We have a date – well, two of them. Justin Trudeau announced yesterday morning that Cabinet would be shuffled on October 26^th, and that the House of Commons would return on November 22^nd, which is ridiculous. After an election where Trudeau kept punctuating the “urgency” of a number of files, some of them COVID-related, and with a list of priorities to take care of in his first 100 days of the new parliament (apparently that clock doesn’t start ticking until Cabinet is sworn in), the decision to delay the return of Parliament for two months after the election is egregious – especially because this is a hung parliament where the confidence of the Chamber should be tested at its earliest opportunity, and two months later is not that.

It may not be the longest, but 63 days is still egregious. https://t.co/WGrvqPOAQM

— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) October 15, 2021

I am generally pretty forgiving of the fact that it can take our government longer to get its act together post-election – as compared to the UK, where they have nearly twice as many MPs – but they can get a new government sworn in and a new Parliament started within three weeks of an election. But it should not have taken Trudeau this long to deal with this shuffle as it has, even if one or two Cabinet contenders had to deal with recounts. And yes, the government dispatched the Governor General on her first state visit abroad this week, but that again was his choice, and he could have either delayed that trip, or announced the Cabinet before she left the country.

More to the point, this reduces the fall sitting of the House of Commons to a maximum of four weeks, but you can bet that in practice, it’ll be less than three. Committees won’t really get up and running, and sure, he may introduce a number of priority bills, but they will see precious little debate in that time. What we will get are the Address in Reply to the Speech From the Throne, and probably the Fall Economic Update, plus a number of Estimates votes, which will be rushed through without any actual scrutiny (they may get some modicum of scrutiny on the Senate side), but I’m not sure we’ll even see the Budget Implementation Bill for said economic update making it past second reading unless it is bullied through at all stages under the threat that emergency rent and wage subsidies will expire without passage. It’s undermining democratic norms for the sake of expediency, and that is the last thing we want to be encouraging any government in engaging in, regardless of stripe.

Good reads:

• Justin Trudeau will visit the Tk’emlúps te Secwepemc First Nation on Monday, after not responding to their invitation for the National Day of Truth and Reconciliation.
• The land border with the US will re-open on November 8^th, and the Americans will recognised mixed doses as being fully vaccinated.
• The suspended Chief of Defence Staff wrote a letter to top brass demanding his job back, and really pissed off the acting CDS and the defence minister. Not cool.
• The military’s head of personnel, who replaced someone investigated for sexual misconduct, is now under investigation for sexual misconduct. No, seriously.
• Here is a lengthy read about why NACI has ceased being public-facing on its vaccine guidance (or rather, returned to their previous state of affairs).
• Elections Canada’s proposed electoral boundary redistribution would see Alberta gain three seats, Ontario and BC gain one each while Quebec would lose one.
• The update on the Iqaluit water situation is that they isolated the contamination and are flushing the system, but still haven’t discovered what caused the fuel leak.
• Ontario Liberal leader Stephen Del Duca is promising ranked ballots if he becomes premier, and says he’ll resign if he doesn’t deliver.
• The former head of JTF2 blogs about Admiral Art McDonald’s tantrum in the media to get his Chief of Defence Staff job back, and why it reflects badly on him.
• Stephen Saideman talked to the Chief of Defence Staff and got some insights into how they are reforming the promotion system in the military.
• Kevin Carmichael wades through the debate between the central bank and commercial bank CEOs on the pace of post-pandemic spending.
• Jen Gerson pours scorn on Jason Kenney’s referendum on equalisation.
• Robert Hiltz calls out the NDP’s current path as one of continued mediocrity and failed elections, because they can’t be serious where they need to be.
• My weekend column responds to Ken Boessenkool’s essay on the Senate as a “House of Memory,” and where he goes right and wrong.

Odds and ends:

Here’s a bit of reassurance about the Queen now using a walking stick at public engagements.

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