The finance committee drops a report Did someone forward you this newsletter? Sign up here to get it delivered weekday mornings. Liberal MP Wayne Easter flexed his maverick muscles in a Globe and Mail interview in which the maritimer warned Ottawa—i.e. his fellow Liberals—to "wake up and smell the roses" on the China file. Easter's finance committee recommended that Canada pull out of the Asian Infrastructure Bank, a Beijing-run institution that might not actually be improving the lot of the region's underprivileged nations. That hot-button proposal was one of 145 recommendations in a beefy Commons finance committee report on budget priorities as Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland readies her government's first full budget since 2019. The opposition's dissenting and supplementary reports—see: Tories, Bloc Québécois, NDP—offer handy blueprints for the next campaign. How will Ontario schools keep kids safe? As COVID-19 variants of concern spread quietly—and quickly—in provincial hotspots, kids are preparing to return to school. Parents who work from home, buoyed by the ability to focus a little better with their young ones out of the house, might be tempted to breathe a sigh of relief. But many are thinking the same thing, writes Aaron Hutchins in Maclean's: Are schools safe to open? Experts appear to agree unanimously on the negative impact that missing out on school can have on a child’s physical and mental health. The question is whether the right mitigation measures are in place to ensure that kids can rejoin school safely—and remain there as the province continues to relax restrictions. Ontario has pledged enhanced safety measures: mandating masks for kids as young Grade 1—indoors and outdoors—and targeted asymptomatic testing. But will these measures be enough given the potential spread of new coronavirus variants spreading across parts of the country? Are provinces forbidden from inking deals with vaccine manufacturers that already have agreements with Ottawa? After Manitoba Premier Brian Pallister made that claim, Global News sorted through reams of correspondence between Manitoba officials and several pharmaceutical companies. The verdict: There's no evidence that any contracts prohibit direct negotiations with provinces. But most companies would rather deal with a single customer—in this case, Ottawa. Hopin' by default: Eight years ago, Open Canada editor-in-chief Michael Petrou (then at Maclean's) asked the department formerly known as Foreign Affairs and International Trade—now Global Affairs—for documents related to a decision not to send certain medical kits to rebel fighters in Libya. Petrou knew the delivery was kiboshed because some of the kits' contents were made in Israel. But the feds redacted those details and fought Petrou's efforts to get them unredacted. Finally, they went to Federal Court. "Shortly after we filed our affidavit, Global Affairs folded." And taxpayers will foot the bill for the department's secrecy. Living a-loan: StatsCan served up another reminder that a measly pandemic was no match for Canada's insatiable desire for household debt: "Mortgage borrowing reached record highs in 2020, with households adding nearly $108 billion in mortgage debt, compared with less than two-thirds of that amount in 2019 and just under $46 billion in 2018." Just a day earlier, the IMF advised the feds to "address vulnerabilities in the housing market." A little Canadian Ingenuity: Farah Alibay describes herself on Instagram as an "L.A.-based French Canadian rocket scientist." Yesterday, Alibay scored official congratulations from the House of Commons. That's because she works for NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which is hoping to successfully land a brand new rover, Perseverance, on Mars today. Alibay will help pilot the rover—and also launch a 1.8-kg helicopter , named Ingenuity, that could achieve the first human-powered flight on another planet. Here she is talking to Beck about space exploration—yes, that Beck. The feds, by way of an industry-led non-profit distributing innovation supercluster funding, have pledged $16.8 million to Aspire Food Group. The response? Crickets. Literally. Aspire is building a "state-of-the-art high density cricket production and demonstration facility" that'll eventually create 60 jobs in London, Ont. You've never heard of protein-filled cricket cookies? Pet peeve of the day: Please excuse an anal-retentive observation about the agency that runs federal correctional centres. A press release from that agency identifies as Correctional Service Canada, but the agency's homepage references the Correctional Service of Canada. And the subject line atop an email with the press release adds the plural: Correctional Services of Canada. All we ask for is consistency. So long, Trump Plaza: The former casino in Atlantic City, where your newsletter correspondent once won $60USD before fleeing to the outside world, lay in financial run after years of mismanagement. Yesterday, the building lay in physical ruin after a demolition company did its thing to jeers and catcalls of the Jersey shore faithful. "That was awesome," said one gawker. Watch the tower's final moments. —Nick Taylor-Vaisey | 
