Politics This Morning: MacDonald and Utano return to ArriveCan hearings

Good Thursday morning, In today’s Politics This Morning: The PBO reports on the latest federal spending figures. Trudeau and Poilievre, net nannies. A new report on sluggish investment in Canada. Embattled public servants CAMERON MACDONALD and ANTONIO UTANO are scheduled to testify during a meeting of the House Government Operations and Estimates Committee this morning, as it continues its investigation of the ArriveCan scandal. MacDonald and Utano have both been ordered on leave without pay from their jobs as executives in the public service over their role in the procurement of the ArriveCan app. The cost of that purchase spiralled to nearly $60-million, and Auditor General KAREN HOGAN slammed several government departments for failing to follow basic best practices while procuring the app for the Canada Border Services Agency. MacDonald and Utano were directly involved in that procurement, and the Globe and Mail’s BILL CURRY documented some of the evidence and allegations that have raised questions about their behaviour in this report back in January. MacDonald and Utano have denied any wrongdoing, and through a lawyer told Curry that their suspension was “punitive and aimed at damaging their credibility.” MacDonald and Utano previously testified before the committee in November, and you can read their testimony here. Today’s meeting will start at 11 a.m. You can watch it here. MacDonald and Utano have also called on the Federal Court to quash an internal government report on their conduct. Curry reported on that yesterday, and so did The Hill Times’ IREM KOCA. In Parliament Parliament is adjourned this week. What’s the cabinet up to? Prime Minister JUSTIN TRUDEAU is in Cape Breton today. He'll visit a long-term care home in the morning, make a housing announcement at 1:30 p.m. local time, and then meet with unspecified first responders later in the afternoon. Deputy Prime Minister CHRYSTIA FREELAND will tour a housing development in Winnipeg at 12:30 p.m. local time. At 1:30, she'll hold a press conference to talk about the government's housing plan. Tourism Minister SORAYA MARTINEZ FERRADA will “take part in discussions” at a hospitality trade show in St. John’s this morning at 8:30 a.m. local time. At 10:15 a.m., Seniors Minister SEAMUS O’REGAN will announce cash meant to “address the mistreatment of older adults across Ontario,” at a stop at the University of Toronto campus. At noon, he’ll move on to the headquarters of the Canadian Association of Retired Persons to deliver a speech at its annual general meeting. Minister Seamus O'Regan. The Hill Times photograph by Andrew Meade At 11 a.m., FILOMENA TASSI, the minister of subsidies for Southern Ontario, will announce cash for the auto sector at a presser in Toronto. Families Minister JENNA SUDDS remains in Yellowknife today, where she is planning to do a “meet and greet” with members of the territorial legislative assembly, and make an announcement alongside territorial Education Minister CAITLIN CLEVELAND at 11:15 a.m. local time. Industry Minister FRANÇOIS-PHILIPPE CHAMPAGNE will deliver a talk to the Montreal Chamber of Commerce at 11:30 a.m. today. His office says he’ll be speaking about, “how Canada can seize on new opportunities to lead the global economy, with a focus on recent federal investments in Quebec.” Emergency Preparedness Minister HARIJT SAJJAN will announce something aimed at preventing gun crime in Vancouver today at 12:30 p.m. local time. He’ll be joined by Mayor KEN SIM. What else is going on today? Deputy Conservative Leader MELISSA LANTSMAN and a handful of her caucus colleagues are scheduled to give a speech on “the new federal Conservative movement and its impact on Canada” at 5:30 p.m. today in Toronto. The Canadian Club Toronto is playing host. You can watch online here. Conservative MP Melissa Landsman. The Hill Times photograph by Andrew Meade Parliamentary Budget Officer YVES GIROUX will release a report on the latest batch of supplementary estimates today. Those estimates detail more than $13-billion in new government spending planned during the final months of the fiscal year. Giroux’s report will be available on the PBO website at 9 a.m. StatsCan corner Policy wonks, take note: this morning, Statistics Canada plans to release a new report entitled, “What contributed to the slowdown of investment in Canada after the mid-2000s?” You will be able to find it here at 8:30 a.m. In case you missed it ‘Online harms’ bill on its way Prime Minister Trudeau told reporters yesterday that his government is ready to introduce its long-promised legislation to reduce “online harms.” This will be the government’s third attempt at doing so. Then-justice minister DAVID LAMETTI tabled a bill to ban online hate speech in 2021, but it died when the government triggered an election. Then-heritage minister PABLO RODRIGUEZ pulled the plug on a second attempt in 2022. Buckle up. Crafting a law that will on one hand effectively curtail hateful remarks online, and on the other preserve freedom of expression, is a mighty challenge indeed. We can expect to hear cries of “censorship" from the opposition. Civil liberties groups will put the bill under a microscope. Former Supreme Court chief justice BEVERLEY MCLACHLIN spoke about the challenge of legislating against online hate speech in an interview on The Hill Times’ Hot Room podcast back in 2022. You can listen to what she had to say here. Axe the climax: Poilievre endorses age verification for porn Conservative Leader PIERRE POILIEVRE told reporters yesterday that he supported requiring visitors to pornography websites to verify that they are at least 18 years old before being granted access. The context for Poilievre’s remark is a bill working its way through Parliament that proposes the same rule. Bill S-210, drafted by Senator JULIE MIVILLE-DECHÊNE, has now advanced through the Red Chamber and as far as the House of Commons Public Safety Committee. The Conservatives, New Democrats, and Bloc Québécois all supported the bill at second reading. The Liberals did not. When Poilievre was asked whether he supported requiring porn websites to verify the age of their users, he said, “yes.” The Canadian Press reported the details here. No doubt the social conservative wing of the party will be breathing a sigh of relief. They now have a champion willing to erect…er, construct new barriers to block youth-poisoning smut. A keeper of the gate, you might say. Poilievre’s office told CP yesterday that he did not support requiring a “digital ID” of any sort to verify the ages of porn seekers. We’re left to ponder how else a Poilievre government would get the job done. Maybe Service Canada will start doing house calls. Krista Wells wins Uncertain Harvest: The Future of Food on a Warming Planet KRISTA WELLS is the winner of this week’s book contest. She wins a copy of Uncertain Harvest: The Future of Food on a Warming Planet, by IAN MOSBY, SARAH ROTZ, and EVAN D.G. FRASER, and published in 2020 by the University of Regina Press. Wells’ name was drawn after she correctly answered that THOMAS MALTHUS’ “Essay on the Principle of Population,” considered the most important of modern dystopian food futures, was published in 1798. Thank you as well to everyone else who took part and who answered correctly: HUI ZHANG, STEPHANIE BOLTON, MICHAEL KACZOROWSKI, PAUL LANSBERGEN, WAYNE TOCHERI, THOMAS CHANZY, SEAN SUNDERLAND, RON COLUCCI, and NATHAN NASH. Keep your eyes peeled for next week’s question or questions. We’ll be giving away two books next week. The Hill Times

Politics This Morning

Politics This Morning: MacDonald and Utano return to ArriveCan hearings

Plus, Lantsman and friends speak on ‘the new federal Conservative movement’.

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Politics This Morning

Politics This Morning: MacDonald and Utano return to ArriveCan hearings

Plus, Lantsman and friends speak on ‘the new federal Conservative movement’.

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