Roundup: A cynicism prescription

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We’re still talking Trudeau’s trip to Washington? Of course we are. Today some of it was a bit more oblique, but during his video town hall with Huffington Post, Trudeau was repeatedly asked about Donald Trump, and most of it he tried to avoid answering, talking about how lovely Cape Breton is (context: it’s become a kind of joke about how Americans fleeing Trump would move there), but he did offer that Trump would likely tone down his rhetoric should he win the nomination and start running for the general election instead. He did offer a few other, broader comments on what he’s witnessed in the American election cycle, about the cynicism that is on full display, and how it may need broad-based campaign finance reform like we saw here in Canada in the late nineties, and again after Harper came to power in 2006, where we got big money out of our politics. He’s got a point, but one suspects that there is more than just campaign finance laws that are broken in American politics. As for the big state dinner, Stéphane Dion said that it will help showcase that environment and the economy can exist together, as evident by some of the choices (like Catherine McKenna’s apparently inclusion). Meanwhile, it looks like we can probably expect an announcement on protecting the environment in the Arctic, as well as some overdue progress on thinning the border.

Good reads:

  • The government has announced that they will fund reproductive health services as part of maternal and child health goals – but still won’t fund abortions.
  • The Chief of Defence Staff said there’s little point in buying new drones if we don’t also give them the capability to strike.
  • CSIS said that they’ve used their new powers of disruption almost two dozen times since they came into being.
  • Small business groups complain that if small business taxes aren’t cut at the same rate the Conservatives promised, it’ll be an unexpected tax hike. (No, really).
  • Some of our firms may be shut out of supplying new warships components, but that likely would be made up for by regional industrial benefits clauses.
  • Kady O’Malley delves into the Conservatives’ election expenses, now that they’re public.
  • Stephen Gordon wonders if our monetary policy and inflation targeting by the Bank of Canada is up to the current economic challenges.

Odds and ends:

Maclean’s dug into their archives to find the explanation of how Kim Cattrall ended up on that date with Pierre Trudeau in the first place.