Bye bye, Huawei

The Liberal government is finally banning Huawei Technologies and ZTE from Canada's 5G infrastructure, CP reports.

"Telecommunication companies in Canada will not be permitted to include in their networks products or services that put our national security at risk," Innovation Minister François-Philippe Champagne said Thursday in Ottawa. "Providers who already have this equipment installed will be required to cease its use and remove it under the plans we are announcing today."

Sweet, sweet time: In the National Post, Sabrina Maddeaux wonders why it took so long.

By 2019, Huawei was already banned by Australia, New Zealand, the United States, Japan and Taiwan. The U.K. announced a ban in late 2020. Most Scandinavian and Eastern European countries indirectly did the same by barring equipment from countries that aren’t security allies. Italy and France also restricted access to their 5G networks and blocked Huawei deals with domestic telecommunications companies. Meanwhile, Canada took its sweet, sweet time to make this crucial national security decision. We were the only member of our key intelligence alliance, the Five Eyes, to kick the can so far down the road.

To stay: Jason Kenney will remain Alberta’s Premier until the UCP picks a new leader, the Globe reports. The UCP caucus met for more than six hours on Thursday , a day after Kenney received 51.4 per cent support in the leadership vote, which led to his apparent resignation. After Thursday's meeting, UCP caucus chair Nathan Neudorf issued a statement saying Kenney will remain premier until the party elects a new leader. The premier had faced pressure from within his own caucus to step aside and appoint an interim leader.

Into focus: Don Braid, in the Calgary Herald, captures the dawning sense Thursday that Kenney's critics will have him to kick around for months, after all.

It sounded like he was leaving quickly. His critics in the party lit up with delight. But after a caucus meeting Thursday, Kenney’s definition of quitting finally snapped into focus. He will keep the job until a new leader is elected, on an undefined date to be decided by the party. The best quip came from former government staffer Bart Johnson, on Twitter: “So he didn’t resign last night? Does that mean maybe the Oilers didn’t lose last night either?”

Kenney lament: Conservative commentator Sean Speer, in a widely shared article at the Hub, laments that Kenney was taken down by what he calls "agents of outrage."

I see a scared and angry minority that doesn’t define itself based on what’s good and right but rather by a sense of embattlement and opposition.

Blindsided: At CTV, Don Martin, who wrote a biography of former premier Ralph Klein, writes that Kenney deserved better than what he got on Wednesday night.

Canada’s Conservatives appear to have turned national and provincial leadership reviews into poll-driven popularity contests where their next election’s winnability is the only criteria for renewing a leadership lease. And we wonder why the calibre of contenders for our political leadership is so pathetically low. I’m told, by the way, that Jason Kenney was blindsided by the 51 per cent number. He was privately predicting he would score in the mid-60 percentile range just a few days ago.

Panicking never helps: In the Star, Stephanie Levitz reports on nervous Tories contemplating the result.

“This is also a time not to panic, not to get excited, not to fight each other, but to stay focused on the principles and values which have allowed us to win before and to govern effectively before,” said Stephanie Kusie, who took over Kenney’s riding when he left national politics in 2016. “Panicking never helps.”

'We fired them': In the Star, Robert Benzie quotes unnamed Doug Ford insiders who helpfully say Kenney should have handled COVID-19 as they did.

“You want to know why he’s gone and Ford is still standing?” a senior Ontario Tory confided Thursday, a day after Kenney said he would resign despite narrowly winning a United Conservative Party leadership review. “Jason listened to the right-wingers and we fired them,” the official said, speaking confidentially in order to discuss internal deliberations.

Anglo Saxon: Pierre Poilievre's praise of "simple Anglo-Saxon words"  on Jordan Peterson’s podcast is raising eyebrows, CTV reports. "It's a way to basically set apart those who are white in Canada, who are white Anglo-Saxon, from everyone else and certainly [from] the racialized segment of society,” Fareed Khan, the founder of Canadians United Against Hate, told CTV News. Unfair! In the Toronto Sun, Brian Lilley writes that the press gallery is being mean to Poilievre by raising the question:

The gallery in Ottawa, which I was long a part of, doesn’t like Poilievre and never has. They see him as aggressive, scrappy and angry. Which, funny enough, could actually describe their stance with him because no matter the issue, they are aggressive, scrappy and angry over whatever he says.

Unmuzzled: Speaking of being mean, Ed Fast says he resigned as CPC finance critic after Poilievre's allies tried to "muzzle" him in the House, CBC reports.

"I'm trying to do my job at the Finance table and yet [there's] incessant pressure to shut up. I just wasn't going to put up with that," he told CBC News. Fast's allegation is the latest indication of a leadership race that is sowing division in the Conservative Party. The Abbotsford MP, who is co-chairing Jean Charest's leadership campaign, said he had been feeling pressure to curb his comments for weeks.

Test results: Andrea Horwath and Mike Schreiner are both isolating after testing positive for COVID-19 after the Ontario leader's debate, the Star reports. Ford and Steven Del Duca have tested negative.

Ford goes to court: The Supreme Court of Canada agreed Thursday to hear Ford's appeal of court orders ordering his government to release 23 mandate letters, which means they will remain secret until after the June 2 election, the Globe's Robyn Doolitle reports.

Google games: Ottawa thinks Google is playing political games in the PR battle over an online news bill, the Star reports.

PC CBC: In the Post, Chris Selley has a go at the CBC's Ontario Vote Compass, pointing out that it seems curiously concerned with "ultra-peripheral issues."

Ex-clerk guilty: A judge found British Columbia’s former clerk of the legislature guilty of fraud and breach of trust for dishonestly claimed expenses for work attire, CP reports.

No royal apology: Prince Charles has refused to apologize on behalf of the Queen for "assimilation and genocide" in Canada but admitted "failures of the Crown," the Daily Mail reports.

— Stephen Maher

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