Roundup: The big separation news

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The big news, meriting a tonne of international headlines, was that prime minister Justin Trudeau and his wife, Sophie Grégoire Trudeau, have entered into a legal separation, and that they have gone through all of the legal and ethics processes involved. Trudeau will remain at Rideau Cottage, being the de facto official residence, while Grégoire Trudeau has found a place of her own nearby, and will still be heavily involved because of shared custody.

And while we typically don’t make a habit on reporting on the personal lives of political leaders (unless they cross particular ethical lines, like accepting the lavish gifts from certain companies because they want the promotion on Instagram, as though they were celebrity influencers), there is nevertheless a whole lot of seeking of reaction, the comparisons to his father’s public divorce, questions about what this means for his image and political future (really?), hand-wringing, and some snide comments from certain pundits that if the Trudeaus want privacy they should return to being private citizens, not to mention homophobic remarks from the far-right commenters pretending to be news media. Totally normal stuff.

In reaction, Susan Delacourt notes both the history of the relationship and the constant presence of gossip around prime ministerial marriages and how they are always claimed to be on the rocks. Althia Raj remarks on how this kind of a thing does get politicised, particularly because so much political stock is put in the images of happy families.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russian drones damaged grain infrastructure in the port city of Odessa, which has been an organised campaign on Russia’s part since they pulled out of the Black Sea grain deal. Likewise, Russians struck the inland port of Izmail, near the Romanian border, where Ukrainian grain heads down the Danube River, for the same reason, and the result is that world grain prices continue to rise. (This is a major driver of food price inflation). As for the counter-offensive, Ukrainian forces say that they have stopped any Russian advances, but the Russians are dug in, making them harder to dislodge.

Good reads:

  • Jonathan Wilkinson says the planned two billion trees programme is currently ahead of schedule, but there is more work to do.
  • Global Affairs says they are “monitoring” the situation in Niger, but are not currently planning an evacuation of Canadian citizens in the country.
  • Transport Canada suspects that as many as 6.6 million vehicles are on the road unsafely because of unresolved safety recall issues.
  • Immigration staff who were posted abroad were routinely subjected to racist and harassing behaviour from fellow employees.
  • The RCMP are “engaged” after a video has been circulating that appears to threaten Indian diplomats in Canada.
  • The Star looks into the myriad of problems with CBSA’s inadmissibility criteria for immigrants, and why they flag far more people than they deport.
  • Pierre Poilievre falsely claims that Bill C-18 was “government censorship” (which excuses the web giants’ actions) except that his party ran on the exact same policy.
  • A Quebec Superior Court judge has found that the province’s most recent education changes violate the rights of Anglophones in the provinces. (Try to look surprised!)
  • Justin Ling delves into polarization online, and how Facebook deliberately misrepresented bad studies on “homophily” to drive their algorithm.
  • Paul Wells spends time with the chemist who received the country’s largest ever science grant, and the work being done with technology they’re pioneering.

Odds and ends:

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