The House of Commons is back today, and it’s a live question as to how it’s going to look. The agreement around hybrid sittings expired, and the Liberals ensured it expired, because they are pushing for the Commons to adopt the voting app that they pushed the development of, while the Conservatives remain reluctant. As well they should, mind you – the voting app is an Abomination, and should be burned in a fire. Why? Because if they adopt it “just for the pandemic,” it won’t be just for the pandemic. Once it’s over, they will be demanding that they still be able to use it in order to “save time” from standing votes, and because there will be a push in order to keep hybrid sittings that the voting app will facilitate, and we will be a short few months away from MPs depopulating the House of Commons and finding every excuse to stay in their ridings. The Liberals have been trying to make this happen for years and were always rebuffed, and suddenly they have an excuse to make it a reality, and they’re not letting it go to waste.

So we’ll see if there is an agreement reached about how the sittings will progress – the MPs who made the trip are going to carry on regardless, but there may not be hybrid or virtual attendance until the agreement is reached, and it may depend on the Conservatives, as the NDP and Bloc sound like they are ready to go ahead with the voting app. Depending on how much the Conservatives dig in their heels may depend on how things progress, or whether the Liberals wind up opening Pandora’s Box with this damnable app.

As for what will be discussed, you can bet that vaccine distribution will dominate QP (because the PM can make Pfizer’s production line retooling happen overnight, apparently), followed by Keystone XL, and then the vetting process that didn’t happen with Julie Payette’s appointment. I’m not holding out hope for any kind of enlightening discourse, but this is where we are. Let’s just hope that the prime minister has reconsidered and will show a bit of humility around his judgment and the vetting that Payette didn’t receive, given how truculent he was about it on Friday, given that he needs to wear this, and it’s a question of just how graciously it happens.

Good reads:

• The Privy Council Office is expected to advise the prime minister on how to go about selecting the next Governor General, hopefully to avoid repeating mistakes.
• Members of the committee that helped selected David Johnston as Governor General talk about their process and why it’s useful in these kinds of situations.
• Here’s a look at some of the behind-the-scenes reaction (read: panic) when it became clear that the Biden Administration would kill Keystone XL, no matter what.
• Senator Marc Gold suggests that a Senate committee should examine the barriers to using secret information in Canadian courts in counter-intelligence cases.
• Erin O’Toole continues to explain that he used to give Derek Sloan the benefit of the doubt when he was just being racist, but no longer.
• Heather Scoffield reminds us that there remain lingering problems from the Trump era when it comes to Canada’s trade relationships, especially with China.
• Philippe Lagassé points out that we need to have a good conception of what we need in a governor general, and without that, an appointment committee is hobbled.

Odds and ends:

I was on CBC Radio’s Day 6 to talk about the importance of constitutional monarchy. (Audio here).

My latest Loonie Politics video talks about the old vice-regal appointments committee and why it matters.

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