Big day for interrogating corporate executives Did someone forward you this newsletter? Sign up here to get it delivered weekday mornings. The Canadian government has been entertaining the idea of forcing Facebook to pay Canadian media companies for publishing their content. After Australia adopted such a law—and Facebook protested by blocking all news sites from their platform—Canadian Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault began discussing the possibility of a Canadian version. Add that to the close ties Facebook Canada shares with federal public servants (Facebook Canada's head of public policy, Kevin Chan, and policy manager Rachel Curran worked for Michael Ignatieff and Stephen Harper , respectively), and you've got a quandry fit for a committee. This morning, the Canadian Heritage committee will bring in Chan, Curran and the company's head of media partnerships, Marc Dinsdale, to answer questions about these subjects and more. For a sneak preview, listen to Chan on CBC's The House yesterday. Meanwhile, in another virtual parliamentary meeting, the Ethics committee will question Liberal House leader Pablo Rodriguez in lieu of anyone they actually wanted to speak with (namely policy director Rick Theis, or else Prime Minister Justin Trudeau). Rodriguez will answer questions primarily about the WE Charity scandal, although he may also be asked about the feds' scope of knowledge regarding the history of sexual misconduct in the military. Thirdly, the Industry committee will bring in the CEOs of Rogers and Shaw— Joe Natale and Brad Shaw, respectively—to question them about the former's proposed $26-billion takeover of the latter. Conservative MP Pierre Poilievre requested the study a couple weeks ago, as his party hasn't yet made up its mind on the issue. Critics bemoan that the takeover will make Canada's expensive, monopolistic telecom industry only more expensive and monopolistic, while Rogers argues they'll be adding thousands of jobs and providing better rural and 5G service across Canada. Tit for tat for tit for tat for... Last Monday, Canada joined the U.S., the U.K. and the E.U. in laying down sanctions against four Chinese officials related to the ongoing persecution of Uyghurs. On Saturday, China announced they were returning the favour, targeting Conservative MP Michael Chong ("I'll wear it as a badge of honour," he tweeted) and the House subcommittee on international human rights, which, last fall, declared the Uyghur situation a genocide. Foreign Affairs Minister Marc Garneau took to the political talk show circuit yesterday to defend Canada's actions, calling China a bully who needed to learn their lesson. And in Brazil, a Chinese diplomat tweeted this truly bizarre attack on Trudeau: "Boy, your greatest achievement is to have ruined the friendly relations between China and Canada, and have turned Canada into a running dog of the US. Spendthrift!!!" After a surge in coronavirus variants delayed the provincial election in Newfoundland and Labrador, eventually cancelling in-person voting and creating a 10-week mail-in voting process, the results are finally in: Andrew Furey and the Liberals have won with a slim majority, grabbing 22 of the legislature's 40 seats. Both the NDP and Conservative leaders lost their seats. On the surface, this is yet another victory for reigning governments in a pandemic, following British Columbia, New Brunswick and Saskatchewan, all of which re-elected their governments by wider margins. But this case isn't quite settled yet: the messy results, which hinge on mail-in ballots and narrow margins, can easily be challenged in court, where calls for recounts and quesitons about difficult mailing conditions could be raised. U.S. President Joe Biden will revive an international forum on climate change that George W. Bush and Barack Obama favoured, but which Donald Trump largely ignored. Among the 40 invited world leaders is, of course, Trudeau, who has openly committed to working with the United States on one day reaching net-zero emissions (while maybe also pushing them to buy our fossil fuels in the meantime). On the vaccine front, Canada is expecting 1.5 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine tomorrow, according to Procurement Minister Anita Anand. But Moderna announced a delay in 590,400 doses that were meant to arrive Saturday, allegedly due to a logjam in the company's quality assurance process. Pfizer is still set to deliver one million doses per week, while Johnson & Johnson has been mum on when they'll ship the 10 million doses Canada purchased from them. Forge ahead. Currently, if you want to enter Canada, you need to present border officers with proof of a negative COVID-19 test from at least 72 hours before your flight. If you don't, you could end up with a $750,000 fine and sit in jail for six months. These are apparently penalties that at least 30 people have been willing to risk. The Canada Border Services Agency has confirmed that, between Jan. 7 and Mar. 24, they've stopped 30 people from entering the country with suspect test results. It's unclear whether all those folks were in fact guilty, but at least a handful ended up arrested and charged with forgery. —Michael Fraiman | 
