The day got off to a slightly different start – the prime minster didn’t have a daily presser because he was off to CFB Trenton for the repatriation ceremony for the crew of the downed Canadian Forces Cyclone helicopter (which is a whole issue I plan to write more on in another place), and there were no announcements in the ministerial presser before the special COVID-19 committee met in the House of Commons chamber for more ministerial questions, followed by a take-note debate.

While the “virtual” special committee reconvenes today, I wanted to draw attention to this piece in the Hill Timesthat shows the impact these meetings are having on the support staff, and in particular the interpreters, who are burning out and suffering cognitive injuries as a result because these meetings are harder on them, when they’re already at a reduced capacity because many are stuck at home without childcare. Why this is particularly important is because leading up to these meetings, we were inundated with a bunch of chuckleheads and tech bros with a superiority complex who were going around shouting “Teach MPs how to Zoom!” and “Okay, Boomer,” and so on. Turns out that it’s more complex than that, and the people we can’t see are paying the price for it.

It’s also a sign of just how disingenuous the government was when they kept insisting that in-person sittings were going to expose all of these staffers in the West Block to potential exposure to COVID-19. But the problem is that even when the MPs aren’t there to meet, these staffers still need to be there to run the daily press conferences, and to run the virtual meetings, and no, they can’t do it from home. And if the workload is more difficult for some of them, like the interpreters, if the MPs are doing this “virtually” instead of having a smaller number of MPs sitting on a regular basis, then their justification is completely blown out of the water. There is no reason why they shouldn’t have proper skeletal sittings three days a week, and we now see that it would be better for these staffers than these “virtual” meetings are.

Good reads:

• Here are a few charts to show how much worse the COVID-19 infection has been in Quebec compared to the rest of Canada.
• There are questions as to why the assault gun ban leaves out certain guns, leading some to call it “incoherent.”
• The federal government has not consulted with the Privacy Commissioner on any contact tracing system, particularly as some provinces are rolling out apps.
• Here’s a look at the economics and supply chains that resulted in our current situation, where three meat-packing plants handle 85 percent of the beef in Canada.
• CBC got some more information on the MOU that the Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs have agreed to, which makes progress in restoring control of their territory.
• Canada is once again making their ongoing contribution to the F-35 joint support programme, while the fighter jet competition has been prolonged again.
• Yves-François Blanchet and Elizabeth May said mean things about the oil sands, so expect another round of rending garments, wailing, and gnashing of teeth.
• Kady O’Malley’s Process Nerd column says that these “virtual” committee meetings could be a beta-test of rules changes for the Commons. I’d go with “warning.”
• Kevin Carmichael looks at the need for the Bank of Canada to assert its independence as Tiff Macklem takes on the role of Governor during this crisis.
• Chris Selley comes to the conclusion that we will never be able to achieve the testing levels that we really require if we want to safely reopen the economy.
• Robert Hiltz tears a strip off of those who insist the economy be reopened when it involves the sacrifice of other people.

Odds and ends:

Hey tweeps! Want to read #UnbrokenMachine while you’re social distancing? Here’s your chance to get it at 25% off. https://t.co/PpC4ovVe7S

— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) March 23, 2020

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