The saga of Bill C-48 continues its strange trek through the Senate with the release of the report from the transport committee that recommended that the bill not proceed. Or at least that’s what it should have stated – that based on the tie vote, that the committee could not recommend the bill proceed. What they got instead was a lengthy screed about how allegedly terrible and the bill was for national unity, and it cherry picked comments from witnesses to “prove” that case, and strangely omitted any witnesses that stated – with facts – that the bill would have almost no impact on the energy industry in Alberta and Saskatchewan. In fact, the report was so partisan that it raised eyebrows among my sources in the Senate, who could not recall the last time that they had seen such a blatantly political document.

Naturally, not everyone on the committee was in favour of this report, and there are accusations back-and-forth about conversations regarding whether those who disagreed could write a dissenting report, and the eventual reluctance to bother because it would likely have tied things up in committee for even longer, as the clock ticks down. (Things are so bad on the Senate’s Order Paper that the need to sit well into July is now pretty much guaranteed). Of course, delaying this bill to death is part of the Conservative game plan, and everyone knows it – in fact, they pretty much have set up a situation where the Leader of the Government in the Senate, Senator Peter Harder, will have to invoke time allocation to get it passed.

The shenanigans with this bill aren’t done yet. There will be a great deal of debate when this report gets debated in the whole Senate, where it is doubtlessly going to be rejected, but not without a great deal of noise and accusations that the Independents are just Liberal stooges, and so on. And it’s going to be so annoying when it’s all over.

Good reads:

• In Vancouver, Justin Trudeau announced an expansion of Canada’s maternal and child health funding abroad including more abortion services. (More details here).
• At the same Vancouver event, Trudeau spoke about women’s rights being imperilled with American “backsliding” on abortion rights.
• Trudeau also said he accepted the MMIW Inquiry’s finding of “genocide.”
• Here’s a thoughtful conversation on the use of “genocide” by the MMIW Inquiry report with an international lawyer who works on genocide cases.
• AFN National Chief Perry Bellegarde says the focus of parliamentarians should be on solutions after the MMIW Inquiry report, as opposed to the “genocide” declaration.
• Here’s a look at the problems the Inquiry had with police records – including the fact that they issued subpoenas for them very late in the process.
• China will apparently start added inspections of Canadian pork imports (which they need because of African Swine Fever decimating their own herds).
• The Chinese ambassador to Canada is being “promoted” to a new post in Paris, and says he wants to solve the current impasse – but won’t budge on Canada’s issues.
• Apparently our Ambassador in Washington touched off a diplomatic incident by making an offhand remark about Cuba during the planning for the Pence visit.
• Google executives told the Commons justice committee they are trying to use machine learning to scrub hate speech from their platforms like YouTube
• The justice committee voted to strike Michael Cooper’s outburst from the record (but the Conservative members abstained).
• A former PQ Cabinet minister from the short-lived Marois government is thinking of running for the federal Liberals, citing that sovereignty is no longer on the table.
• Andrew Scheer gave a speech about his “vision” of Confederation, which is about that cross-country corridor and lowering trade barriers (for realsies this time!).
• A new report shows that the current Ontario climate plan would cost consumer double what the federal carbon price backstop would, while still being less effective.
• Kevin Carmichael talks to Bank of Canada Senior Deputy Governor Carolyn Wilkins about the economy and her future. (More on this thread).
• Susan Delacourt looks at the ways in which Justin Trudeau has been burnishing his feminist credentials over the past couple of weeks.
• Given that the Conservatives are clanging the deficit alarm bell again, here’s a reality check from Kevin Milligan.
• My column debunks some of the rhetoric around Philpott/Wilson-Raybould decisions to run as independents, and the supposed effect it will have.

Odds and ends:

As the anniversary of D-Day approaches, here’s the tale of some Canadian women who played important secret roles in WWII.

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