Start placing your bets for Canada's next governor general Did someone forward you this newsletter? Sign up here to get it delivered weekday mornings. This whirlwind news week ends with a bang: Governor-General Julie Payette has resigned. After months of media reports about a toxic work environment, a scathing review by an independent consulting firm came in yesterday, confirming that Payette's resignation would be inevitable. As Maclean's Jason Markusoff points out on Twitter, this makes Payette essentially the shortest-serving governor general in Canadian history, at three years and three months. CBC News published Payette's resignation letter in full , in which she apologizes for "tensions [that] have arisen at Rideau Hall over the past few months." Secretary to the Governor General Assunta Di Lorenzo has also resigned amid similar accusations of fostering a hostile workplace. She retained the services of lawyer Marie Henein (of Jian Ghomeshi and ex-Vice Admiral Mark Norman fame) to represent her. Stay tuned for ensuing lawsuits, no doubt. For Maclean's, Shannon Proudfoot spoke with Philippe Lagassé, an associate professor at Carleton University who specializes in studying the Westminster system. In depth, he answers the urgent questions of the day: What happens when there's no governor general? How long until a replacement is found? Who's fills the role in the interim? I think one of the good lessons learned from this experience that should inform future appointments is that whoever is selected has the right character for the job. And I don’t mean that as a slight against any of Madame Payette’s accomplishments, but simply do they want to be in a very public role, living in a public residence, with everything that implies? Do they want to do public events, engage regularly with Canadians, do patronage work with charities? Do they want to do the job, as opposed to simply hold the office? It’s one thing to hold an office, it’s another thing to do the tasks associated with it, or do them openly and willingly and happily.
Talkin' climate. Today, President Joe Biden will make his first phone call to a foreign leader—Justin Trudeau. According to Biden's press secretary, the two will chat about bilateral issues, including Biden's decision to swiftly cancel the Keystone XL pipeline. And in an interview with Environment Minister Jonathan Wilkinson, iPolitics learned that Canada will soon seek a bilateral climate plan with the United States. That plan could be three-pronged, focusing on fuel economy standards, methane emissions and a cross-border carbon tax. Biden's cancellation of Keystone XL puts all Albertan eyes on the Trans Mountain pipeline, which the government purchased in 2019. But locals aren't optimistic about that, either. On the federal partisan level, Conservative foreign affairs critic Michael Chong, in an interview with the Star, called on Trudeau to move past Keystone and engage with President Biden in a more concrete North American energy strategy. Chong, often called a Red Tory and sometimes an outlier in his party, criticized Trudeau for not going far enough on climate change—especially given Biden's ambitious multitrillion-dollar environmental plan. The real stinking albatross. The ejection of Derek Sloan from the federal Conservative caucus leaves two questions unanswered, according to Andrew MacDougall in Maclean's: who speaks for Canada’s social conservatives and what are they trying to say? The trick for O’Toole is to find ways to engage social conservatives without appealing to their social conservatism. The current focus on jobs is the correct play, especially when contrasted with the out-of-touch government in Ottawa. Trudeau has now rolled over on Keystone XL without so much as a pro-forma objection, and there are no signs the Prime Minister understands the impacts of the immoral outcomes of globalization. Amazon is great if you use it to get cheap and quick deliveries or a nice streaming service; it’s a different beast entirely if Amazon has run your shop out of business and you have to go work in one of its sweatshop fulfillment centres. It’s on these questions that O’Toole must flex some serious policy muscle.
More vaccine delays. Any other week and this would be a lead newsletter item: yesterday, Maj.-Gen. Dany Fortin revealed that not only is Canada not receiving any Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines next week, it is receiving only one-third of what was expected between now and Feb. 7 , with no guarantees beyond that. The delays were revealed after Pfizer announced they were expanding their plant in Belgium, causing a temporary slowdown and reducing deliveries to every nation but the United States over the next month. Fortin reiterated that this affects several other regions, including Mexico, Europe and the Middle East, and Pfizer has still earmarked four million doses for Canadians by the end of March. Holiday layover. On Dec. 31, 2020, the feds instituted a new law that mandated all travellers coming into Canada to produce a negative COVID-19 test taken within 72 hours of their departure. Perhaps unsurprisingly, at least 50,000 flight reservations have been cancelled since the news broke, according to the office of the new transport minister, Omar Alghabra. Hoop dreams, dashed. The International Basketball Federation (FIBA) fined Canada Basketball $227,138 after the organization chose to heed medical advice and not attend a qualifying FIBA competition in November. Failure to qualify would keep the team out of the Paris 2024 Summer Olympics. Canada Basketball told FIBA ahead of time they wouldn't be going, but apparently were never informed of this six-digit fine, which is a big bruise for a not-for-profit sports organization. Forever young. In the 2015 federal election, the Liberals dominated the under-25 vote to claim a majority over the long-reigning Conservatives. Today, according to recent polling analyzed at 338Canada, young Canadians are swinging hard toward the NDP. The only problem? Young voters aren't exactly the most reliable. As Philippe J. Fournier writes in Maclean's: For Jagmeet Singh and the NDP, considering the party barely polls in double-digits among older voters (13 per cent in recent Léger and Ipsos polls, 12 per cent according to Abacus Data), it needs a stronger showing from the younger voter base more than any other party. Without young Canadians voting in droves in the next election, the party could potentially lose a significant fraction of its current seat count (24) and risk falling below the official party threshold of 12 seats.
Time marches on. It's cliched to note how a president's term ages them—but in the case of the last four years, more people than just Donald Trump look 20 years older. This newsletter correspondent penned a piece in Maclean's about how many seemingly timeless icons, from Bruce Springsteen to Tom Hanks, all looked older and more tired at Biden's inauguration celebration. Polyglot Premier. Start your weekend right: by laughing at how badly Ontario Premier Doug Ford butchers the phrase "stay at home" in 22 languages in his latest COVID-19 video. It's unclear whether his office is in on the joke—though one certainly hopes so, after his infamously terrible attempts at French. —Michael Fraiman | 
