The Vance case escalates Did someone forward you this newsletter? Sign up here to get it delivered weekday mornings. Documents filed in court on Thursday show that former chief of the defence staff Gen. Jonathan Vance has been charged with one count of obstruction of justice following a probe by military police into allegations of inappropriate behaviour, Global reports. The military launched the investigation in February after Global interviewed Maj. Kellie Brennan, with whom he is alleged to have had an inappropriate relationship. She said he had called her about that. According to the court documents, military police allege that between Feb. 1 and Feb. 3, Vance “did willfully attempt to obstruct the course of justice in a judicial proceeding by repeatedly contacting Mrs K.B. by phone and attempting to persuade her to make false statements about their past relationship to the Canadians Forces National Investigation Service, contrary to section 139(1) of the Criminal Code.” Brennan later testified that Vance pressured her to lie. The story led to a wide-ranging fallout, with senior officers stepping aside or being fired for alleged misconduct or failing to show leadership on the issue. Vance denies wrongdoing. Setting the record straight: Alan Lagimodiere ran into trouble in his first newser as Manitoba's minister for Indigenous issues when he said residential schools were "designed to take Indigenous children and give them the skills and abilities they would need to fit into society as it moved forward," the Winnipeg Free Press reports. NDP Leader Wab Kinew forcefully confronted him, an unusual scene and a difficult moment for Lagimodiere. He took over after the previous minister left to object to similar remarks. The new minister tweeted an apology for his remarks not long after leaving the news conference. His party then attacked Kinew for speaking up, and then deleted the attack. Grim details from former school site: A B.C. first nation offered more detail Thursday on the discovery in May of about 200 gravesites at the site of a former residential school for Indigenous children, the Globe reports. “This is a long process that will take significant time and resources,” said Chief Rosanne Casimir. “They were children, robbed of their families and their childhood. We need to now give them the dignity that they never had. Those are our next steps.” In her presentation, Dr. [Sarah]Beaulieu, a modern conflict anthropologist, went through some of the scientific aspects of her search, including imagery that demonstrated the multiple indicators that led her to conclude that disruptions picked up by GPR suggested the graves of children, due to their placement, size, depth and other features. “All residential school landscapes are likely to contain burials and missing children. And remote sensing such as GPR merely provides some spatial specificity to this truth.” High-flying Montreal: Justin Trudeau went to Montreal on Thursday to announce that Ottawa will put $440 million into three Quebec aerospace companies, in what Reuters called "a boost to the sector ahead of an expected fall federal election." When investments by the three firms are added, the total amount of money that could be available is more than C$1.8 billion, officials said. Trudeau told reporters the money would help create and maintain 12,000 jobs in Quebec. The province accounts for almost a quarter of the seats in the House of Commons and is crucial to his hopes of retaining power. Soft on Cuba? Cuban exiles in Canada are chagrined by the Trudeau government's apparent reluctance to call out the Communist government in that country for cracking down on protesters, CBC notes. The "all sides" language was jarring to Cuban exile Michael Lima Cuadra, who came to Canada as a political refugee in the 1990s and is a member of the newly-formed Council for a Democratic Transition in Cuba. "The language is very neutral," he said. "And there is a saying by Desmond Tutu that if, in times of oppression, you choose to be neutral, you are taking the side of the oppressor." Pandemic lobbying: The Star has as in-depth look at pandemic-management decisions Doug Ford took that appear to have been helpful to a small group of lobbyists who have been helpful to Ford. Ford nixes mandatory vaccines: Ford said Thursday Ontario won't implement vaccine passports, CBC reports. "No, we aren't doing it. We're not going to have a split society." Business groups have called for a system, saying it would allow tourism and conferences to return more quickly, and the province appears to have had a prototype, Politics Today reports. Blaney out: Steven Blaney will not seek another term. The Tory MP said Thursday on his Facebook page that he had informed Erin O'Toole, "without a twinge of regret, but after careful consideration." “Cease all tartare operations” The National Post offers a cri de coeur from Sabrina Maddeaux in defence of steak tartare, which is the subject of an ill-advised public health campaign in New Brunswick. — Stephen Maher | 
