Millions more vaccines are coming, but the PM doesn't want to get your hopes up Did someone forward you this newsletter? Sign up here to get it delivered weekday mornings. Good news kicked off this past weekend: Health Canada announced its approval of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. Ottawa had already made a deal to purchase up to 38 million doses of the drug, although only 10 million of those are currently expected by the end of September. Added together with the 1.5 million extra Pfizer doses, also announced last Friday, and the recent approval of the AstraZeneca vaccine, and Canada is now expecting 36.5 million doses delivered by the end of June, and 117.9 million doses by the end of September. Despite these boosted forecasts, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is sticking with his September estimate for nationwide vaccination, pointing to possible supply-chain disruptions as reasons to stay cautious. It's likely a deliberate strategy: under-promise, then (hopefully) over-deliver. About J&J: Many people know this new vaccine requires just a single dose. But how effective is it? How does it differ from other vaccines? What are its advantages and disadvantages? For Maclean's, Patricia Treble tells you what you need to know in the latest edition of Vaxx Populi. Home away from home: According to new data by Statistics Canada, the number of permanent residents nationwide has declined by four per cent in the last year. That's a stark contrast from Canada's three-per-cent annual increase over the past decade. The reason is the same as what was behind every other anomaly in 2020: the pandemic has caused immigrants to lose their jobs and worry about paying rent, or want to be close to family members in their home countries. That's led many to move back—and, if things don't improve domestically, it could mean they'll never return. Vaccine passports: Appearing on CTV's Question Period yesterday, Health Minister Patty Hajdu confirmed that the G7 nations are actively discussing the possibility of "vaccine passports"—proof of vaccination that allows travellers to bypass entry restrictions for locked-down countries. European nations have proposed such measures, but Canada has yet to indicate it will follow suit, preferring to rely on a recent negative test before letting people in. Two recent polls point to the struggles being faced by Conservative leader Erin O'Toole. Surveys by Léger and Abacus both find the Liberals keeping ahead of the Official Opposition, though not by enormous leads. The real giveaway is analyzing leader favourability within their own party: while Trudeau and NDP leader Jagmeet Singh have around 80 per cent support from their own ranks, O'Toole sits at just 62. As Philippe J. Fournier writes in his latest 338Canada column for Maclean's, "This suggests O’Toole could potentially have a hard time growing the conservative base and converting voters from other parties." For a deeper dive into the subject, the National Post published a lengthy look at the intra-party divisions plaguing O'Toole's first few months on the job, as the Tories gear up for their policy convention later this month. On Saturday, Lt.-Gen. Wayne Eyre—the acting chief of the defence staff—published a letter to members of the Canadian Armed Forces, writing, among other things, that "certain behaviours and attitudes exhibited towards our personnel are beyond troubling." It's a step toward accountability since his two preceding military leaders, Gen. Jonathan Vance and Admiral Art McDonald, are facing investigations by the House of Commons and the military's National Investigation Service, respectively. Water works: After reports by the Parliamentary Budget Officer and Auditor General last week showed ballooning costs for 52 Canadian-made large ships, critics began arguing Canada should look at purchasing other countries' vessels instead of spending so much making their own. In Maclean's, Jeffrey F. Collins, a Fellow with the Canadian Global Affairs Institute and a researcher in defence procurement, writes that buying off-the-shelf ships wouldn't solve Canada's unique problems: The near consensus response from the national commentariat is to throw in the towel, accept that Canada cannot do defence procurement, launch a Royal Commission, make it “illegal” to build ships in Canada, and bizarrely, considering their own challenges, buy our fleet from the Australians. Abandoning ship (pardon the pun) and opting for an overseas buy may certainly seem tempting, but beware: modern naval shipbuilding is far more complex and expensive than meets the eye. What may seem like a bargain (see: ex-British submarines) rarely ever is. Instead, the decision to build a fleet at home or abroad must be seen within the context of trade-offs, of which cost is just one. In the House of Commons, which returns today after a brief hiatus, MPs will be able to test out their new e-voting app, as most of them continue to log on from self-isolation. The app has been in development since last fall, and, after several tests and approval from all major parties, could be put to the test as early as this afternoon, when the House votes on a Bloc Québécois motion to increase old-age-security payments. Troubled bridge over water: What's the value of an old wooden-made covered bridge? In New Brunswick, you can't put a number to it: only 58 such structures exist, and locals have begun protesting to save them. One flashpoint is St. Martins, a town of 300, where resident purists are fighting to stave off a modern steel replacement that would feature a mere wooden facade, which they believe would be a disappointing facsimilie of their heritage. Marie-Danielle Smith covers the story in Maclean's: The preservation of covered bridges is a “hot-button issue,” emblematic of a deeper divide with real political consequences. “People in rural communities feel that the governments are not in touch with them. They feel that the big cities get the grease, the squeaky wheel,” Tingley says. “The lightning rod is little old St. Martins, where you have this rural group of people pitted against the government of New Brunswick in the matter of a bridge.” —Michael Fraiman | 
