Liberals try to fend off another brewing scandal Did someone forward you this newsletter? Sign up here to get it delivered weekday mornings. Over the weekend, two high-profile Liberals have come under fire for what they knew (or didn't know) of the accusations against former military leader Jonathan Vance. First up was Katie Telford: Conservatives tabled a motion Friday calling on the Prime Minister to dismiss his chief of staff, after insiders close to the PMO suggested she knew about the allegations of misconduct. Then, yesterday, Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan faced hard questions on The West Block, when he was asked five times whether he was aware that the accusations against Vance were sexual in nature. Five times, Sajjan refused to give a yes or no answer. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau defended both Telford and Sajjan last week, saying no one in his office or Sajjan's knew the nature of the allegations. Meanwhile, Vance's replacement—the current acting chief of the defence staff, Lt.-Gen. Wayne Eyre—is sidelining Maj.-Gen. Peter Dawe after discovering Dawe wrote a letter of support for a soldier found guilty of sexual assault. Dawe is being put on indefinite paid leave from his role as leader of the Canadian Special Operations Forces Command. Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault is one of the leaders of a coordinated global effort, alongside France, Finland, Germany and Australia, to impose international regulations on tech giants. For L’actualité—translated into English for Maclean's—reporter Alec Castonguay dove deep into the history, origins and machinations of this fight, which is tackling four fronts: eliminating online hate speech, paying media outlets for sharing their stories, taxation, and fees to the cultural community to stimulate local cultural creation. Like digital platforms today, oil companies embodied economic progress for years, enriching their shareholders in the process and creating great global fortunes, such as the Rockefellers in the United States. Today, the world’s most successful people are no longer mining oil, but mining personal data, which they sell to various companies that can target their consumers on Facebook, Amazon, Google, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok and others. “This data is very valuable, it’s the new oil of our hyperconnected world,” says Roy. Guilbeault will have to first fend off Conservative attacks over Bill C-10, which his government introduced last November as a means to force streaming giants to follow CRTC regulations. A week ago, the House heritage committee removed a clause that excluded user-generated content, suddenly giving the CRTC the theoretical power to regulate a teenager's YouTube channel for not having enough Canadian content. Would the CRTC actually do this? Probably not. Are Conservatives worried about the possibility? Absolutely. Did the Liberals shut down a debate on the matter on Friday? Indeed they did. Regardless of the bill's intent—and the fact that the NDP and Bloc Québécois have supported the amendment, which would have granted tech giants a loophole—Guilbeault has not been great at defending his latest moves. You can watch him doing his best Woody Allen impersonation as he blusters through an awkward interview with Power & Politics. Vaccine watch. Pfizer is ramping up to 2 million doses a week, while Health Canada is holding off on distributing their Johnson & Johnson stockpile after discovering Canada's shipments were processed in a lab that suffered quality-control issues. But the bigger local story comes from Alberta, where Brad Sorenson, the CEO of vaccine manufacturer Providence Therapeutics, announced he's moving his company out of Canada after receiving little to no support from the federal and Alberta governments. While he's made big claims about the efficacy of his company's COVID vaccine (which, it should be noted, the media has never been able to verify), he says government agencies didn't believe he could scale up production quickly enough. Providence may move somewhere in the southern hemisphere, where Sorenson says he'll be developing vaccines for his new adoptive homeland. What a difference a decade makes. This weekend marked the 10-year anniversary of the 2011 election, when Stephen Harper upped his minority government into a majority, trouncing a decimated Liberal party whose collapse paved the way for the NDP to become the Official Opposition for the first time in history. But much has changed after a decade: Quebec is back in the hands of the Liberals and Bloc Québécois, while the NDP have fallen to one single seat from their record-high 59. For Maclean's, Philippe J. Fournier recounts that fateful night and looks at current polling data to see where the parties stand in la belle province. "No" in any language. While grassroots advocates continue to push provincial governments for paid sick leave, one group is raising the alarm for workers connected to the top echelons of government: dual-language interpreters. The Canadian chapter of the International Association of Conference Interpreters penned a letter on behalf of their members, who are the literal French and English voices of politicians and top doctors across the country. While technically freelancers and not entitled to benefits, the organization is hoping exceptions be made, considering the current climate—and points out that Parliament technically can't sit if interpreters aren't available. Last week, longtime Conservative MP and former deputy party leader Lisa Raitt found herself ousted from the board of her riding association. As the Star reported this weekend, her expulsion has created a rift within Milton's Conservative ranks, as the new Tory candidate, Nadeem Akbar, filled the board's 10 open spots with his own preferred allies. Several longtime board members resigned afterward in protest, calling the shake-up "a total surprise". —Michael Fraiman | 
