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Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has apologized for a controversial vacation trip to Tofino, B.C., that began on the first National Day for Truth and Reconciliation last week.
At his first news conference today since returning from a break in the Vancouver Island community, Mr. Trudeau addressed the issue of the trip.
“Travelling on Sept. 30 was a mistake, and I regret it,” Mr. Trudeau said at the news conference, convened to discuss federal policy on mandatory vaccinations. “I was in error to choose to travel on that day.”
Asked by a journalist whether anyone encouraged him not to go, Mr. Trudeau replied, “How it happened is far less important than that it happened.”
Mr. Trudeau has faced sustained criticism from Indigenous leaders and opposition parties for making a decision to fly to Tofino on Thursday, which was the first time that the country formally honoured survivors of residential schools and those who died while attending the institutions.
The Prime Minister thanked Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc Chief Rosanne Casimir for taking his call over the weekend so he could apologize directly for not being there with her community on the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. He said he plans to visit the Kamloops-area community soon.
Mr. Trudeau was asked about why his itinerary for the day had initially said that he would be in Ottawa before eventually being corrected to mention Tofino. “The itinerary said that I had private meetings and I had calls for a number of hours that day with survivors of Indian residential schools,” Mr. Trudeau said.
Parliamentary Reporter Kristy Kirkup reports here on Mr. Trudeau’s comments today.
The Prime Minister and Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland also talked about plans that will see travellers boarding a flight from a Canadian airport, or taking a VIA Rail train, required to provide proof of vaccination or a negative COVID-19 test as of October 30.
Parliamentary reporter Marieke Walsh and senior parliamentary reporter Steven Chase report here on that part of today’s news conference.
TODAY’S HEADLINES
NDP HOLD CAUCUS MEETING - NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh will tell the first meeting of the NDP caucus today that pursuing Indigenous rights – including access to clean drinking water – will be a key priority for the party in this Parliament. Also, the NDP has requested an official inquiry into what it calls “numerous and systemic failures of election officials” in last month’s federal election. Story here.
ERIN O’TOOLE TOUTS CAUCUS SUPPORT - Federal Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole said on Tuesday he has enough support from his caucus to keep his job, even as his elected caucus members voted to give themselves the power to oust him as leader and one MP advocated for the party membership to hold a speedy vote on Mr. O’Toole’s future.
ECHAQUAN FAMILY ANNOUNCES LEGAL ACTION - Joyce Echaquan’s family said Tuesday it would launch legal action against the hospital where she died, hours after a Quebec coroner said a combination of “undeniable” systemic racism and health-care system failings contributed to her death.
CANADA TO FALL SHORT OF EMISSIONS GOALS: REPORT - Canada is on pace to fall well short of its emissions goals, according to a new government-funded report that says the country’s current strategies will reduce its greenhouse gas output by only 16 per cent, relative to 2005 levels, by 2030 – a far cry from the 40-per-cent cut that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has promised.
CORRECTION: Yesterday’s Politics Briefing newsletter said Conservative incumbents Blake Desjarlais and James Cumming lost their seats in Edmonton, while fellow incumbent Jag Sahota lost in Calgary. In fact, Mr. Desjarlais is the NDP member who beat Conservative incumbent Kerry Diotte in Edmonton-Griesbach.
NEW JOHN IBBITSON BOOK
John Ibbitson, Ottawa-based writer-at-large for The Globe and Mail, has a new book in the works.
Doug Pepper, the publisher of Signal/McClelland & Stewart, has announced his company has acquired the world rights to The Duel: Diefenbaker, Pearson and the Making of Modern Canada by Mr. Ibbitson.
The book, to be published in the fall of 2023, tells the story of the two prime ministers – John Diefenbaker, a Progressive Conservative, and Lester B. Pearson, a Liberal. A statement from the publisher notes the two were children of the Victorian era, who led Canada into the Atomic Age as prime ministers – fighting each other relentlessly, but together shaping the Canada we live in today.
“Several years ago I got it into my head that we needed to look again at the prime ministerships of John Diefenbaker and Lester Pearson,” says Mr. Ibbitson, whose previous 10 books include a biography of former prime minister Stephen Harper.
“This has been a labour of love for me, so it’s wonderful that McClelland & Stewart will be bringing it out in two years under Doug Pepper’s guidance. This will be our fifth collaboration, and I couldn’t be happier.”
HOW TO BE A PRIME MINISTER
From Governing Canada, A Guide to the Tradecraft of Politics by Michael Wernick (Published by On Point Press, an imprint of UBC Press)
This week, the Politics Briefing newsletter is featuring excerpts from Governing Canada, a new book by Michael Wernick, the former clerk of the privy council. Our focus is a key chapter, Advice to a Prime Minister. (Parliamentary reporter Kristy Kirkup reported on the project here.)
In today’s excerpt, Mr. Wernick makes the case for change in a prime minister’s inner circle:
“You will not be successful if you hang on to the same closed circle of close advisors and confidants for your whole time in office. There is an inevitable drift into a comfort zone and a form of groupthink that can create blind spots and put you at risk. Sometimes, sudden departures come along – perhaps due to a political crisis or a personal choice to leave – and you lose one of your core team. But you will tend to want to stay with the people that you started with for too long, especially if your government is doing well. If you are doing badly in the polls, you can expect your ministers and caucus members to start grumbling about those in your inner circle and perhaps starting to spin against them with journalists. It can be a precursor to grumbling about you.
“Succession planning is rarely done well in the political business, but try to pause at key points, perhaps during the summer recess of Parliament, and think about when would be the best time to swap out key players and who might be an option to bring in.”
PRIME MINISTER'S DAY
Private meetings. The Prime Minister, joined by the Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland, addresses Canadians on the COVID-19 situation and holds a media briefing.
LEADERS
NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh, holds a news conference in Ottawa and then attends the first NDP caucus meeting since the federal election.
No schedules issued for the other federal leaders.
OPINION
Andrew Coyne (The Globe and Mail) on the question of whether other parties will follow the Conservative move to take power back from their leader: “While Conservatives at large ponder whether to ditch Erin O’Toole as leader or keep him, the party’s parliamentary caucus has just made a decision of much greater import: it has given itself the power to dismiss the leader – and thus transformed the office itself. Meeting for the first time since the election, the Conservatives held four votes, as all parties are required to do by the Reform Act, 2014. The votes are to decide whether to accept the four powers conferred upon party caucuses by the Act: the power to decide who sits in caucus, to choose a caucus chair, to remove the leader, and to choose an interim leader.”
John Ibbitson (The Globe and Mail) on the perils of Tories failing to learn from their past: “Nonetheless, there is only one path to power for Conservatives: marrying rural old Canada to immigrant, suburban new Canada. Mr. O’Toole gets that. His strategy was sound; he just failed to execute. There is no better education in politics than to lose an election. This is Mr. O’Toole’s opportunity to learn and to grow. But if the caucus and the party membership don’t give him that opportunity, if Mr. O’Toole becomes another Manion or Bracken or Clark or Scheer, then the Conservatives will deserve the fate that history says awaits them.”
Jo Ramsay (Contributor to The Globe and Mail) on the fixes Elections Canada needs to institute so outdated ballots don’t misguide voters: “An effective solution to inform voters of late-stage changes in an electoral race could be to place a large, accessible notice board outside of every polling station, displaying updates such as disavowed candidates or other ballot inaccuracies in real-time. Another initiative could be to provide clear and publicly accessible methods for groups of private citizens to advocate or trigger a local by-election in situations similar to Spadina-Fort York, where there is mass dissatisfaction with the elected candidate. Both of these proposed changes would serve to maintain faith in our electoral system and quell community frustrations in the event ballots cannot be updated.”
Josée Legault (Le Journal de Montreal) on the chilling report on Joyce Echaquan: “Here, as elsewhere in Canada, there is hope. Many Quebecers and Canadians are experiencing a sincere awakening of consciences about the plight of First Nations. Will their policymakers follow the same pace? It will have to be. The worst mistake would be to get stuck in a Manichean struggle that condemns us to go around in circles. Because those who reject the notion of systemic racism are not “racist” and those who claim to be so are not woke or “Québécophobes.”
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Ian Bailey