Good Friday morning,
It’s a busy Friday for the cabinet, with the PM and some ministers working in far-flung corners of the globe, and the defence minister teeing up what’s being billed as a big announcement in Halifax.
Back in Ottawa, officials at the National Capital Commission are closing the prime minister’s official residence on 24 Sussex Drive, and setting in motion a plan to start significant work on the property.
Wait, wasn’t it already closed?
No, it wasn’t, but it’s in such a state of disrepair that it has become a dilapidated fire hazard, and so Prime Minister JUSTIN TRUDEAU has chosen to live with his family in another residence on the grounds of Rideau Hall. Staff have apparently still been working at 24 Sussex, however, and now they won’t be anymore.
Wait, does this mean they’re finally rennovating 24 Sussex?
Somehow, also no. Successive prime ministers have declined to pay the cost of repairing and renovating the aging building, which is filled with asbestos and decrepit in so many other ways PTM hasn’t the space to list them all. Bad politics, and so forth. The NCC appears to have run out of patience, and is ordering what it calls an “abatement” of the property.
Definitions of the word abatement include, “to reduce in amount, degree, or intensity.” What’s being reduced here is the risk that the building will burst into flames or poison a staff member. Asbestos and faulty heating and electrical systems will be removed—must be, said the NCC press release, “regardless of any future decision on the residence.”
“With continuously aging and worsening materials and systems, more significant actions must be taken to mitigate matters of great concern such as potential fire hazards, water damage and air quality issues,” read the release.
The building is destined, it seems, to a future as a cold and empty husk sitting on prime Ottawa real estate—at least until a government and opposition can both agree to make its restoration or replacement a non-partisan issue.
Drug shortage briefing
At 11 a.m., as-yet-unnamed federal officials will brief the media on the government’s efforts to resolve the shortage of children’s acetaminophen and ibuprofen.
What’s the cabinet up to?
Prime Minister JUSTIN TRUDEAU is in Bangkok, Thailand, for the APEC summit today.
Environment Minister STEVEN GUILBEAULT is wrapping up his time at the UN climate summit in Egypt. He’ll hold a virtual press conference from Sharm El Sheikh at 9:30 a.m. Ottawa time.
Foreign Minister MÉLANIE JOLY is in Tunisia to meet with international counterparts at a summit of the Francophonie.
Defence Minister ANITA ANAND is in Halifax. She’ll start her day at the Navy’s dockyard, where she will make what her office is billing as an “important defence announcement” at 10 a.m. local time. Immigration Minister (and Nova Scotia MP) SEAN FRASER will be there, as will Chief of Defence Staff WAYNE EYRE.
After the presser, Anand, Eyre, and the deputy minister for Defence, BILL MATTHEWS, will head to a Westin hotel for the Halifax International Security Forum, where Anand will hold an opening news conference at 2 p.m. Atlantic, deliver a keynote speech on “Canada’s national defence priorities” at 3 p.m. Atlantic, and participate in a panel talk shortly after 4 p.m.
The three-day security conference is the flagship event for the organization that also goes by the name of Halifax International Security Forum. It is, somewhat confusingly, based in Washington, a non-profit NGO founded in 2009 by a U.S. think tank with support from the Canadian government.
Later in the day, Fraser will testify virtually before the House Immigration Committee as part of its study of “conditions faced by asylum seekers.”
Meanwhile, a trio of ministers are in Vancouver today to announce something to do with “strengthening marine preparedness, response, and partnerships during the next phase of the Oceans Protection Plan.”
They are Transport Minister OMAR ALGHABRA, Natural Resources Minister JONATHAN WILKINSON, and Fisheries and Oceans Minister JOYCE MURRAY, the latter two also being Vancouver MPs.
In Parliament
Today MPs are scheduled to continue debating the fall economic statement implementation bill, C-32.
In committee
Eight House and joint committees are meeting today.
Those include the joint committee on medical assistance in dying, which is hearing from disability advocates and associations of Quebec doctors and lawyers beginning at 8:45 a.m.
As mentioned above, Fraser will testify before the House Immigration Committee at 2 p.m., following an appearance by his deputy minister, CHRISTIANE FOX, at 1 p.m.
Also at 1 p.m., fisheries ministers from all four Atlantic provinces will be testifying—three virtually—before the House Fisheries and Oceans Committee, as part of its study of climate change.
At the same time, Auditor General KAREN HOGAN and officials from the Finance Department and Treasury Board Secretariat will appear before the House Public Accounts Committee as it studies last year’s government spending.
What else is happening today?
The Public Order Emergency Commission’s hearings continue today. The government’s top public servant, clerk of the Privy Council JANICE CHARETTE, is scheduled to testify, as are deputy clerk NATHALIE DROUIN; JACQUIE BOGDEN, the deputy secretary to the cabinet responsible for emergencies; and JEFF HUTCHINSON, an advisor at the PCO.
Bloc Québécois Leader YVES-FRANÇOIS BLANCHET is beginning a lengthy visit to France today.
Blanchet plans to meet with French MPs, journalists, and politicos, build diplomatic ties, and talk about “la cause de l’indépendance du Québec,” according to a release from the party. He’ll be in France until Nov. 26.
Last but not least, Parliamentary Budget Officer YVES GIROUX is issuing a report at 9 a.m. that will present an analysis of the government’s latest package of supplementary estimates, which outlined almost $26-billion of new spending.
Legislation corner
New bill aims to ease trade, punish railway interference
Speaking of Alghabra, he tabled a new bill into the House of Commons yesterday.
Bill C-33, the Strengthening the Port System and Railway Safety in Canada Act, will be added to the pile of now 13 government bills stacked up at second reading stage.
The bill amends a half-dozen federal laws for a variety of purposes, the common theme of them being a desire to improve the functioning of Canadian ports and railways.
In a press scrum yesterday, Alghabra talked up some of the ways in which the bill aims to ease trade through Canada’s ports. For example, it will give ports the authority to regulate marine traffic in their vicinity, including anchored cargo ships waiting for their turn to offload. It will also require that ports share information about traffic and scheduling with the transport companies that pick up or drop off goods at the port.
Alghabra and the government’s press materials did not draw the same kind of attention to other clauses in the bill that have to do with public safety. For example, it proposes to create new offences for interfering with a railway, a tactic that has been employed to great effect in the past by protesters, including members of the Tyendinaga Mohawk nation in 2020.
At the moment, the Federal Railway Safety Act simply says that no person can access the land on which a railway line is located without permission—a violation that, in the most severe case, could land you in jail for a year. The new language would more specifically outlaw anything that interferes with or damages railway “operation,” “work,” or “equipment” in a manner that threatens safe rail operations. It also bans “unruly or dangerous behaviour” toward railway employees, riders, or that endangers the railways themselves. The same penalties would apply to those violations as do now to accessing railway land without permission.
The bill also proposes to give the transport minister powers to order ports and railways to improve security or change their operations if the minister deems it necessary for avoiding injury to Canada’s national security.
In case you missed it
Feds reviewing Competition Act
Yesterday, Industry Minister FRANÇOIS-PHILIPPE CHAMPAGNE announced the launch of a formal review of Canada’s Competition Act.
The act, enforced by the Competition Bureau, aims to prevent big businesses from forming monopolies, or otherwise using their heft to distort what should be relatively free markets.
Lack of competition ultimately means higher prices for consumers, a timely issue for Champagne to address. His review will include gathering public feedback and talking to unspecified stakeholders.
So what’s this all about? PTM spoke to LAWSON HUNTER, a lawyer at Stikeman Elliott who previously served as the commissioner of the Competition Bureau, and led the drafting of the existing Competition Act.
While Canadians often complain about a lack of competition in the grocery, banking, and telecommunications industries—Hunter also worked in the latter—this review likely has more to do with the tech sector, he said.
Companies like Facebook, Google, and Amazon dominate in their respective fields.
“You need to sort of evolve your approach to the law as technology changes and make sure that you are as up to date as you can be with those technological changes,” he said.
There are also enforcement problems that this review could address, he said.
At the moment, the Competition Bureau can intervene in cases where it sees a merger or other practice as unduly restricting competition. However, the last call on whether those mergers or practices fall within the boundaries of the law must be settled by a tribunal.
As things stand, said Hunter, it takes too long for final decisions on those matters to be made, which is bad for business. Hunter also said the current law may make it too difficult for the Competition Bureau to actually win some of those cases.
Other things to consider, he said, include:
Whether the current competition law does enough to prevent digital giants from squashing up-and-coming businesses that might one day compete with them;
Whether the system used to evaluate the impact of mergers on competition relies too much on predicting changes in price;
And, whether tribunals should continue to include “lay people” as well as judges.
Hunter also drew attention to the fact that the government seems to be conducting the review in-house, rather than striking an external panel of experts to offer suggestions on how to reform a very technical piece of legislation. He said he was worried that would lead to errors that would have to be fixed down the road.
You can find details on the government’s consultation here.
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