The G7 makes a grand gesture Did someone forward you this newsletter? Sign up here to get it delivered weekday mornings. Canada will donate 13 million surplus shots and pay for 87 million more shots to help poorer countries get vaccinated, for a total of 100 million shots, Justin Trudeau announced at the end of the G7 summit in England on Sunday. Canada previously said it would offer the world up to 100 million vaccine doses to fight the spread of COVID-19, but was the only G7 country to not say how many of those would be actual shots rather than money. G7 leaders wanted to announce a total of 1 billion donated shots for poorer countries, which is seen as key to ending the global pandemic, but had to fudge the math to do so, Bloomberg reports. The announcement is welcome, but there are big questions remaining, said Krishna Udayakumar, the founding director of the Duke Global Health Innovation Center. “It’s a good step, but the G7 should feel far from content. It seems like for an announcement, they went for a nice big round number without a lot of detail around it. Hopefully there is detail around it, as opposed to being figured out after the fact,” he said. A new dean: With Angela Merkel bound for the exit, Justin Trudeau is positioning himself as the new elder statesman of the G7, but Bloomberg reports no one sees him that way. Canadian officials say the 49-year-old prime minister, in power since 2015, genuinely believes he can help the U.K. and the European Union find a solution to their trade dispute over Northern Ireland. No one has taken him up on the offer, it seems, even as Brexit tensions boil over on the last day of summitry. The host, Boris Johnson, did however tap him to lead a high-stakes discussion on China and how to counter its growing economic and strategic might. Trudeau said leaders have agreed to work together more closely to respond to China. Military bogey: The second-in-command of the Canadian Forces and the head of the Royal Canadian Navy went golfing last week with Gen. Jonathan Vance, Global News reports. Vance is under investigation following allegations of inappropriate behaviour, which he denies. Multiple senior leaders are under military police investigation for allegations of sexual misconduct, which experts call an “institutional crisis,” so the day on the links with Vance, the former chief of defence staff, raises new questions about how seriously senior leaders take sexual misconduct. A spokesman for Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan told the Globe it was a bad idea: "The decision by the LGen Rouleau and VAdm Baines to go golfing with Gen Vance is troubling and unacceptable. The Minister will discuss next steps with Acting Chief of the Defence Staff.” One of the golfers has the power to direct investigations, the Canadian Press reported. Delta outbreak: The Toronto Star is reporting that 106 people have tested positive for COVID-19 at an iron ore mine in Nunavut so far, with 96 confirmed cases of the dangerously infectious Delta variant, and more than 1,200 workers have since fanned out across the country. “What you see with things like this is it’s a fire throwing off sparks,” said epidemiologist David Fisman. “Even if you control the fire at source … you can have other conflagrations that grow up out of a single spark. You could imagine that this [outbreak] may have facilitated or sped the dissemination of Delta.” Lost children: The CBC's Jorge Barrera takes an in-depth look at the Kamloops Residential School, where the remains of 215 were recently discovered. Barrera explains how records were purged and looks at surviving documents that reveal "the indifference of authorities, who saw the children as a means to an end that had little to do with their well-being." Historian John Milloy says the schools were designed to achieve state-security ends: "It becomes pretty obvious that, as far as Macdonald and other senior members of the Indian Affairs department [were concerned]… one of the purposes of the schools was to hold the children hostage against the good behaviour of their parents." Back to the sky: Canadian airports are going to have to operate differently when travel restrictions are eased but it's not yet clear how, largely because of testing and capacity problems. "Part of the problem is the insistence on the two-metre physical distance," said Daniel Gooch, president of the Canadian Airports Council. "You very quickly hit capacity when you make that requirement. So we can't grow the numbers and keep everything the way it is right now. It's not physically possible." The federal government is working on a plan for "touchless travel," with fewer passport checks and bottlenecks, which could end up making the airport experience more pleasant. Zoom ultimatum: Newly Liberal MP Jenica Atwin told CTV that she gave Green Party Leader Annamie Paul an “ultimatum” during a Zoom call before she made her decision to leave the caucus. Atwin said she “probably” would still be a Green Party MP if Elizabeth May was still the leader, and that she’d still like to see the party elect more MPs despite her now being a Liberal. Paul offered a different version, saying that she wished she “had the chance to persuade her to stay.” “I still have not heard from her directly about her decision, but, you know she's made it clear that she feels that she has a better home in the Liberal Party of Canada.” Atwin left after a conflict with a now-outgoing senior adviser to Paul over social media posts related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Stars align for the NDP: In the Toronto Star, Chantal Hebert argues that last week's floor-crossing in New Brunswick could be more promising for the New Democrats than the Liberals. Weakened Tories could benefit the NDP in the election to come, she argues. That should probably give pause to the Liberals as they look to put together the elements of a governing majority. It is not just Trudeau’s party that stands to benefit from the steep decline in popularity of most of the country’s Conservative premiers. The NDP could blunt whatever edge the Liberals have on the Conservative party. In Maclean's, Philippe J. Fournier offers his latest 338Canada federal election projection. The conclusion: a summer election would be a risky bet for the Liberals: "With NDP support still hovering just under 20 per cent and the Bloc Québécois still riding the CAQ’s coattails in Quebec, where will the Liberals find enough seats to secure a majority?" — Stephen Maher | 
