Now that the French “debate” has passed, it looks like today is the day that Kevin O’Leary will announce his candidacy for the Conservative leadership – something most of the other candidates will probably welcome given that it will divert everyone’s attention from the embarrassing debacle that was the “debate,” and I do use the term loosely. As with previous events in this contest, there was no debate, just a line-up of talking points, only this time it was mostly in mangled French, some of which was utterly incomprehensible.

Not to say that there wasn’t some artificial drama during the horror show. Kellie Leitch in full butchered French and Steven Blaney both had their sight set on Maxime Bernier and attacked him out of the gate (while Erin O’Toole, in very slow sentences, pleaded with them not to fight), and for the first 45 minutes at least, all anyone could talk about was supply management, before the moved onto softwood lumber – because apparently dairy and forestry are Quebec’s only two industries. And then when it came to questions of national security, it was all manner of fumbled pearl-clutching (and it was like you could watch them grasping for that strand of pearls and missing it every time) as a number of them insisted that they were for immigration but wanted to ensure that they weren’t letting in terrorists. Brad Trost decided to go full-Trump and declare that we ban immigration from “pro-radical Islamist” regions (but don’t worry, he doesn’t hate all immigrants – he married one!).

Blaney started off with something about Princess Leia before going on about the Kardashians. National security! #CPCldr

— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) January 18, 2017

https://twitter.com/stephaniecarvin/status/821520113786621953

If you’re looking for a professional evaluation of everyone’s proficiency in French, CBC assembled an expert panel to grade everyone, and based on my own personal observations, Lisa Raitt did better than most expectations (but was still mostly reading her responses), and Chris Alexander, for all of his other weaknesses in this race, had one of the best grasps of the language of any of them. Rick Petersen, the other also-ran who doesn’t have a seat, also had a really great grasp of French and was one of the only people speaking off the cuff – doubly impressive given that he’s an Anglo and not Francophone. And as for Deepak Obhrai, people keep saying “points for trying!” or “At least he showed up, unlike O’Leary!” well, there were actual times when he was just uttering phonetic gibberish – and pointing while doing it.

But, as Martin Patriquin writes, none of this is going to matter after a few hours today because once O’Leary is in the race, none of it is going to matter.

Good reads:

• On tour in New Brunswick, Trudeau said that his government inherited mistrust over pipelines from his predecessors. Also, his daughter is not much into politics.
• The removed vice-chief of defence staff is apparently under investigation by the RCMP for leaks regarding classified ship materials.
• Saskatchewan has added its name to a health deal with the federal government, as well as a year to prove their MRI funding model doesn’t hurt the public system.
• The government says they won’t contemplate a Canadian-content levy on distributors like Netflix, but aren’t ruling out enforcing sales tax.
• The Grassy Narrows First Nation says the government isn’t acting fast enough to remediate mercury poisoning in their area.
• Neil Macdonald has breakfast with Chris Alexander and talks about his failures.
• Tom Clark writes about Trump’s mercantilist tendencies and how to deal with them.
• Susan Delacourt notes Chrystia Freeland’s new role in trying to manage the Trumpocalypse given her income inequality-battling cred.
• Paul Wells looks at Trudeau’s listening tour in contrast to the rest of the world falling down around our ears, given Brexit and the Trumpocalypse.
• My Loonie Politics column reminds Nathan Cullen that “bipartisanship” is not actually a Thing in the Canadian political system for good reason.

Odds and ends:

Here’s the full text of that letter that Senator Leo Housakos sent to Senator Peter Harder, and it’s just a tiny bit scathing.

Here’s a look at the tire fire that is the Alberta PC leadership contest, with Jason Kenney at the centre of it.

Note: As a reminder, my Loonie Politics columns go behind a paywall on February 1^st. Normally subscriptions are $50 for the year, but if you use promo code Smith you can get it for $40. Thanks, and a reminder that paywalls like these help working journalists like me get paid.