NATIONAL (best national newscast), BELLE PURI (best local reporter), APTN (best news or information series for APTN Investigates), TINA HOUSE (best national reporter), ANITA BATHE (best local anchor), LISA LAFLAMME (best national anchor). More award winners here. Journalist COLIN D'MELLO is joining the Global newsroom as Queen’s Park Bureau Chief. Farewells: Toronto Councillor JOE CRESSY is leaving municipal politics for a VP position at George Brown College. PAUL BOYKAS is retiring from PepsiCo, where he’s been SVP for North America government affairs after a nearly 33-year career. He’ll be replaced by BRIGITTE GWYN, who most recently was president and CEO of the Association of Magazine Media, and is an Accenture alum. h/t POLITICO Playbook Send Playbookers tips to ottawaplaybook@politico.com.
| | On the Hill | | 3:30 p.m.The House official languages committee continues its study of Francophone immigration to Canada. 3:30 p.m. The House heritage committee meets in camera to discuss two reports, one of them looking at Rogers Communications Inc.'s takeover of Shaw Communications. 3:30 p.m. The House health committee is on the schedule, down for some “committee business” so far. 3:30 p.m. Royal Military College prof Christian Leuprecht will be at the national defense committee as it studies recruitment and retention in the Canadian Forces. 3:30 p.m. A four-person team of foreign affairs department officials are at the House international trade committee to take part in MPs’ study of modernizing the Canada-Ukraine free-trade agreement. 4 p.m. It’s clause-by-clause consideration day at the Senate’s social affairs, science and technology committee where senators are reviewing Bill S-203, An Act respecting a federal framework on autism spectrum disorder. 4:15 p.m. Google Canada’s public policy and government relations head COLIN MCKAY is at the Senate’s legal and constitutional affairs committee to answer questions related to a bill proposing to restrict young persons' access to online porn. 6:30 p.m. Royal Bank of Canada’s JOHN STACKHOUSE is bringing “an update on the labor market” to the Senate’s banking, trade and commerce committee. Later, senators will hear from One River Asset Management’s MARCEL KASUMOVICH and Creative Destruction Lab Chief Economist JOSHUA S. GANS for “an update on cryptocurrency.” Behind closed doors: The Senate’s subcommittee on veterans affairs meets to consider future business, senators on the social affairs, science and technology committee meet partially in camera to discuss considerations of a draft agenda.
| | For your radar | | The Canadian Jewish Political Affairs Committee is bringing its Toronto ACTION party back — the first since the Before Times. It’s happening June 9. Tickets go on sale April 29 and the venue, we’re told, will be revealed the same day. Nobel Peace Prize-winning journalist MARIA RESSA is the keynote speaker at the World Press Freedom Canada’s annual awards luncheon on May 3. KARYN PUGLIESE and CATHERINE CANO are the event’s emcees at the National Arts Centre.
| | TRIVIA | | Tuesday’s answer: CHRYSTIA FREELAND delivered the 2021 federal budget in Zvelle pumps, which feature the words WALK HOW YOU WANT on the insoles. The Star has a story on the selection here, if you’re curious. Props to JOANNA PLATER, PIERRE PILOTE, BEN ROTH, ZACK BABINS, JOHN GUOBA, ROBERT MCDOUGALL and JOHN ECKER. Wednesday’s question: Who is ANGUS MCLINTOCK and what is his connection to Ottawa? 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 and editor Sue Allan.
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