New British trade deal leaves Canadian cheese lovers feeling blue Did someone forward you this newsletter? Sign up here to get it delivered weekday mornings. What about Wensleydale? Saturday morning began with news that Canada and the United Kingdom had agreed on a post-Brexit trade agreement to begin in 2021. The two countries have been trading under an agreement that essentially copied the language of Canada's agreement with the European Union (the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, or CETA), which will last until the end of this year. But Trade Minister Mary Ng clarified the new deal is not a carbon copy of CETA, and was crafted to be unique between the two countries. She also crushed the hopes of cross-Canada casein addicts: "It also protects Canada's supply-managed products," she told reporters, "so I want to be very clear that there is no new market access for cheese here in this transition agreement." But this new trade agreement, dubbed the Canada-United Kingdom Trade Continuity Agreement (CUKTCA? Alas, no good puns there), still needs to receive parliamentary approval in Canada. And Opposition MPs are not thrilled with the timing. The bill needs approval before Dec. 31, but Parliament adjourns for the holidays in mid-December. Conservatives are now criticizing the government for waiting too long and trying to ram a massive trade deal through the House without giving MPs time to review it, similar to how they pushed through the New NAFTA agreement with the United States and Mexico. "Here we are again." So said Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Friday as he reappeared before his familiar springtime backdrop, Rideau Cottage, to urge Canadians to staunch the spread of COVID-19. He plainly asked people to cancel their gatherings, parties and holiday plans ("A normal Christmas, quite frankly, is out of the question," he said), although the feds still aren't legislating anything to enforce the lockdowns. You can read the full transcript of Trudeau's speech here. The PM is instead passing responsibility on to premiers, a few of whom are reluctantly reverting to the lockdowns of olden days. In Toronto and Peel Region in Ontario, Doug Ford mandated a 28-day lockdown of non-essential businesses such as restaurants, gyms and malls that kicks off today; Saskatchewan's Scott Moe reiterated on Saturday that despite the weekend's record-breaking numbers (439 cases in a day), his government badly wants to avoid a lockdown. Nunavut also continued its unfortunate climb with 46 new cases reported over the weekend; the territorial government will hold a press conference this morning to announce next steps. In Alberta, meanwhile, #WhereIsKenney began trending on Twitter—a reference to the nine-day-and-counting disappearance of Premier Jason Kenney from the public eye. His office sent out a statement that the premier is self-isolating "due to a close contact testing positive for COVID-19." Reports say Kenney will hold a media briefing sometime today. Steady as they go. The fall's election-season-that-wasn't has come and gone, and national polling is no different for it. As Philippe J. Fournier notes in his latest 338Canada column in Maclean's, the federal Liberals are still hovering at around 35 per cent, while the NDP is stuck under 20 per cent. With a new leader and record-breaking debt looming over our country, Canada's Conservatives have arguably the biggest reason to see a boost in the polls—yet they haven't. Voting intentions have remained remarkably stable over the past months. On Aug. 23, Durham MP Erin O’Toole won the CPC leadership. On that day, the Conservative Party of Canada was projected at 31 per cent nationally. Three months later, the CPC’s national projection is… 31 per cent. While we have not measured any significant “leadership bump” for the Conservatives since O’Toole’s leadership began, neither have we detected any slide below the party’s seemingly unshakable floor of 30 per cent of Canadian voters. "The Great Reset." If you've heard the phrase, odds are you're one of three types of people: either you're familiar with a years-long campaign by the World Economic Forum to overhaul international priorities and global economic benchmarks; or you've read the eponymous book by University of Toronto prof Richard Florida; or you're a right-wing conspiracy theorist who believes a secret cabal of globalists schemed up the COVID pandemic in order to suppress the entire world into forced vaccination, wrongful imprisonment and the ushering in of a New World Order. It's unclear which camp Pierre Pollievre falls into. The Conservative finance critic has been vaguely stoking fears about the conspiracy on Twitter, but without addressing the conspiracy as such; he's also been unwilling to expand on his beliefs to the media, preferring to garner signatures to a petition against "global financial elites" who want to "re-engineer economies and societies to empower the elites at the expense of the people." His petition to stop the reset, whatever that means, drew more than 88,000 signatures by Sunday evening. Will Trudeau reform the RCMP? Last week, a former Supreme Court justice wrote a scathing report on years of systemic racism, sexism and homophobia in the RCMP. As Stephen Maher writes in Maclean's, the police force is notoriously inflexible and unlikely to instigate change from within its own ranks. That opens up an opportunity for the prime minister to flex his feminist bona fides and do the right thing. And yet... Trudeau and Public Safety Minister Bill Blair have the authority and responsibility to fix it, and Bastarache’s report makes their duty as clear as day, but taking on the national police force is difficult and unpredictable, not a vote-winning proposition, so it will not be shocking if they shrink from the task. Out West, B.C. Liberal leader Andrew Wilkinson—who many see as the main culprit behind his party's doomed campaign against the provincial NDP, which won a firm majority government last month—has stepped down from his post earlier than expected. Originally slated to stick around until a replacement was elected, Wilkinson revealed in a Facebook post on Saturday that his resignation would be immediate. He plans to keep representing his riding of Vancouver-Quilchena. Speaking of provincial Liberal leader resignations: Alberta's first openly gay political leader, David Kahn, who has led the Alberta Liberals since 2017, is stepping down to practice law. Over various elections this past decade, Alberta's Liberals have dropped from eight seats in the legislature to five, then down to one and ultimately to zero in the 2019 election. Khan finished fourth in his own riding with just over five per cent of the vote. Last week, longtime Tory MP Peter Kent revealed he wouldn't run in the next federal election. Kent has represented the Ontario suburban riding of Thornhill since 2008. Within days, a candidate entered the race to replace him: Melissa Lantsman, a PR executive who served in communications roles for various federal Conservatives and Doug Ford, declared her intent to run on Twitter on Sunday morning. —Michael Fraiman | 
