The Bloc tried very hard yesterday to push a motion in the House of Commons that would essentially declare that the Commons agreed with Quebec’s Bill 96, thus trying to politically disarm any of the objections to the plans to unilaterally amend the constitution to insert clauses on Quebec being a “nation” and that its only language was French. They were thwarted by Jody Wilson-Raybould, who was the only one to deny them unanimous consent – as well she should, because everyone is trying to be too-clever-by-half on this whole thing, and that’s bound to wind up in tears at some point down the road.

Re motion:
1. Dismaying how political partisanship/pandering leads MPs to abandon core legal norms (+ common sense) & try to avoid debate on critical constitutional matters. Silence=cowardice not leadership
2. As an proud FNs woman I’m always ready 2 discuss Nationhood & language https://t.co/cabxMUTsQR

— Jody Wilson-Raybould (JWR), PC, OBC, KC 王州迪 (@Puglaas) May 26, 2021

Paul Wells explained some of this earlier in the week in his lengthy column on Trudeau’s quest for Quebec votes, and essentially Trudeau was saying that sure, Quebec could move this unilateral move to the constitution if it didn’t impact on other rights, which is the real trick – the whole point of Bill 96 is to weaken the rights of anglophones in the province, up to and including taking away their constitutional guarantee to be able to hear a trial in English. Jagmeet Singh similarly tried the same tactic in saying that the proposed constitutional changes are “symbolic,” and won’t impact anyone outside of Quebec (never mind that they will impact anglophones in the province). Everyone seems to think they’re clever and that there will be no long-term repercussions from this, because they all want to get on François Legault’s good side before the next election, whenever that happens, because he’s still wildly popular in the province (almost disconcertingly so). This is hardly a serious way to run a country.

Meanwhile, here’s Thomas Mulcair, a veteran of the linguistic wars in Quebec, explaining why Bill 96 is really a sneak attack on the linguistic rights that he spent his career fighting for, and it’s well worth your time to read, because it has some additional context on what the current provincial government has been up to leading up to this point.

Good reads:

• The Auditor General put out a pair of reports, the first on the national PPE stockpile, citing that it was audited in 2010 and 2013, and none of the problems were fixed.
• She also looked at Indigenous Services’ pandemic response, both in hiring nurses and paramedics, and their own PPE stockpiles (which were also poorly managed).
• Here is the backstory for today’s apology to Italian Canadians for internment during the Second World War (omitting that most were members of the Fascist Party).
• François-Philippe Champagne announced plans for Canada to put a rover on the moon in five years.
• Senior Sources™ say that the prime minister will announce the new Supreme Court of Canada justice before Canada Day.
• We are getting a better sense of what the plans for the money that was initially supposed to go toward the Canada Student Grants will be put toward.
• The Conservatives are planning a “ground breaking” strategy to target their voters in the next election, which starts to sound a bit repetitive after the last couple.
• Kady O’Malley’s Process Nerd column looks at the state of private members’ bills at committee before the summer approaches.
• Heather Scoffield sorts through the government’s inclusive growth plans and the threat of high inflation, and the tools available to Freeland and the Bank of Canada.

Odds and ends:

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