Yesterday it was Jagmeet Singh’s turn have his one-on-one with prime minister Justin Trudeau in advance of the Cabinet shuffle and Throne Speech, and Singh came with his own list of priorities and demands – most of them as unrealistic as Andrew Scheer’s. And Singh’s insistence that he was open to voting against the Throne Speech, and that the party was ready to go to another election at any time, was simply precious. Unable to read the room, or calculate the seat maths, Singh apparently thinks he’s going to play kingmaker when there are more willing partners on the dance floor.

To that end, Singh was demanding immediate action on pharmacare, and pretending that Trudeau hasn’t been clear that he plans to implement the Hoskins Report, which called for a universal pharmacare system. The problem is that you can’t have “immediate action” on it, because it’s actually a very complex thing. You can’t actually just say “we’ll pay for all pharmaceuticals” because the costs would be extraordinary, and phasing it in with a single national formulary is actually incredibly challenging to do, especially across all provinces and territories, because they have different formularies currently and you run the risk of reducing people’s existing coverage (as what happened in Ontario when they briefly offered pharmacare for all young people in the province). It’s going to require careful negotiation with the provinces and stakeholders, and Singh’s constant refrain that this can happen immediately is fantasyland – just like his request that they also consider adding dental care in there.

As for some his other demands, the one about more “science-based” targets for emissions reductions is pure buzz-word. Science is not public policy, and you can’t just hand-wave and go “science” because it doesn’t work like that. Demanding the government abandon its judicial review of the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal decision on compensation for Indigenous children in care? As a lawyer, you think he would be sensitive to the concerns of bad precedent – particularly if the Tribunal did exceed their statutory authority. Energy-efficient retrofits? Electrified transit? Green jobs? It’s like they haven’t paid much attention to the Liberal climate plan and what carbon pricing does to create market incentives. Electoral reform? Apparently he didn’t pay attention to the hot garbage report that the parliamentary committee released last parliament. His “super-wealth tax”? The one that would require the government to rewrite the entire tax code to make it conform to American concepts? I’m sure they’ll get right on that. Singh has no leverage, and yet he thinks the government should simply adopt the NDP platform or have the party’s support withheld. I’m sure the government will get right on that.

Good reads:

• The PMO says that whether or not Catherine McKenna remains the environment minister, the policy direction isn’t changing.
• The Parliamentary Budget Officer updated their fiscal forecasts, and predicted slower growth (and bigger deficits) as a result of global trade uncertainty.
• US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says ratification of the New NAFTA could come by the end of the year. Expect that to be one of the first bills of the new Parliament.
• The federal government is hesitating to recognize the new president of Bolivia, in part because of her comments calling Indigenous people “Satanic.”
• The government is recognizing Bolivia’s opposition, meanwhile.
• The judge who granted the injunction that let Rebel Media and Rebel Lite™ True North get media accreditation for the debates released his written reasons.
• Staff at DND Headquarters are leaving their jobs rather than face the commute to the new headquarters complex in Ottawa’s west end.
• The Senate Liberals have rebranded themselves as the Progressive Senate Group in order to attract new members that didn’t want a partisan label.
• Andrew Scheer is joining Jason Kenney’s tantrum about the Bloc leader’s unsympathetic comments about the oil industry.
• The Conservative revenue critic wants public hearings into the number of records CRA turns over to the IRS under FATCA – which his government signed onto.
• Jason Kenney is trying to lessen the impact of the Supreme Court’s decision around cleaning up orphan wells, and wants Ottawa to contribute to their reclamation.
• Heather Scoffield imagines a mandate letter for the finance minister that targets five key areas.

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