So does that mean there won't be an election? Did someone forward you this newsletter? Sign up here to get it delivered weekday mornings. Every MP but one voted in favour of a Bloc Quebecois motion on Tuesday that "holding an election during a pandemic would be irresponsible, and that it is the responsibility of the government to make every effort to ensure that voters are not called to the polls as long as this pandemic continues." Only lockdown-opposing Derek Sloan, who was ejected from the Conservative caucus in January and now sits as an independent, voted against the motion. Opposition parties and political observers suspect the Liberals would like to go to the polls this summer, to take advantage of a vaccine-induced bump in the polls, which might give them a majority. Earlier, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said that while he certainly is in no rush for an election, "we need to continue to have a well-functioning Parliament so that we can continue to get support out to Canadians." The motion did not say anything about how the government will eventually determine that the pandemic has ended and it is free to call an election. Dairy drama: Joe Biden has set a different tone in the Canada-U.S. relationship than his loud-mouthed predecessor, but he appears no happier with Canada's protectionist dairy policy than was Donald Trump. On Tuesday, the U.S. Trade Representative’s office moved to set up a dispute-settlement panel to review Canada’s dairy quotas, a first under the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, which replaced NAFTA last year. The Americans object to dairy quotas and want the panel to “ensure our dairy industry and its workers can seize new opportunities under the USMCA to market and sell U.S. products to Canadian consumers.” Trade Minister Mary Ng is “disappointed” with the move but confident Canadian "policies are in full compliance with our CUSMA TRQ obligations, and we will vigorously defend our position during the dispute-settlement process.” The fallout from the dispute could be particularly important in Quebec, where the dairy industry is legendary for its political clout. Trudeau le québécois: Speaking of Quebec, Maclean’s Paul Wells has a deep dive on Trudeau's muted reaction to Quebec Premier Francois Legault's move to unilaterally change the Canadian constitution to declare that Quebec is a nation and that its “only” official language is French. While some commentators have worried this could bring back the bad old days of Meech-style wrangling over constitutional amendments, Wells is not convinced there’s much to be worried about. Here is my best attempt to understand the expert advice the Prime Minister would have received on this topic. The courts have long used a technique called “reading down” when a sweeping assertion in one law bumps up against a specific provision in another. Especially when the sweeping assertion might seem to exert jurisdiction that is specifically limited elsewhere. And especially when the specific limits are constitutional. A judge who is “reading down” a statute simply declares that, while the general language sounds nice, of course it is meaningless where expressly and specifically limited. How is Canada doing in the fight against COVID? We're just coming out of a holiday weekend, with less testing than normal, so it's hard to tell. Nova Scotia's lockdown seems to be bringing down numbers there, and Quebec and Ontario are continuing to accelerate their vaccination efforts. In Ontario, there was sad news: A man in his 40s has died of a rare blood clot after receiving an AstraZeneca jab. One place where the pandemic is not going well is Manitoba, where ICUs are at their breaking point. The province has been forced to send severely ill COVID patients to Ontario and is talking to Saskatchewan and North Dakota about taking more patients. Doctors say the province needs to do more to limit infection. Federal help is on the way. Ottawa is preparing to send in health-care workers as well as staff to help with vaccinations and contact tracing. While Manitoba is facing the worst pandemic crisis at the moment, a study from the Macdonald-Laurier Institute says that Alberta has had the worst pandemic. The institute set up a misery index to track government responses to the pandemic. The institute finds that, in Canada, the Atlantic provinces, who used aggressive early lockdowns, had the best record, and Alberta had the worst. The feds ought to have done more to keep the virus out, said MLI senior fellow Richard Audas. The Toronto Sun has news on what caused police to arrest prominent anti-vaxxer Chris Sky. The tabloid has court documents that assert that the Toronto man threatened to kill Ontario Premier Doug Ford and other politicians. Sky denies the charges. Is Gerald Cotten really dead? CBC has an interesting long read on a Canadian cryptocurrency CEO, Gerald Cotten, who died at 30 while on a vacation in India with his wife. The wrinkle is that not everyone is sure he is actually dead. Cotten's widow says he was the only one with the passcode to access a quarter of a billion dollars of his investors' money, which has some of them somewhat suspicious. — Stephen Maher | 
