HE'S (ALSO) HERE — Only 792 days after his swearing-in, President JOE BIDEN lands in Ottawa this evening for a 26-hour visit. The Canadians wanted more, but they're scoring an overnight POTUS stay — which the bromantic BARACK OBAMA never delivered for his progressive pal to the north. Call it a wash. — The agenda: Biden will meet Governor General MARY SIMON when he arrives. He'll make his way to an informal evening hang with Simon's tenants, JUSTIN TRUDEAU and SOPHIE GRÉGOIRE TRUDEAU, at their residence on the Rideau Hall grounds. The president will meet again with Trudeau and several Cabinet ministers Friday morning before delivering an address in Parliament. Across the street at the Macdonald Building, they'll hold a joint news conference (something Biden has not done of late with foreign leaders visiting the White House, POLITICO White House bureau chief JON LEMIRE tells us). Biden's entourage includes Secretary of State ANTONY BLINKEN, National Security Adviser JAKE SULLIVAN and Homeland Security Adviser LIZ SHERWOOD-RANDALL. The visit will conclude with a Friday gala dinner at the Canada Aviation and Space Museum with a guest list in the hundreds — including seven of Trudeau's Cabinet ministers. They'll toast each other surrounded by the Air Force's former warriors of the sky. The remnants of Canada's doomed Cold War interceptor, the Avro Arrow, stand sentinel on the museum's sprawling showroom floor. Auto parts exec FLAVIO VOLPE, who's sure to be in the room, will have a golden chance to hype his own Project Arrow ZEV prototype. Are you on the guest list for the gala? Do you know what's on the menu? Do you know who has the worst seat in the house? Your secret is safe with Playbook (and our many rapt readers). Spill! Revelers can enjoy a cross-border nightcap at an afterparty co-hosted by the Canadian American Business Council and Canada2020. The venue remains a closely guarded secret, but it'll have to accommodate more than 300 afterpartiers. — No side trip: Rumors circulated for weeks that the Canadian side lobbied for the trip to include a site visit outside of Ottawa. The Prime Minister's Office wouldn't confirm those details, but a senior government official in a Tuesday technical briefing said one of the "primary goals" was "sharing as much time as possible between the two leaders." DONOR CIRCUIT — Remember that PIERRE POILIEVRE fundraiser in the GTA planned for Friday that we told you about earlier this week? It has vanished from the Tory website. We asked the leader's office and the party for a comment. Spokesperson SARAH FISCHER said the event was "rescheduled for a later date to be confirmed." — Related: A senior U.S. administration official briefing reporters said Biden will have a "pull-aside" meeting with Poilievre. The president will also "have an opportunity to shake hands and exchange pleasantries with all of the opposition party leaders," the official said. BUDGETMAKING 201 — AMITPAL SINGH, a former policy adviser to both CHRYSTIA FREELAND and BILL MORNEAU, published the second part of his Substack series on the policy and politics that drive government thinking on federal budgets. — An excerpt: Following tense discussions with the Prime Minister's Office, budget proposals are triaged and grouped into three buckets: policy under consideration, policy-out, and policy maybe. The first grouping represents what the minister will actually review via a “2-pager” — a succinct briefing of what's on offer. At this point, department officials seek to push back against so-called “empire building.” Bureaucrats seek to control the scope of proposals, and limit the total number of under consideration. Meanwhile, the kids-in-short-pants in the minister's office seek to build said “empire” — casting the widest-possible policy net that affords the minister the most latitude, all while intently building the context for the PMO’s preferred political story. Once items are green-lit for review, likeminded policies are organized into a series of binders that begin flowing by mid-December. Aspiring stakeholders who wait for formal pre-budget consultations to open in January fall behind the eight-ball. The minister's all-important budget proposal reviews are already underway. — Check out Singh's full post here.
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