When in doubt, bet on boring Did someone forward you this newsletter? Sign up here to get it delivered weekday mornings. Lo those many years ago, Paul Wells decreed two rules of Canadian politics. As election-watchers in the nation's capital exhaled yesterday after a Conservative motion—deemed a confidence matter by the Liberals—failed to pass, Wells's first rule stood tall. "For any given situation," he says, "Canadian politics will tend toward the least exciting possible outcome." An election would undoubtedly have been more exciting than our election-less reality. And so the work of the minority Parliament trundles on, awaiting its next test (perhaps the fiscal update promised before year's end). The outcome of the vote remained unclear until midday. The Conservatives and Bloc Québécois were determined not to blink, the latter supporting the former's effort to create an anti-corruption committee (to be renamed something wordier and less politically charged). The wildcard New Democrats woke up undecided, and leader Jagmeet Singh was just ambiguous enough at a presser—"We won't give the Prime Minister the election he wants," he said—that chaos-craving imaginations ran cautiously wild. Rumour was the NDP would abstain, which put the pressure on the trio of Green MPs and a smattering of independents—including Jody Wilson-Raybould–to tip the scales either way. The Greens announced they'd join the Liberals in voting down the motion. New Democrats, in the end, did the same. So did JWR, who explained the "Ottawa bubble shenanigans" to the rest of the country. The final count was 180-146. So the NDP voted with the governing party, against a Conservative motion, in an effort to stymie Justin Trudeau's apparent desire for a trip to Rideau Hall. Did the PM truly hope for a snap election? That would mean his deputy, Chrystia Freeland, outright lied to reporters just hours before the vote. And did the Tories, whose war chest is typically flush with cash, really want to avoid a campaign? In the end, it's all moot. Canada escapes the obviously terrible idea of a pandemic election: Our Ottawa bureau chief, Shannon Proudfoot, delivers the tick-tock of the nearly exciting day in the Commons. She warns us, however, not to get too cozy in the safety of yesterday's grudging expression of confidence. Of course, having declared a pedestrian motion to establish a committee to be a matter of confidence once, it’s not difficult to imagine that the government might categorize other minimally thorny matters the same way in the near future. That possibility may have less to do with a new Parliamentary precedent being set than with a behavioural one: when something works, you tend to do it again. So the Commons continued its work, including a fisheries committee meeting last night on the Mi'kmaq fishery in Nova Scotia. MPs heard from Shelley Denny, a Mi’kmaw doctoral candidate; Allison Bernard from the Mik’Maq Rights Initiative; and Colin Sproul, president of the Bay of Fundy Inshore Fishermen's Association. What else happened yesterday? Lots. A parliamentary subcommittee on human rights declared the Chinese persecution of Uyghur Muslims a genocide. A lengthy statement, passed unanimously by all parties, pushed the feds to help international observers gain "unfettered access" to China's Xinjiang region and slap sanctions on Chinese officials who are "responsible for the perpetration of grave human rights abuses." Just last week, Chinese ambassador Cong Peiwu threatened "forceful measures" in retaliation if Canada's Parliament spoke out against his country's conduct in Xinjiang. Infrastructure Minister Anita Anand noted the delivery of the first 100,000 antigen tests meant to rapidly detect COVID-19. Anand claimed 2.5 million of those tests will be in Canadian hands before the end of the year. Veterans Affairs Canada will pay to replace the "overgrown and intertwined trees" that frame the Brooding Soldier, a monument to Canadian troops in the tiny Belgian town of St-Julien. The solemn memorial pays tribute to First World War soldiers who died during the Second Battle of Ypres in April 1915—when Germans unleashed chlorine gas attacks for the first time. The Canadians managed to hold their ground, soaking cloths in urine to protect themselves from the poison. Check out the monument on Google Streetview. Border closed: Canadians enjoyed rare access to the European Union all summer after the bloc of nations added Canada to a list of countries from which non-essential travel was approved. But not anymore. Multiple reports confirmed that Canada, which has seen a resurgence of COVID-19, has joined the United States on the other, much larger list of countries. Donald Trump's potential path to victory: South of the border, Joe Biden remains the favourite to beat Donald Trump in the election that's now less than two weeks away. But as Philippe J. Fournier writes in Maclean's, Biden holds only tenuous polling leads in five states—Georgia (+1), North Carolina (+1), Florida (+2), Arizona (+3) and Pennsylvania )+5—that could combine to swing the election: Outside of Pennsylvania, Trump would only need a modest polling error in his favour to win these states should the current numbers hold. This is why, even though Trump will almost assuredly lose the popular vote (again) to his democratic rival, his odds of winning the presidency are still reasonable given the current context. —Nick Taylor-Vaisey | 
