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A daily look inside Canadian politics and power. | | | | |  | | By Nick Taylor-Vaisey | Send tips | Subscribe here | Email Nick Welcome to the Ottawa Playbook. I'm your host, Nick Taylor-Vaisey with Maura Forrest. Barring some crazy, unforeseen event, welcome to the last House sitting day until September. We made it, everybody. Thank god for all those stress-relieving garden parties, amirite? Today we dig into the Canada Day convoy, proposed new lobbying rules (RIP receptions?), and the long, long road to EV domination in Canada. Did someone forward Ottawa Playbook your way? Click here to sign up for your own edition. It’s free!
|  | DRIVING THE DAY | | THIS SEEMS UNTENABLE — A law enforcement source fed a special bulletin from Canada's Integrated Terrorism Assessment Centre to freelance reporter JUSTIN LING. In it, the intelligence community warns that elements of a convoy of protesters planning Canada Day events in the capital have “aspirations to overthrow the federal government or to engage in mass violent resistance.” Rolling Thunder, the tepid April biker protest that entered and exited the city in relatively orderly fashion, this is not. — Lobby day on the Hill: The anti-mandate movement that wants Trudeau out of office and vaccines far from people's arms found its way into the halls of Parliament Wednesday. PIERRE POILIEVRE came under fire earlier in the week for encouraging the protests (so long as they remain legal), even as he denied the movement's claims that he'd been in contact with them. Turns out that was the appetizer. A not-insignificant number of Tory MPs are giving the movement their full support. At a meeting room on the Hill, the Tories welcomed and applauded JAMES TOPP, a former military anti-mandate activist who literally ran to Ottawa from British Columbia. Former Trump advisor PAUL ALEXANDER was there, too, alongside winter occupation spokesperson TOM MARAZZO. Watch their recording of the session. — The MPs in attendance: TED FALK, ARNOLD VIERSEN, RYAN WILLIAMS, DEAN ALLISON, COREY TOCHOR, SCOT DAVIDSON, DAMIEN KUREK , JAMES BEZAN, WARREN STEINLEY, KERRY-LYNNE FINDLAY, JOHN BARLOW, JEREMY PATZER and leadership contender LESLYN LEWIS. “You do have allies. You’ve had allies all along, and so I just wanted to encourage you guys going forward,” Patzer told the activists. — Scenes from the room: CBC's DAVID FRASER was there. — For the record: In the Commons, Allison delivered a strong statement of support for Topp. "Starting a conversation and listening to each other during these difficult times, when our country seems so divided, is the only path forward. James has started the conversation, and I intend to participate for the good of our country." BATTLE FOR RECEPTIONS — A pair of lobbyist lobby groups have beef with the lobbying commissioner. NANCY BELANGER's office has proposed a new draft code of conduct for the small army of consultants and advocates who want to influence policymakers on the Hill. One of Belanger's proposals would change the rules for gift-giving. The basic rule of thumb is, well, don't give gifts. But there are exceptions made for "low-value tokens of appreciation or promotional items" — basically, your garden-variety tchotchkes. — What is "low-value"? The draft code says it's C$30, and no lobbyist should exceed that limit with any public official over a 12-month span. — What lobbyists say: The Government Relations Institute of Canada and Public Affairs Association of Canada teamed up on a submission to Belanger's office. They fear the C$30 limit would "eliminate receptions on the Hill with parliamentarians." We can already hear the desperate gasps from the cocktail circuit set. But GRIC and PAAC have a serious point to make. Receptions, they say, are "a key means of communicating with busy parliamentarians." It's "impossible" for one-on-ones with every interest group. A little harmless wining and dining is a "less resource-heavy way" to reach the people who vote. There's more. The submission claims measuring all the finger food and free drinks "will be impractical, if not impossible." Not to mention "unenforceable." Playbook wonders: what’s the going rate on a pig in a blanket? And here's where things get really dramatic. The lobbyists warn the chill on receptions "may infringe on the parliamentary privilege afforded to our elected officials." — What's next: Nothing's a done deal at this point. The deadline to make submissions to the lobbying commissioner's office passed Wednesday. Belanger has run public consultations on an updated code of conduct since 2020. This is the "third and final round." INSERT NO ENTRY SIGN HERE — As Playbook first reported Monday, a significant number of foreign-based tech entrepreneurs and startup founders were forced to cancel their attendance at this week's Collision mega-conference in Toronto. The National Post reported Tuesday that most of the attendees that were forced to Ctrl + W their travel plans live in Africa or Southeast Asia — stymied by "crippling visa backlogs in Canada’s immigration bureaucracy." The Post reported Wednesday that up to 400 African delegates could miss next month's International AIDS Conference in Montreal. — The minister's defense: Immigration Minister SEAN FRASER faced questions on the backlogs as he left Wednesday's Liberal caucus meeting. Fraser was at Collision for two days this week. He marveled at its magnitude, blamed "complexities" of individual cases, and implied some travelers simply applied too late. "Whenever we’re dealing with events of that scale, there are sometimes cases that we try really hard for people to get here," he said. "We encourage them to apply early and the vast majority of requests that came to the conference organizers, we were able to approve." Fraser said Collision's organizers were satisfied with his efforts. "Despite some challenges along the way, and despite the fact that there are some people who didn’t get approvals on time, [the organizers] were extremely grateful for our partnership with them to get so many people who were able to take part in the conference." — Related reading: POLITICO’s RYAN HEATH reports from Toronto on tech conferences for grown-ups.
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Peter Van Dusen on the job at CPAC. | Photo courtesy of CPAC | GIVING UP THE FRONT-ROW SEAT — After a decades-long run on the Hill, Peter Van Dusen recently announced his intention to step away from his perch as executive producer at the Cable Public Affairs Channel and host of Primetime Politics. Playbook got him on the horn to talk about how CPAC stands out in the soundbyte era, why it matters to ask regular people about the issues of the day, and what it's like when the Van Dusen siblings — a clan of six journalists and a lawyer — talk politics in the same room. This conversation has been edited for length and clarity. When you started this job there was no social media. Now it can dominate the day’s agenda. How do you cut through the noise? I've always said that if you want to be a famous television host, you probably don't go to CPAC. And the reason I say that is because we put all of our emphasis on the content. Our approach has always been to show people the works. Here's the whole news conference. Watch it for yourself. They can decide what it means to them without being told what it means to them. My sincere feeling is that's going to be an increasingly important role in the years ahead, because it's hard to see a path where there becomes less anger, less manipulation on different social media platforms, by political groups, groups with vested interests. You’ve made a deliberate attempt to hear directly from Canadians. Why is it important to give them a voice on federal issues? With our election coverage, for instance, we go into 50 ridings in the country, which nobody does anymore, and spend two days there and spend time on the ground and talk to shop owners, and people at the coffee shop, and the candidates. We go out with a single purpose, which is to answer the question: Why should anybody in Newfoundland and Labrador care about what's happening in Comox, [British Columbia]? We've said if you want to understand how the election might go, we're going to look at these 50 ridings that we think will decide it and why. And what you find is that people in different parts of the country have the same concern. They have the same frustration. And it really serves the democratic process to get out of Ottawa and go hear what people are saying in some of these, in many cases, smaller communities. You come from a family of well-known journalists who spent careers removing your personal opinions from your work. What’s it like behind closed doors? We have journalistic-style arguments where we'll sit down and we'll say, "Yeah, but on the other hand, this was the point these guys made, and this guy made that point." Our arguments are often about getting the facts and the information straight. Nobody jumps up and reveals a lifetime of passionate devotion to a particular political party. It's pretty apolitical. “Why are they making these decisions?” “And what are the consequences of this decision?” “What does the evidence say?” It's a bit mind-numbing, frankly. What you’re describing is a news meeting. It's kind of a news meeting that just goes on. After about an hour, people say, "I'm gonna get another beer." When I'm retired, I'll just say, "I don't want to talk about this anymore. I've been talking about this for 40 years. Let's talk about something else."
| | INFLATION WATCH | | 7.7 PERCENT — Everyone knows the headline number of the day. In May, consumer inflation hit its highest year-over-year increase in 39 years — back when Toto's "Africa" was about to top Canadian charts. But what's really driving inflation? Playbook presents two charts from University of Calgary economist TREVOR TOMBE.
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These are the sectors that contributed to inflation in May. | Chart courtesy of Trevor Tombe | | 
Another visualization of the sector-by-sector contributors to inflation. | Chart courtesy of Trevor Tombe | The short answer: energy more than anything else, and gasoline in a big way. — The least useful chart of the day: That goes to Columbia University economist GERNOT WAGNER, whose argument against a federal gas tax holiday is indecipherable to anybody who doesn't have three degrees in economics. TODAY’S HIGHLIGHTS — A reminder: Trudeau & co. are on the first leg of a long overseas trip. Today is Day 1 of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting. On Sunday, the PM heads to Schloss Elmau, Germany — aka Bavaria — for the G7 summit. Next Wednesday, Trudeau will be in Madrid for NATO meetings. 9:30 a.m. (Kigali time) PM Trudeau will participate in a panel discussion entitled "Keeping 1.5 Alive – The Glasgow Climate Pact and Building Momentum towards COP27." 11:15 a.m. (Kigali time) Trudeau will visit the Kigali Genocide Memorial. 12 p.m. (Central) Saskatchewan Culture Minister LAURA ROSS and federal Official Languages Minister GINETTE PETITPAS TAYLOR hold a press conference at the conclusion of the Ministers' Council on the Canadian Francophonie. 1:30 p.m. Statistics Canada experts will host a Reddit AMA on the agency's latest inflation report. Follow it here. 2:30 p.m. (Kigali time) Trudeau will participate in a roundtable discussion at the Commonwealth Business Forum. 3:30 p.m. (Kigali time) Trudeau will hold a bilateral meeting with Rwandan President PAUL KAGAME. 5:15 p.m. (Kigali time) Trudeau will hold a "brief" media availability. 7:30 p.m. (Kigali time) Trudeau will attend a banquet hosted by Kagame. Foreign Minister MÉLANIE JOLY will also attend. AROUND THE HILL DOCUMENT DUMP — You know it's the end of June when House committee chairs drop a pile of reports on the chamber. Six were tabled Wednesday: Modernizing Recruitment and Retention in the Canadian Armed Forces ; Arts, Culture, Heritage, and Sport Sector Recovery from the Impact of COVID-19; Medical Assistance in Dying and Mental Disorder as the Sole Underlying Condition: An Interim Report; Fairness in the Services Offered to Francophone, Women and 2SLGBTQ+ Veterans; Preventing Harm in the Canadian Sex Industry: A Review of the Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act; and Supplying Canada’s Armed Forces and Coast Guard With the Right Equipment: An Interim Report.
| | PAPER TRAIL | | THEY'LL BELIEVE ANYTHING — Abacus Data published a shiny clickbait of a headline Wednesday morning: "Millions of Canadians Believe US Election Was Stolen From Trump." No, the pollster didn't ask everyone in Canada for their opinion of the 2020 presidential election. They extrapolated from a recent survey in which 16 percent of respondents expressed that headline view. Yes, it's a representative sample. Yes, we're being pedantic. — Other assorted conspiracies: 20 percent told Abacus that 9/11 was an inside job. 13 percent said climate change is a hoax. 11 percent don't believe the moon landing was real. 6 percent told the pollster that birds aren't birds — they're U.S. drones. — The upshot: Playbook took the findings to DAVID MOSCROP, the author of "Too Dumb for Democracy?" Moscrop has spent countless hours thinking about voters' political behavior — and what feeds and shapes it. Here's his takeaway: "As a rule you can be sure 10-15 percent of the population will believe just about anything. Way more if there’s a compelling media or political elite keen to lead them astray." Former PMO polling guru DAN ARNOLD once let Playbook in on a secret . "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." So, yeah, some people will believe anything. Live long and prosper. LONG ROAD AHEAD — The Liberals have promised to bring in a sales mandate for electric vehicles that would require 20 percent of new vehicle sales to be non-emitting by 2026, rising to 100 percent in 2035. The government recently tabled a document in the House of Commons showing what that would actually look like, and in a word, it’s … ambitious. Transport Canada provided the government’s projections of how many EVs will be on the road in each province in each of the next 10 years. Here are a few of the things we noticed: — Steep climb: To meet the government’s targets, most provinces will need to see 10 times more EVs on the road before the end of the decade than are currently driving around. One example: Newfoundland is projected to have 618 EVs registered this year. That number will need to rise to nearly 26,000 by 2030, and then will need to almost double again to 50,400 in 2032. — Early movers: Quebec and British Columbia are expected to have a disproportionately high number of EVs on the road, since those are the only two provinces that currently have their own electric vehicle mandates. Quebec and B.C. currently account for about 80 percent of EV sales in Canada. In 2032, Quebec and Ontario are projected to have almost the same number of EVs on the road — about 2.4 million — despite the fact that Quebec’s population is less than 60 percent of Ontario’s. On the other end of the spectrum, Alberta is projected to have considerably fewer EVs registered relative to its population, with 550,000 expected in 2032. — Is it feasible? Yes, according to Clean Energy Canada’s JOANNA KYRIAZIS. She pointed Playbook to recent data showing EVs made up 8.3 percent of new vehicle registrations in the first quarter of 2022, up from five percent in the previous quarter. In B.C. and Quebec, those numbers were 17 percent and 14 percent, respectively.
| | | | STEP INSIDE THE WEST WING: What's really happening in West Wing offices? Find out who's up, who's down, and who really has the president’s ear in our West Wing Playbook newsletter, the insider's guide to the Biden White House and Cabinet. For buzzy nuggets and details that you won't find anywhere else, subscribe today. | | | | | | | MEDIA ROOM | | — GERRY BUTTS boosted a soliloquy on PIERRE POILIEVRE penned by EVAN SCRIMSHAW on his Substack . The colorful rant concludes thusly: "Pierre is running a campaign of idiocy and lies, and all that thinking he will succeed does is tell me you think the average Canadian is too stupid to notice." — Here’s DIANE PETERS at TVO.org: My terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad passport experience in Toronto. — SARAH TRELEAVEN writes in Maclean’s on how three sisters (and their mom) tried to swindle the Canada Revenue Agency out of millions. — Alberta Premier JASON KENNEY shuffled his Cabinet the other day. The CBC’s JASON MARKUSOFF explains why the details were shared in a late-day news dump.
| | PROZONE | | For s, here’s our Pro Canada PM memo by MAURA FORREST: 7.7 percent: Now what? In other headlines for Pro readers: — Budget watchdog says Trans Mountain pipeline no longer profitable.
— Russian hackers targeting U.S, other Ukraine allies.
— The big inflation driver that Powell's Fed can't fight.
— European Parliament agrees on carbon market reform in voting do-over.
— Trucking, environmental groups line up to oppose a gas tax holiday.
| | PLAYBOOKERS | | Birthdays: HBD to JUDY FOOTE, Newfoundland and Labrador's 14th and first female lieutenant governor, Conservative MP KELLY MCCAULEY, former MLA BOB TURNER and LAUREEN HARPER. Movers and shakers: PATRICK BROWN's campaign manager, SEAN SCHNELL, has given up the post as his longtime boss, MICHELLE REMPEL GARNER , considers a bid for United Conservative leader in Alberta. CP's STEPHANIE TAYLOR reports. Navigator's BRAYDEN AKERS is repping Dorsay, a residential and commercial real estate developer in the GTA. Top priority: "the proposed foreign buyer ban of homes in Budget 2022." Fellow former Hill staffer FERNANDO MINNA, now of Capital Hill Group, is lobbying for Palo Alto Networks, a cybersecurity multinational that wants the ear of the House, Senate, PMO and Privy Council Office. Spotted: JANE PHILPOTT, proud Queen’s mom … ELAMIN ABDELMAHMOUD 's "Son of Elsewhere" on the summer reading list of KATIE GIBBS, a Liberal candidate in Ontario's election and co-founder of Evidence for Democracy. JAGMEET SINGH, holding daughter ANHAD on the floor of the Commons … And Tory MP LAILA GOODRIDGE doing the same. RACHEL NOTLEY's tabbouleh recipe, spied by DAVE COURNOYER repeatedly. Media mentions: ANN MEDINA will be welcomed into the CBC News Hall of Fame this fall. Props to the winners of the 2021 Canada Best in Business Awards.
| | On the Hill | | Keep up to House committee schedules here. Find Senate meeting schedules here. 9 a.m. The Senate agriculture and forestry committee meets to go over clause-by-clause consideration of Bill S-236. Senators go in camera for the second part of the meeting to consider future committee business. 11 a.m. The House public accounts committee is behind closed doors to consider a draft report. 11 a.m. The Board of Internal Economy has scheduled a hybrid meeting to discuss business arising from a previous meeting. 11:30 a.m. The Senate international economy, budgets and administration committees will meet in camera off the top to talk about “financial and administrative matters.” The camera turns on for the second half where Sen. Lucie Moncion and senior Senate officials will discuss the red chamber’s self-governance over its own finances and resources.
| | TRIVIA | | Wednesday’s answer: BRIAN MULRONEY contributed the forward to the new memoir from MICHAEL WILSON, published posthumously last month. In it, he wrote: “If a prime minister of Canada is lucky — and I mean really lucky — he will wind up with a Michael Wilson in his Cabinet.” Props to R. KENNETH CARTY, BRAM ABRAMSON, VICTOR KRISEL, AMY BOUGHNER, BOB GORDON, PAUL GILLETT, SEAN WEBSTER, ROBERT MCDOUGALL and BOB PLAMONDON, who notes that Mulroney often described Wilson this way. Thursday’s question: What bill was first to make it through Parliament and receive royal assent this session? 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 editor Ben Pauker.
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