Prime Minister Justin Trudeau continues his tour of the country as the pandemic wanes, and yesterday stopped in Calgary to meet with both Jason Kenney and Naheed Nenshi, and there were some particular notes that Trudeau’s tone had changed, and that he was more combative than he has been in the past – in particular, taking shots at Kenney’s government over their resistance to dealing with climate change and the economic opportunities that come with the green economy, and that Kenney had endorsed banning niqabs in the country as an example of how the previous government didn’t take systemic racism seriously. (And if anyone wants to point out that Kenney was the party’s “ethnic outreach” minister, remember that his particular focus was on communities where they felt they could target social conservative votes, citing their mutual dislike of the gays, marijuana, and so on).

There was in particular some politics being played about the announcement over funding for Calgary’s Green Line LRT project, where the province – which has been apparently slow-walking it for a year now – approved the funding in a press release shortly before Trudeau’s announcement, and weren’t at the announcement themselves, which sounds about typical.

Wildly, Kenney’s government announced its own final approval of this LRT plan in a news release moments before this press conference.
It seems to have caught Nenshi off guard.

— Jason Markusoff (@markusoff) July 7, 2021

Trudeau, meanwhile, pushed back against the notion that there is some kind of unfairness in equalisation, and that Alberta is being somehow disadvantaged. While he pointed out that the current formula was negotiated with Kenney at the Cabinet table, it bears repeating that equalisation is not the province writing cheques to one another – it comes out of general revenues from federal taxes, and Alberta pays the highest federal taxes because they have the highest incomes in the country by far – even during these tougher economic times for the province as a result of the downturn in the oil market. Not that Kenney is going to tell the truth of how it works when he’s trying to nurse a faux grievance in order to score political points (much as he’s doing with his bullshit “senate nominee elections”). Part of this newfound punchiness on Trudeau’s part has to do with the narrative of election speculation, but also that Kenney has been weakened, and the Conservatives nationally are losing ground, and Trudeau likely sees an opening. There is talk that they could take several seats in Edmonton and Calgary thanks to both softer Conservative numbers and the fact that they could lose ground on their right flank to the swivel-eyed loons in the “separatist” Maverick Party, which gives the Liberals more of an opening. Trudeau also made the point that they want Alberta to have representation in the government, and perhaps people learned their lesson after shutting them out in the province out of spite, only to realize they made a big mistake afterward. We’ll see where it goes, but the shift in tone is notable.

In which Prime Minister @JustinTrudeau discovers the Jasons Kenneth. https://t.co/8iz4TUS3vM

— Andrew Leach (@andrew_leach) July 7, 2021

Good reads:

• Justin Trudeau has promised support to the Haitian people after the assassination of their president yesterday morning.
• Trudeau also remained vague on progress toward the TRC call to action about a new Royal Proclamation of reconciliation.
• The subsidy to help businesses rehire employees upon reopening is now rolling out, but it doesn’t apply to new businesses who opened during the pandemic.
• The government has set the week of August 16^th for when a one-time payment for seniors over 75 will be sent out, leading to more election timing speculation.
• The government is planning a public education and awareness campaign about systemic racism as part of their anti-racism strategy.
• Reports are suggesting that the federal money to clean up orphaned oil wells was poorly distributed, and simply displaced provincial and corporate dollars.
• The AFN national chief election will go to a third ballot today, with only two contenders remaining.
• Here is an explanation of how the new child welfare system in Cowessess First Nation will operate now that jurisdiction is being returned to them.
• The Green Party has cut the staff from leader Annamie Paul’s office as well as their diversity and inclusion co-ordinator, as the internal warfare continues.
• Alberta wants to cut nurses salaries by three percent after everything they went through in the pandemic, because that’s a recruitment retention strategy.
• Kady O’Malley’s Process Nerd column muses about the possibility of recalling the Commons in the summer, even though the order around hybrid sittings has expired.
• Paul Wells talks to outgoing AFN national chief Perry Bellegarde about his seven years in office, and the progress made on Indigenous issues over the past decade.
• Heather Scoffield looks at the measures the federal government has taken to improve low-wage workers in their jurisdiction, and how provinces need to step up.
• Susan Delacourt assesses the Green Party’s descent into internecine warfare, and why that’s bad for the political landscape overall.
• Colby Cosh notes that while it’s perfectly fine that Mary Simon can’t speak French, it lays bare the hypocrisy of Trudeau’s policies, such as with Supreme Court judges.

Odds and ends:

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