So there was a bit of a testy exchange yesterday as federal and provincial immigration ministers met in Winnipeg, and Ahmed Hussen got into a bit of a spat with Ontario’s new minister, Lisa MacLeod. Hussen objected to MacLeod (and Doug Ford) using the rhetoric of “illegal border crossers” and ginning up the same rhetoric of the Federal Conservatives that somehow refugee claimants take make it harder for legal immigrants (despite the fact that they’re separate processes and systems). This objection is not new either – Hussen has been saying this for weeks, so for MacLeod to get offended about it yesterday is being performative in the extreme – which is what she wants. With Kathleen Wynne no longer in the picture for her party to pit themselves against, they now need to make Trudeau their straw man. And when Hussen called the behaviour “un-Canadian,” MacLeod and her defenders accused Hussen of “bullying,” which is childish. But wait – it gets better. MacLeod loudly announced that the federal government should pay for these asylum claimants, while Hussen has been saying for weeks that they need Ontario to step up and find places elsewhere in the province than just Toronto to house them, and hey, they’re providing money to do just that. And then, because this wasn’t theatrical enough, Saskatchewan’s minister also refused to sign onto the communiqué from the meeting and demanded that the federal government not only pay for these asylum seekers (of which Saskatchewan has received zero), but that they should pay the full cost of all other government-sponsored refugees. Couple of things: 1) This is starting to get alarmingly close to the kinds of xenophobic populist rhetoric we’re seeing south of the border, and we should be very alarmed by that; and 2) Remember how the federal Conservatives just a few years ago cut refugee health benefits as a “deterrence” mechanism (which the courts later called “cruel and unusual”), which simply downloaded those costs onto the provinces? These are your political brethren.

Also released yesterday were the latest figures for the number of irregular border crossers, and it has plunged again. Because it’s a “crisis” that the government has “done nothing about.” Err, except they have been doing something about it, trying to stem the migrant flow at the source, and lo and behold, it seems to be working. For now, in any case. But the Conservatives continue to press for a meeting of the Commons’ immigration committee next week to rail about it.

Official stats are out. As we reported, border-crossing asylum seeker numbers are down – at their lowest point since last June, in fact. https://t.co/3JluKZHWRo pic.twitter.com/OCzco0G9aB

— Anna Mehler Paperny (@amp6) July 13, 2018

Meanwhile, Martin Patriquin calls out the divisive and inflammatory language because it misses the actual issue at play, treating it as a permanent burden rather than a temporary state of affairs.

Good reads:

• The CBC says that there will be a Cabinet shuffle on Wednesday.
• Carolyn Bennett held a meeting with her provincial counterparts to update them on the First Nations framework, and the AFN slammed them for being excluded.
• New Brunswick’s premier wants a united front at next week’s Council of the Federation meeting in the face of American trade threats.
• The purchase price of the Trans Mountain pipeline will be less than advertised once capital gains taxes are paid.
• The government spent $24,000 on consultants to rebrand the Invest in Canada Hub to just “Invest in Canada,” but I’m failing to see why there’s a scandal here.
• The Supreme Court of Canada ruled that tobacco companies can’t get access to medical databases to defend against lawsuits, because it can’t protect privacy.
• More delays means that the work to rehabilitate the Centre Block may not start until 2020, and the building not ready to be occupied again until at least 2030.
• Liberal MP Iqra Khalid has complained about a “parody” account of her and Ahmed Hussen which she says crossed into hate speech. It has since deleted those tweets.
• Jagmeet Singh’s time in BC right now is fuelling speculation that he’ll run in the vacating riding of Burnaby.
• Maryam Monsef defends her government’s version of feminism.
• Kevin Carmichael interviews Bank of Canada Governor Stephen Poloz.
• Susan Delacourt looks at how Trump’s use of Twitter is changing the face of diplomacy, and making the world a meaner place.
• Martin Patriquin looks at how Quebec’s sovereignty movement has become overwhelmingly white (and old) after first reaching out to immigrants.
• My weekend column looks at some of the potential dynamics in play if there is to be a Cabinet shuffle next week.

Odds and ends:

Here’s a reporter’s perspective of how the Trump drama unfolded at the NATO summit.

Here is a look at Canadian political twitter follower counts before and after the bot-account purge.

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