Parliament could still be quiet for a few weeks yet Did someone forward you this newsletter? Sign up here to get it delivered weekday mornings. The House of Commons is back in session today after their winter recess. But what will it look like? How many MPs are heading to Ottaw? How many committees will meet online? These are questions to which we don't have concrete answers, with hours ticking away. According to iPolitics, MPs have yet to decide on the format of their return, with some still pushing for a fully virtual House. The three major parties should reach a consensus this morning. Barring any more breaking news, the three stories of the week will be vaccines, the cancellation of Keystone XL and the resignation of Governor-General Julie Payette. The big question lingering about Payette, which opposition MPs will pounce on: How did we get here? The Globe and Mail found that Payette wasn't properly vetted by the PMO, a fact acknowledged by Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Dominic LeBlanc. The PMO didn't reach out to her former employers, but Justin Trudeau did at least ask his own cabinet minister, Marc Garneau—the fellow former astronaut said he found her professional and thought she was good at her job. Criminal background checks, however, didn't bring up an assault charge filed in the United States, in 2011, against her then-husband, nor her incident in Maryland where she accidentally struck and killed a pedestrian that same year. Confirming what Maclean's learned the night of Payette's resignation, Payette will receive her GG pension, LeBlanc confirmed. That amounts to approximately $150,000 every year for the rest of her life. (For those curious, Payette is 57. Assuming she lives another 40 years, that will amount to $6 million.) LeBlanc also confirmed the government will release the scathing report which led to her downfall to the public, albeit with some parts redacted. The Privy Council Office will be advising the PM on selecting a new GG this week. Some problems can't be fixed with modernization. When Trudeau chose Payette to be the GG, he approached the office with an eye toward modernizing it. Trudeau was not the first prime minister with that goal. But, as Paul Wells writes in Maclean's, when modernizing an office, it is handy to have somebody who will also show up at the office. There’s no requirement that the GG be an avatar or incarnation of a government’s narcissistic sense of itself as the nation’s guiding light into a more enlightened tomorrow. The GG just has to ensure that the vice-regal function is competently exercised, that ceremonial functions are exercised with grace, and that staff aren’t traumatized. Neither is there, of course, any need for the viceroy to be old, straight, white or male, let alone all four at once. The only real requirement is that the occupant be capable of seriousness in the execution of serious work. That attribute is widely distributed through the population, but we miss it when it’s absent. Five stages of Keystone grief. After President Joe Biden killed the Keystone XL pipeline, Western Canada's political leaders entered the early stages of grief. Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe is in the first stage, denial, still holding out hope that things will progress. Alberta Premier Jason Kenney has moved onto the second stage—anger—calling on the feds to slap sanctions on the U.S. and saying, on Global's The West Block, that "a close friend" wouldn't do what the States have done. But Canada's ambassador to the United States, Kirsten Hillman , is urging them to move onto the final stage: acceptance. "It's obviously very disappointing for Albertans and people in Saskatchewan who are already in a difficult situation," she said told CBC's The House. "But I think that we need to now focus on moving forward with this administration." Travel, banned. On Friday, Trudeau told Canadians to avoid non-essential travel this spring break, because the government "could be bringing in new measures that significantly impede your ability to return to Canada at any given moment without warning." What did he mean by that? According to an interview Foreign Affairs Minister Marc Garneau gave yesterday, it means the Emergencies Act—which would allow cabinet to restrict travel to and from specific areas—is on the table. Risk v. reward. Since pregnant women and the immunocompromised were not included in clinical vaccine trials for COVID-19, in the latest edition of Vaxx Populi for Maclean's, Patricia Treble answers the question: If you're immunocompromised, can you get the COVID-19 vaccine? The bottom line: you have to weigh your risk of exposure against how severe COVID would be if you got it, verus the potential risks of the vaccine. —Michael Fraiman | 
