So it looks like unrest remains the order of the day in the Conservative caucus, as they prepare for their winter caucus retreat next week (which may very well be virtual). Unhappiness with Erin O’Toole’s leadership is still fomenting below the surface—and to be fair, blackmailing your MPs to say that you’ll expel them from caucus if they challenge you by signing a petition can do that—while at the same time being castigated for not providing any actual leadership, so that’s quite something.

In the midst of this, the resistance to O’Toole’s edicts continue. After Conservative senators didn’t follow O’Toole’s orders and expel Senator Denise Batters from their ranks, it looks like the party’s Saskatchewan regional caucus is also defying O’Toole and letting Batters remain a member. So she can’t attend national caucus, but she’s still participating with her fellow colleagues, in the Senate and regionally, which seems to show that O’Toole’s edicts are starting to feel pretty hollow. After all, if he tries to expel the whole of his Saskatchewan caucus for defying him, well, he might as well turn in his resignation at that point.

Batters, meanwhile, has all the time in the world to carry on her campaign against O’Toole, since they didn’t give her any committee work to do. And to that end, she is insisting that the report on the election loss must include O’Toole’s personal failures and constant flip-flops. It also seems that people have been directing former MP James Cumming, in charge of said report, to talk to her, but he hasn’t done so, which could make a person suspicious that this could be a selective report that just might be going out of its way to avoid criticising O’Toole himself. But the signs aren’t good for O’Toole the more this continues to add up.

Good reads:

• Justin Trudeau called the freezing death of a family trying to cross into the US tragic, and says they were likely the victims of misinformation by human smugglers.
• Trudeau announced a $120-million loan to Ukraine to help stabilize their economy from Russian attack, while Ukraine is still hoping for weapons and more soldiers.
• Trudeau also says he has no intention of living in 24 Sussex no matter how long he’s in office, and claims they are still “assessing options” for it. (Sure, Jan).
• Harjit Sajjan pledged an additional $50 million in humanitarian assistance for Haiti at the opening of a regional summit on the country’s needs.
• Citizenship and Immigration is pausing their invitations for highly skilled immigrants until they can deal with the current processing backlog.
• The government is patting themselves on the back for the creation of 10,000 housing units as part of their Rapid Housing Initiative.
• The Public Health Agency of Canada is being fingered for part of the blame on the confusion around the vaccine mandate for truckers.
• The number of audits on charities the CRA conducts has declined over a decade, but they say it’s because they’re being more proactive in helping charities.
• The NDP are calling for (another) one-time payment for seniors, as the compensation for GIS clawbacks won’t happen until May.
• Matt Gurney suspects that we have reached the limit of what we can achieve by vaccination.
• My weekend column looks at how the Conservatives are apparently making a call for a return to wage and price controls, even if they don’t come out and say it.

Odds and ends:

“During the holidays, Her Excellency had a minor mishap but is on the mend,” says Rideau Hall about a new IM photo showing the Governor General with a hard cast on her right arm and hand pic.twitter.com/KMl4W3m2hd

— Patricia Treble (@PatriciaTreble) January 21, 2022

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