Of all the possible misplays for Justin Trudeau to make at the height of a controversy around his poor choices, ethical blind spots, and insistence that he’s being open and transparent, the first day of a two-day recall of the House of Commons saw him absent with the only excuse on his daily itinerary being a “personal day,” which sent the opposition into a frenzy. It’s not like Trudeau chose this day for the Commons to be recalled and for there to be a proper Question Period – erm, except he did. And then wasn’t present. Way to read the room.

Andrew Scheer had his own attempts to make hay, insisting that if the Liberal backbenchers don’t oust Trudeau (without a mechanism to do so, it should be noted), that they were signalling that they were okay with his “corruption” – never mind that a conflict of interest is not actually corruption, and he’s not exactly someone who should be throwing stones considering that he was forced to resign his own leadership after it was revealed that he was helping himself to party funds to the tune of almost a million dollars.

Meanwhile, the Conservatives are also pushing back against the bill being debated, objecting to the “complexity” of the wage subsidy changes, despite the fact that for there to be a proper phase-out and to ensure it’s more broadly encompassing than the programme was initially, there needs to be added complexity. Their objections won’t matter for much, considering that the Bloc has agreed to support the bill regardless so there are enough votes to go around, but it is a change from bills being supported unanimously at all stages, and something that resembles a sense of normalcy slowly returning to Parliament, which is a good thing.

Good reads:

• Ahmed Hussen says the government is looking at increasing its planned support for child care with the provinces for the next fiscal year.
• It sounds like Bardish Chagger met with WE about their “social entrepreneur” proposal before the student grant programme was announced, but it went nowhere.
• The National Post has taken a look into WE’s property empire, which has raised more questions about their organizations’ financials.
• WE’s founders, the Kielberger brothers, have agreed to appear at Finance Committee next week on the Imbrolio.
• The government is reviewing their plans to launch a social finance fund, given that the pandemic has stressed charities and non-profits.
• International law states that Iran controls the data of the black boxes from Flight PS752, but our government has rejected any claims around “human error.”
• The RCMP and the Commissioner of Elections are looking into Erin O’Toole’s allegations that Peter MacKay’s campaign hacked his.
• Robert Hiltz is galled that Giuliano Zaccardelli is lecturing about trust in the RCMP from the op-ed pages, given his history of ethics issues.

Odds and ends:

My latest Loonie Politics video looks at the darker side of the Conservatives crowing about their 269,000 membership sign-ups.

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