“It’s a new way to interview the prime minister!” CBC declared, as they promoted their latest gimmick – their “face-to-face” special with the prime minister, in which they selected ten Canadians from around the country to come to Ottawa, and each have a ten minute conversation with Justin Trudeau about whatever their issue is. I watched the one-hour special (not the individual interviews – sorry, but I try to have a life), and was underwhelmed. Why? Because it wasn’t actually interviewing the PM – it was ten people coming largely with a personal grievance to be aired.

@jengerson “Why aren’t you magic? Why can’t you solve my personal problems with the snap of your finger? No, seriously, I mean it.”

— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) February 1, 2016

While the CBC pats itself on the back about this little exercise, and good on them for trying it, I just felt like there actually wasn’t anything new here. That Trudeau agreed to do this wasn’t a surprise in the least – connecting with “ordinary Canadians” is his shtick. He spent the better part of the past three years doing just that. If the last guy agreed to do this – that would be news. Trudeau? Not so much. That it feeds into this toxic narrative that there is an “Ottawa bubble” that must be broken out of is also annoying, because it presumes that the higher-level discussions that happen here aren’t important or that they don’t matter to “ordinary Canadians” when everything that happens here does impact, whether they see it or not. And with these airing of grievances, what I saw demonstrated was an expectation from these “ordinary Canadians” that the prime minister must not only have facile solutions to complex problems – many of which are not even within his own jurisdiction – but that there was an expectation that he personally should be doing something for them, and for their personal situation. Is this the expectation that people have about the way that politics works? That there is some kind of entitlement that voters have for their problems to be solved if they complain to the people in office about them? Maybe this is a reflection of who the CBC chose for their ten people, and that it’s not more reflective of the broader population as a whole. Suffice to say, I came away from the whole thing feeling worse for having watched it, but then again, maybe I’m not the audience for these kinds of things.

Good reads:

• In advance of Tuesday’s AG report, here’s a look at why Shared Services Canada is such a gong show.
• As public service negotiations get underway, Scott Brison is warning the unions to be realistic given the economic situation.
• It looks like the government will let DND do procurements of up to $5 million on their own, without having to go through Public Works.
• Veterans Affairs underspent its budget by $200 million, apparently because some programmes didn’t have enough uptake. One former advisor blames poor data.
• Genetic privacy is a Thing, and Canadian laws are lagging behind.
• The Transportation Safety Board says that there has been a spike in pipeline incidents over the past decade.
• Thomas Mulcair is freaking out because the Heritage Minister hasn’t stated explicitly how much of a funding increase CBC is getting.
• Jason Markusoff offers some suggestions on ways the government can help communities like La Loche, Saksatchewan.

Odds and ends:

Here is a look at the new committees, and gives answers to a few of the questions you may have about them.