Canada's party leaders get the shot Did someone forward you this newsletter? Sign up here to get it delivered weekday mornings. First, the news the world was watching yesterday. Derek Chauvin, the ex-police officer who killed George Floyd in Minneapolis last year, was guilty on all three counts he faced: second-degree murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter. He'll be sentenced in eight weeks. Jagmeet Singh was the first federal leader to comment: "One verdict won't change an entire system, it won't eradicate the systemic racism embedded within our institutions," he said, adding Chauvin's conviction is "one small step in the right direction." Justin Trudeau and Chrystia Freeland are officially somewhere in the vaccine queue. The No. 1 and No. 2 ranking Liberals yesterday put up their hands alongside thousands of their fellow Gen X-ers in Ontario, as anyone aged 40 and over gained eligibility to receive the AstraZeneca vaccine at pharmacies across the province. Tory leader Erin O'Toole and the NDP's Singh have secured appointments. Green leader Annamie Paul is hoping to do the same. Infrastructure Minister Catherine McKenna flexed post-shot, too. Gen X really does run Canada these days, doesn't it? B.C., Alberta, Manitoba and Quebec have approved similar eligibility changes. All those provinces chose not to follow guidelines set out by the National Advisory Committee on Immunization, which hasn't budged from a recommendation that AstraZeneca's shot only be administered to the 55-plus crowd. Yesterday, the NACI was supposed to offer updated guidance. A document leaked a day earlier appeared to suggest the panel would approve of shots given to younger age groups. A few minutes before that press conference, the NACI abruptly cancelled its briefing. A spokesperson said the group "expects to be able to release its finalized guidance later this week." The PM insisted that Canada won't bar flights from India, a global COVID-19 hotspot, because the feds already have "extremely effective" rules at the border (including airports). Meanwhile, COVID-positive passengers are arriving on between two and three flights arriving most days from Delhi. What will Ford's science advisers do next? Ontario's COVID-19 Science Table has faced a daunting task since the beginning of the pandemic. The group offers the combined smarts of dozens of doctors and researchers with expertise in how to manage this sort of prolonged health crisis. When Premier Doug Ford announced his latest lockdown measures, he ignored much of the Table's advice. Justin Ling, writing in Maclean's, spoke to several insiders about what happened next: Last week, as the divergence between advice and action grew wider, talk around the Table turned to mass resignation. A protest, in essence, of being used by a government that appears to have little interest in a science-based approach to fighting the pandemic. But the majority of the Table opted, instead, for a softer approach: One that retains cautious optimism that the Ford government may yet see the light, and pursue measures that may actually avert a worst-case scenario in the province. The road to vaccines: Last June, the Public Health Agency of Canada was formulating bulk-purchasing plans for all the stuff required for a mass vaccination campaign. A briefing note from June 23 outlined a strategy to buy up huge quantities of syringes, needles, swabs, gauze, biohazard waste boxes and a laundry list of other materials. In those days, vaccinations weren't expected to start until early 2021—with the larger rollout following in the summer. The note notes that Operation Warp Speed's vaccine candidates were likely to be first on the market, and that Canada had approved only one clinical trial: CanSino's shot . Three days after the note went up the chain, federal officials met with Moderna executives. A month later, they finalized Canada's first vaccine contract with that company. Now that's vaccine diplomacy: On Monday, Doug Ford called up the EU's ambassador to Canada and asked for the continental trade bloc to send the province any doses it can spare. Yesterday, Manitoba Premier Brian Pallister announced an actual deal with a foreign country. North Dakota will vaccinate Manitoban truck drivers who regularly cross the border with essential goods. They'll be fully immunized within two months. The Americans will foot the bill. Students rejoice: If you're not struggling with student debt, you might have missed the measures in Monday's federal budget that Alex Usher, the president of Higher Education Strategy Associates, called "the biggest thing to hit student aid in 20 years." Usher explained that student loan repayments will kick in at a higher income threshold of $40,000 (up from $25,000), and monthly payments would max out at 10 per cent of income—not 20 per cent. Foreign laissez-faire: Most budget coverage also paid little heed to the Liberal plan for lending a hand to the rest of the world. Lauren Dobson-Hughes, a consultant on global health and gender equity, labelled the government's plan a "disappointing, incoherent mishmash of mainly administrative and technical spending, with no narrative or sense of priorities." Unlike the budget's "carefully crafted" domestic chapters, global affairs is reduced to "random piecemeal initiatives." Get well: One of the greatest orators in modern Canadian politics, 83-year-old Stephen Lewis, is fighting abdominal cancer. TVO's Steve Paikin, who broke the news, recalled decades of listening to the former Ontario NDP leader. Anyone who's heard the man knows you never forget the experience. (Your newsletter correspondent first heard Lewis speak in 2004, when he delivered the Shirley Greenberg Annual Lecture at the University of Ottawa on HIV/AIDS in Africa. The auditorium was rapt.) —Nick Taylor-Vaisey | 
