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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 Thanks for reading Ottawa Playbook. I’m your host, Nick Taylor-Vaisey, with Sue Allan and Zi-Ann Lum. Last night, we listened closely to Joe Biden's State of the Union for a mention of Canada. Today, we flag a new fundraiser on the PM's calendar, share a rebuttal on outsourcing and report in from the Senate on a watchdog with bark. |  | Driving the Day | | | 
President Joe Biden delivers his State of the Union address at the U.S. Capitol. | Francis Chung/POLITICO | ZERO — We should've seen the snub coming. The prepared remarks for President JOE BIDEN's second State of the Union mentioned Canada not a single time. Same for "North America." And "continental." We did hear an ad-libbed acknowledgment of our border in reference to the breadth of wildfires across America. Oh, and a passing nod to a scientist's decision not to maintain the patent on insulin (#Banting #Canada). Not exactly a victory lap for Canadian policymakers in search of a continental approach to, well, anything. "The supply chain for America begins in America," the president reassured Democrats and Republicans to much hooting and hollering. Biden called a new factory in Ohio a "literal field of dreams" — the gateway to well-paying jobs for a new generation of American workers. “I make no excuses for it. We’re gonna Buy American,” Biden ad-libbed to the chamber in Washington. "It’s totally consistent with international trade rules." Buy American — a longstanding policy that preferences U.S. materials in government purchases — has been the law of the land since 1933, Biden said. "But for too long, past administrations have found ways to get around it. Not anymore." Biden announced new standards for all construction materials used in American federal infrastructure projects. He brought examples: lumber, glass, drywall, fiber optic cables. "And on my watch, American roads, American bridges, and American highways will be made with American products." — But, but, but: What about Buy North American? So last year. More SOTU reading from POLITICO: → JONATHAN LEMIRE: Biden urges GOP lawmakers to ‘finish the job’ and takes a few swipes at them too → ELI STOKOLS: What Biden said — and what he meant → NICK NIEDZWIADEK: Sarah Huckabee Sanders attacks ‘left-wing culture war’ → CONNOR O’BRIEN: Biden pledges to protect America after Chinese balloon incident → VIDEO: Biden pushes for police reform as Tyre Nichols' parents look on Know someone who would enjoy Ottawa Playbook? Point them to this link. SOURCES SAID — The whispers were true. The Hill Times' ABBAS RANA confirmed Playbook's well-sourced speculation Tuesday about a shuffle of ministers' chiefs of staff. SAMANTHA KHALIL leaves the Prime Minister's Office to replace MIKE JONES in Public Safety Minister MARCO MENDICINO's office. ALANA KITELEY will be promoted to Khalil's PMO role as director of issues management and parliamentary affairs, an internal note announced. As Rana first reported, TARAS ZALUSKY will work for Defense Minister ANITA ANAND, and MIKE POWER is leaving the Hill. Zalusky helmed Employment Minister CARLA QUALTROUGH's office. MIKE MAKA jumps from Transport Minister OMAR ALGHABRA's office to Immigration Minister SEAN FRASER's team, where Maka will replace a departing OLGA RADCHENKO. Recall the official word from those ministers' offices when we asked: — Fraser's office: "No changes to share from our office. Will keep you posted." — Alghabra's office: "I will keep you posted of any changes in due time." — Anand's office: "No info to share on this." — Qualtrough's office: No response. Why the reticence? Rana published the boilerplate: "Every government in power deems exempt staffing changes an internal matter and does not announce them publicly." Until they are announced publicly on LinkedIn, of course.
| | MEDIA ROOM | |
The federal government is prepared to increase health-care spending by C$196.1 billion over the next 10 years. ZI-ANN LUM has the details for POLITICO Pro s.
Some other must-reads: — LAURA OSMAN of The Canadian Press breaks it all down. — The Star’s TONDA MACCHARLES and ROB BENZIE tout the inside story: What broke Canada’s political stalemate on health-care funding. — From APTN National News: Ottawa to provide $2B over 10 years for ‘Indigenous health priorities.’ — JOHN IVISON writes in the Post: “Provincial leaders should take the new health money and run,” — ANDRÉ PICARD of the Globe gets the last word: “Despite the hype, the spin, and the orgy of numbers put forward, the federal government has essentially dusted off and warmed over a 20-year-old Health Accord. … It’s hard to believe that 2½ years of public posturing and background negotiations produced something so utterly uninspiring and unimaginative.” What did we miss? Tell us what you’re reading.
| | For your radar | |
FUNDRAISER ALERT — Prime Minister JUSTIN TRUDEAU is heading to Yukon for a Sunday evening fundraiser. Liberal MP BRENDAN HANLEY will host the PM and Indigenous Services Minister PATTY HAJDU. Party donors will pay between C$175 and C$250 to gain entry. Laurier Club members who donate C$1,700 a year get in free.
A REBUTTAL — The clerk of the Privy Council, JANICE CHARETTE, can't exactly speak candidly about McKinseygate and the government's broader reliance on management consultants to lend a policymaking hand. But the top public servant between Charette's two stints as clerk, MICHAEL WERNICK, has retired from the bureaucracy — and has something to say about outsourced contract work. Wernick sent Playbook a link to his latest Policy Options reflection on the "wicked problems facing the public service." We got the sense he sent this to a few journos in town. tl;dr: The Lange-vet has seen these headlines before. And in McKinsey's case, he sees opposition politicians — and, yes, journalists — searching for fire where there might not even be any smoke. Since Wernick’s CV has few parallels, we pulled key passages from the longtime bureaucrat's turn to devil's advocacy. — On the one hand: "Permanent public servants are expensive, carrying a premium beyond their salaries in terms of benefits and future pension costs. They are difficult to move around and almost impossible to terminate for poor performance. They are entangled in a complex web of collective agreements and human resource mechanisms." — But on the other: "They do however bring experience, expertise, loyalty, engagement and an orientation to the public interest, as opposed to short-term profit. The smart business choice is often to build up and develop sustainable capacity within a public service entity." — A critical eye: "The private sector uses external advisers extensively. I worked with several ministers who were highly sceptical of public service advice and insisted on running the issue by an outside firm with a big reputation before taking a decision. "During spending reviews, ministers reflexively turn to outside advisers because they assume, with some justification, that the public service won’t be willing to challenge itself or consider new approaches." — A modest proposal: "The politicians and pundits who now argue for less use of external advisers should commit themselves in action or argument to a doubling of the resources allocated to training public servants and to a much expanded program for interchange of permanent staff between the public service, and the private and not-for-profit sectors. "They should also endorse greatly expanding the resources used to acquire outside perspective and fresh ideas from the supply chain of think tanks and academic centres." — Next up: Treasury Board President MONA FORTIER testifies this afternoon at the House government ops committee, where McKinsey contracts are the study du jour. The minister will be joined by a phalanx of bureaucrats, including Comptroller General ROCH HUPPÉ and Chief Information Officer CATHERINE LUELO. THE WATCHDOG’S BITE — Parliamentary budget officer YVES GIROUX advised the Senate national finance committee Tuesday that a soft landing is not out of the question for the Canadian economy. “It is possible to avoid a recession despite the fact many private sector economists are anticipating one,” he said. The PBO scolded the Liberal government for failing to heed International Monetary Fund financial reporting guidelines. “The timeliness of financial reports continues to present challenges for parliamentarians and the public in scrutinizing government spending plans,” he said. (Giroux sounded a similar alarm after CHRYSTIA FREELAND's fiscal update.) Giroux was asked how to fix the situation. Attention Trudeau, Freeland and Fortier: “I don't think it's magic,” he said. “I think it's discipline; and it’s timeliness.”
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PBO Yves Giroux. | Courtesy of the Parliamentary Budget Office | Here are a couple more of the PBO’s sick burns: — On the challenge function: “Ministers are not very well equipped to challenge their own officials. Neither is the Treasury Board Secretariat to challenge these targets. So we end up in a situation where it's public servants responsible for delivering programs that set their own targets. And they usually set the bar not too high, so that it doesn't look too easy, but neither too low.” He added: “I'd be curious to see in the next departmental results report what Passport Canada will claim is their achievements. … I wouldn't be surprised if they claim some sort of success despite the disaster we've seen.” — On government transparency: “There are pockets of excellence.” Here, he singled out Finance and National Defence. And pockets of “non-excellence” — Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, come on down. Canada Revenue Agency, too. “Departments often use Cabinet confidence as an excuse,” he said. “Because you talked about the Globe and Mail article at Cabinet doesn't mean it's a secret.” — On department priorities: Asked about the need for the government to raise taxes, Giroux suggested another option could be to collect money already owed to the taxman. “We heard in public news that the CRA doesn't deem it worthy or appropriate or worth the effort to go after an alleged C$15 billion in potential overpayment, which is a bit disconcerting.” (Here's Giroux's source on that.) — On what comes next: Giroux said his office expects to release its economic and fiscal outlook during the first week of March with updated projections — which will take into account a spate of interest rate increases. | | TODAY'S HIGHLIGHTS | |
— It’s caucus day on the Hill.
— Prime Minister JUSTIN TRUDEAU and Deputy PM CHRYSTIA FREELAND will both attend caucus and question period. 9:30 a.m. Bloc Québécois leader YVES-FRANÇOIS BLANCHET and two of his MPs, LUC THÉRIAULT and MARIO SIMARD, will speak to reporters in West Block about Tuesday's fed-prov health-care talks. 12 p.m. Families Minister KARINA GOULD will make an announcement on sustainable development goals at the Federation of Canadian Municipalities’ Sustainable Communities Conference in Ottawa. 12:30 p.m. Freeland will meet with Newfoundland and Labrador Premier ANDREW FUREY. 12 p.m. Blanchet and two MPs, Thériault and YVES PERRON, will speak to reporters in West Block about Bill C-282. Thériault's bill would protect supply management in future trade talks. MPs will vote on it this afternoon. 2 p.m. NDP leader JAGMEET SINGH will take questions from reporters in the foyer of the House of Commons. 3:30 p.m. Freeland will meet with Yukon Premier RANJ PILLAI. 3:45 p.m. Trudeau will meet with P.E.I. Premier DENNIS KING. 4:30 p.m. The House operations committee will hear from Treasury Board President MONA FORTIER and Business Development Bank of Canada CEO ISABELLE HUDON as part of its study of federal contracts awarded to McKinsey & Company. 4:30 p.m. The House citizenship and immigration committee will hear from Immigration Minister SEAN FRASER regarding the government’s response to the final report of the special committee on Afghanistan. 7:45 p.m. Trudeau will speak at a Black History Month reception. Housing and Diversity and Inclusion Minister AHMED HUSSEN and Women and Gender Equality and Youth Minister MARCI IEN will also deliver remarks. | | PAPER TRAIL | |
CODA ON ADVERTISING — Tuesday's Playbook dove deep into the government's ad spend for 2021–22. We noted the feds poured C$25.5 million into "display programmatic," a media category that included YouTube ads but didn't break out the YouTube-specific number. We asked Public Services and Procurement.
We now have the answer: C$9,108,388. | | PROZONE | |
For POLITICO Pro s, our latest policy newsletter by SUE ALLAN: Talk of a soft landing.
In news for POLITICO Pro s:
— Biden touts climate bill, knocks oil profits.
— Canada and Taiwan announce formal investment trade talks.
— Europe moves from anger toward acceptance of U.S. climate law.
— What cold war? U.S. trade with China hits new high.
— California farmers who divert more than their share of water could face stiffer penalties. | | PLAYBOOKERS | |
Birthdays: Bonne fête to MP JOËL LIGHTBOUND.
Spotted: A super-awkward handshake between JUSTIN TRUDEAU and DANIELLE SMITH … Which is a bit of an Albertan premier tradition in the nation's capital, per JASON MARKUSOFF. At the Senate's inaugural Black History Month reception sponsored by Speaker GEORGE FUREY: Housing Minister AHMED HUSSEN, Tory MP LESLYN LEWIS, Ontario Liberal MPP MITZIE HUNTER, PMO deputy chief of staff MARJORIE MICHEL, former governor general MICHAËLLE JEAN, Protexxa CEO CLAUDETTE MCGOWAN. A Kichi Sibi snow groomer laying classic ski tracks on Parliament Hill … MARK CRITCH, pelting U.N. ambo BOB RAE with questions in the General Assembly … Transport Minister OMAR ALGHABRA rocking his Adidas in a meeting with WestJet CEO ALEXIS VON HOENSBROECH … Vancouver celebrity chef VIKRAM VIJ casually walking around West Block. DENNIS DAWSON, in Poli LEGO on the occasion of his retirement … PM TRUDEAU stopped by Dawson's Tuesday night retirement party that packed the Met. Also in the room from PMO: KATIE TELFORD, BRIAN CLOW, BEN CHIN and JOHN BRODHEAD. Other attendees: Premier ANDREW FUREY, DAVID HERLE, MARLENE FLOYD and TREVOR FLOYD. Lornado lunch guests: Ambassador DAVID COHEN played host to House Speaker ANTHONY ROTA, Canada-U.S. Interparliamentary Group vice-chair Liberal MP FRANCESCO SORBARA, Tory MPs COLIN CARRIE and LIANNE ROOD, Liberal MPs LEAH TAYLOR ROY and LENA DIAB. Parliamentarians in D.C.: Rep. MAX MILLER (R-Ohio) met with Sens. MICHAEL MACDONALD and SCOTT TANNAS, NDP MP PETER JULIAN and Liberal MP ANTHONY HOUSEFATHER … and Liberal MP JOHN MCKAY and Bloc MP SIMON-PIERRE SAVARD-TREMBLAY tagged along to a meeting with Rep. ANDREA SALINAS (D-Ore.) … but not GEORGE SANTOS (R-N.Y.). Movers and shakers: Labatt Breweries has tapped Enterprise senior consultant JESSE SHEA, a former Liberal Hill staffer, to persuade Ottawa to pause a planned hike in the excise tax on beer this April — a rate that's indexed to inflation. The beer industry is hoping the Liberals will put off increases for at least two years. (Yes, the taxpayers federation agrees with the brewers.) The Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters is concerned enough about future gun-related legislative amendments that it enlisted Wellington Dupont senior vice-president BROCK VANDRICK to make its case on the Hill. Media mentions: Brunswick News publications will appear in print only on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays starting March 7. Farewells: The Institute for Fiscal Studies and Democracy's SAHIR KHAN shared an anecdote about his late father — "Pop" to his family — who died last Wednesday: "How RFK saved my dad's excellent adventure." You have to read it to believe it. Send Playbookers tips to ottawaplaybook@politico.com. | | On the Hill | |
→ Find upcoming House committees here
→ Keep track of Senate committees here 4 p.m. The Senate banking, commerce and economy committee will hear from Conservative MP MARILYN GLADU regarding her private member’s bill, C-228, on pension reform. 4 p.m. The Senate foreign affairs committee meets with witnesses for international development week to discuss foreign relations and international trade. 4 p.m. The Senate social affairs committee convenes to discuss Bill C-242, a private member’s bill from Conservative MP KYLE SEEBACK that would expand super visas for parents and grandparents. 4:15 p.m. Liberal MP ANJU DHILLON will appear before the Senate legal and constitutional affairs committee to discuss her private member’s bill, C-233, on intimate partner violence. 4:30 p.m. Liberal MP WILSON MIAO’s “right to repair” private member’s bill, C-244, is up for discussion at the House industry and technology committee. 4:30 p.m. Reforming extradition law is on the agenda for the House justice and human rights committee. 6:45 p.m. The Senate Indigenous Peoples committee meets to examine the government’s constitutional, political and legal responsibilities for all Indigenous Peoples. 6:45 p.m. The Senate national finance committee discusses a study relating to federal estimates. 6:45 p.m. Bill S-242, which would amend the Radiocommunication Act, is on the docket for the Senate transport and communications committee. — Behind closed doors: The Senate ethics committee meets to discuss the ethics and conflict of interest code for senators; the House Indigenous and northern affairs committee convenes for “committee business”; the House agriculture committee meets to consider a draft report on global food insecurity. | | TRIVIA | |
Tuesday’s answer: It turns out, as many of you knew, MARY WALKER-SAWKA ran for the Progressive Conservatives in 1967, entering the race a few days before the convention. She picked up two votes and was eliminated on the first ballot.
We were thinking of ROSEMARY BROWN. Some sources, including the Canadian Encyclopedia, credit her as the first woman to run for the leadership of a Canadian federal party. She was definitely the first Black woman to run. In 1972, she placed a strong second to ED BROADBENT in the NDP leadership race. Read more about her life here. Props to AMY BOUGHNER, ANNE-MARIE STACEY, ETHEL FORESTER, RALPH LEVENSTEIN, ROBERT MCDOUGALL, KATE DALGLEISH, MICHAEL MACDONALD, NANCI WAUGH and DOUG SWEET. Wednesday’s question: Who said of their decision to run for office, “I thought, ‘I want to show people that this is possible.’ I’ve said this time and time again, but it’s true: If people can see themselves, they will strive. I want to continue to pave the way.” Send your answer to ottawaplaybook@politico.com Playbook wouldn’t happen: Without Luiza Ch. Savage and Sue Allan. | | | | Follow us on Twitter | | | | Subscribe to the POLITICO Playbook family Playbook | Playbook PM | California Playbook | Florida Playbook | Illinois Playbook | Massachusetts Playbook | New Jersey Playbook | New York Playbook | Ottawa Playbook | Brussels Playbook | London Playbook View all our political and policy newsletters | | Follow us | | | | |  |
