Clark, Wynne reveal personal sides as Canada’s most prominent female leaders

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POLITICS BRIEFING

By Chris Hannay (@channay)

Here are two important stories to read today, from two of Canada's most prominent female political leaders.

In the Vancouver Sun, B.C. Premier Christy Clark explains why she supported a bill from a Green MLA to set guidelines for how post-secondary institutions deal with sexual assault. The reason she supported it, Ms. Clark says, is because she has stayed silent – until now – about an incident of sexual violence she faced when she was young.

And in an interview with The Globe and Mail's Jane Taber, Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne explains why she wants more female ministers in her cabinet, but will not commit to a 50-50 gender split like Justin Trudeau. "I think that targets are … something to aspire to, something to work toward," Ms. Wynne said. "Quotas are a rigid, rule-bound thing that can lead to a kind of tokenism that we need to move away from."

WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW IN OTTAWA

> Health Minister Jane Philpott says she is worried that the Senate's changes to the assisted-dying legislation – to open it up to those who are not terminally ill – would have unintended consequences. "The removal of the requirement for eligibility of natural death being reasonably foreseeable means that people with mental illness as a sole cause of their reason for seeking medical assistance in dying would potentially be eligible," she said.

> MPs will today again debate a private member's bill to make the national anthem gender-neutral, though it depends on the health of the bill's ailing sponsor, Mauril Bélanger. Conservatives denied the House unanimous consent last night to hand off Mr. Bélanger's bill to another member of Parliament.

> There's nothing stopping Canada from holding an open competition for the procurement of new fighter jets, bureaucrats say, though Lockheed Martin is threatening to shift work on its F-35s away from Canadian firms if the government doesn't make its intentions known.

> Iran's holding of an Iranian-Canadian professor may be linked to Canada's refusal to extradite another dual citizen who is wanted for embezzlement by Tehran.

> "We're not a banana republic," Mr. Trudeau says in defence of the Liberal government's refusal to cancel a $15-billion arms deal with Saudi Arabia.

> And in London, it's the beginning of the Queen's 90th birthday party, which is expected to last three days.

REGIONAL ROUNDUP

> Atlantic Canada: Corporate Research Associates, the most prominent polling firm in Atlantic Canada, has released new polls showing varying approval ratings for the region's four provincial governments. Liberals in Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island remain popular with six-in-10 decided voters, and New Brunswick 's Liberals are popular with about half of respondents, which is an improvement from last quarter. Newfoundland and Labrador 's Liberals, meanwhile, are backed by only 27 per cent of respondents, and only 18 per cent approved of Premier Dwight Ball.

WHAT EVERYONE'S TALKING ABOUT

Adelina Iftene (Globe and Mail): "Much has been said lately about the use of solitary confinement in our prisons. Among the reasons it must stop: It is inhumane and morally wrong to cage people on their own for weeks and months in a row. And it's expensive: It costs twice as much to keep someone in solitary confinement than in the general population."

Jennifer Keesmaat and Paul Smetanin (Globe and Mail): "With housing prices seemingly out of control, at least in Vancouver and Toronto, many are having to compromise more than they used to. There is no question that strong policy and a concerted effort by all levels of government is urgently required to address affordability. But to be effective, policy must be properly grounded in sound data and analysis."

Jeffrey Simpson (Globe and Mail): "It is sometimes asserted in Canada that strict measures at airports are a way of pleasing the security-crazed Americans. How ironic, then, that Canadian measures for those who have been security-checked are much stricter than in the United States." (for subscribers)

Don Martin (CTV): "[The Liberals are] attempting to confuse by stealth, advancing a vague concept called a 'capability gap' while pretending they haven't figured out a way to fill it.

It's an obvious exercise in manipulating the timeline for political purposes, delaying inevitable F-35 consideration until after the next election by whipping out some Super Hornets as a stopgap solution."

Michael Den Tandt (National Post): "The Liberals deliberately made their [assisted-dying] legislation tight, rather than loose, knowing there would be court challenges, and possibly a Supreme Court challenge, because that very process and the time involved were intended to provide opportunity for sober second thought. They also needed to allow for the vehemence of sentiment among those for whom the very idea of assisted death is morally problematic. The 86 sitting senators, in seeking to effectively gut and rewrite the bill, are short-circuiting that strategy."

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