Turns out he just needed to be locked out of Twitter for a bit Did someone forward you this newsletter? Sign up here to get it delivered weekday mornings. The story that keeps on giving. How many other public officials travelled abroad this winter? Lots, apparently! We can now add two senators to the list—Don Plett, the leader of the Conservatives in the Senate, and Vern White, a member of the Canadian Senators Group. The Globe and Mail also found that Dominique Baker, a senior public servant at the Public Health Agency of Canada—who moonlights as a travel influencer with 45,000 Instagram followers—accepted an all-expenses-paid trip to Jamaica last fall. Baker subsequently posted an apology video yesterday admitting that "the timing was not right and I should not have gone." Meanwhile, the CEO of Niagara Health was fired on Wednesday for his trip abroad—and could be awarded $1 million as part of his termination clause. In Maclean's, Paul Wells notes that shaming politicians has become our new national sport. But the public outrage might be a little misguided: when so much attention is paid to politicians visiting sick relatives or going on dumb Caribbean vacations, more egregious offences go unpunished. My main objection to this odd early-winter pruning of the political class is that it hardly addresses the various ways 2020 went badly for the fight against COVID. Here’s how much responsibility Niki Ashton has for the case fatality rates in her home province of Manitoba: not much. Here’s how much more quickly you’ll get a vaccine, now that Ashton has been properly punished for visiting a sick relative: not at all. Meanwhile there are actual health ministers and education ministers with line responsibility for these files, and apparently they’re fine as long as they don’t break out the board shorts. In fact, as I pointed out above, most of them seem to have little to fear from their respective electorates. Yesterday, Justin Trudeau met virtually with the premiers for a First Ministers meeting that focused largely on vaccine distribution. Today at 11:30 a.m., the PM will address Canadians with an update on the situation. Vaccine administration has taken longer than expected, with fewer than half of our current supply injected into willing arms. (To be exact: 232,000 of 485,000 doses, or around 48 per cent, as of Thursday night.) Assuming vaccination rates ramp up, how quickly we will actually see fewer hospital admissions and deaths? In Maclean's, Patricia Treble says either this month or next. If governments focus on the 70-plus crowd, who comprise a majority of hospital admissions, the numbers should drop for hospitals and long-term care homes. Can't wait. Wealthy Canadians, meanwhile, are taking vaccination into their own hands. A couple of senior snowbirds from Ontario decided to buy two tickets on a private jet to Florida, where even non-citizens over 65 can receive a vaccine immediately. A local travel agent confirmed to CTV News that he's seen an uptick in interest in the Sunshine State since that announcement was made. No competition. Buried amid the news this week has been the results of an investigation by the Competition Bureau into allegations of conspiracy between Postmedia and Torstar, when they swapped 41 community and daily newspapers, most of which shut down over the next few years. The bureau did not find "clear evidence demonstrating that competitors reached an agreement to fix prices, allocate markets, or lessen or eliminate the supply of a product or service." After the dust settled. The story of the week is still very much the aftermath of the chaos at the U.S. Capitol. While Facebook, Twitter and Snapchat froze the president's accounts on Wednesday, Canadian e-commerce giant Shopify joined ranks yesterday by removing Trump-related stores. "Shopify does not tolerate actions that incite violence," a spokesperson said in a statement. For Maclean's, Marie-Danielle Smith interviewed two Canadian connections about the event. One was former Sergeant-at-arms Kevin Vickers, who became famous for his involvement in the 2014 shootout at Ottawa's Centre Block—arguably the most similar incident in modern Canadian history. The other was Bruce Heyman, former U.S. ambassador to Canada, who spoke in clear terms about his shock at what unfolded: Every time that [Donald Trump] has done something, I have mistakenly believed it couldn’t get worse. And every step along the way, he continues to do something that makes it even worse—in his language and his style and his decision-making and his treatment of others. But never in that whole process did I ever think that a president of the United States of America would call out for people to gather in Washington, D.C. and to go storm the Capitol to stop the process of affirming his successor. Georgia on Canada's mind. After tight races led to Democratic victories in Georgia, Joe Biden no longer has to worry about a Republican Senate blocking his legislative ambitions. So iPolitics asked: how does all this affect Canada? For starters, Biden has more flexibility to choose an ambassador, who has to meet Senate approval by a simple majority. (Out of 100 senators, 51 have to sign off.) But for his lofty climate goals, he'll still need 60 votes from the Senate, making it less likely that he'll be able to enact his grand promises, which may affect Canada. Finally, a concession. Last night, Donald Trump posted a belated concession speech to Twitter, in which he recited truly gracious and conciliatory words that he almost certainly did not write. Legal options to overturn the election have been exhausted; the Capitol, stormed and sacked; a peaceful transition, finally promised. —Michael Fraiman | 
