There’s a battle brewing in the Senate over Bill C-69, and some of it seems like a concern trolling on the face of it. Given that the bill – which aims to reform the environmental assessment process – is contentious among certain sectors, and has been subject to a misinformation campaign by the Conservatives (who have dubbed it the “no more pipelines bill” based on zero actual evidence), there is a push by Conservative senators to have the Senate’s energy and environment committee take hearings on the road. You know, to hear directly from those affected. The bill’s sponsor, government whip – err, “liaison,” Senator Mitchell, resists that, and it looks like he’s got the leader of the Independent Senators Group, Senator Woo, more or less backing him, Woo saying that travel is unnecessary when you can videoconference.

The Conservatives are looking to delay the bill, likely to death, given that the number of sitting days in this parliament is rapidly dwindling. Never mind that many affected industries are behind the bill, or that most others say that they would rather see amendments at this stage than a whole new process because that just increases the uncertainty (and it should be pointed out that the current system, which the Harper government implemented, has not worked and has resulted in a number of court challenges). And to add to that fact, the senator who chairs the committee is inexperienced (and many will openly say that she doesn’t know what she’s doing), and the Conservatives on that committee haven’t been cooperative in getting the hearings up and running because they are protesting the fact that she appears to be taking dictation from the Government Leader in the Senate – err, “government representative,” Senator Harder. So, this is all turning into a giant mess. And did I mention that the number of sitting days is rapidly dwindling? I suspect this is going to get ugly.

Good reads:

• Justin Trudeau held another townhall in Milton, Ontario, and took some shots at Doug Ford’s plans around kindergarten class sizes and programming.
• The PBO put out a report on the Trans Mountain purchase that said construction delays could affect its resale price, leading to accusations the government overpaid.
• Reuters hears that there will be pharmacare in the next federal budget.
• The Government Operations Committee’s report on the $7 billion budget measure vote from the spring is raising fresh hell over the issue, and aligning the Estimates.
• The IRB is expected to announce new procedures to “streamline” certain refugee claims in order to process them faster.
• Hundreds of CBSA officers are temporarily deployed to deal with asylum seekers every month.
• Now that their bill allowing charities to engage in political activities has passed, the government dropped their appeal of a court case that made a similar ruling.
• In the Mark Norman pretrial, a former PMO staffer said she didn’t check her personal emails for subpoenaed items; an abuse-of-process motion is in the works.
• The Supreme Court of Canada has ruled that federal bankruptcy laws don’t override provincial environmental laws requiring sites like old oil wells be remediated.
• Here’s a look at how different parties are attempting to treat the housing issue as an election draws near.
• Some NDP MPs are starting to come out of the woodwork (anonymously) to say that Jagmeet Singh can’t carry on as leader if he loses the by-election.
• Erin Weir’s old riding association wants him to challenge the nomination, but good luck convincing Singh of letting that happen.
• François Legault says that Quebec doesn’t have an Islamophobia problem, which is just adorable.
• Former NDP MP Sheila Malcolmson won her provincial by-election in BC, thus preserving the NDP government in that province for a while longer.
• Kevin Carmichael pans the government’s demand-side “problem solving” for housing affordability, which is just like Harper’s, and doesn’t solve any problems.
• Martin Patriquin looks at how Andrew Scheer has abandoned any personal conviction in favour of crassly campaigning by focus group.

Odds and ends:

While the mayor of Ottawa wants the eventual tarps covering the Centre Block and Supreme Court to look like the buildings beneath, those decisions are years away.

Want more Routine Proceedings? Become a patron and get exclusive new content.