| | | | |  | | By Zi-Ann Lum, Nick Taylor-Vaisey and Kyle Duggan | | | Send tips | Subscribe here | Email Ottawa Playbook | Follow Politico Canada Thanks for reading Ottawa Playbook. Let's get into it. In today's edition: → Exclusive: Playbook went to Windsor and Detroit to see what “Team Canada” is all about. → BEVERLEY MCLACHLIN has thoughts on the online harms bill. → It’s JOE BIDEN’s SOTU address. |  | DRIVING THE DAY | | | | 
International Trade Minister Mary Ng, Industry Minister François-Philippe Champagne and Canada’s Ambassador to the U.S. Kirsten Hillman speak to reporters under the Gordie Howe International Bridge in Detroit on March 5, 2024. | Zi-Ann Lum/POLITICO |
REPORTER’S NOTEBOOK — “We look like a couple,” joked Industry Minister FRANÇOIS-PHILIPPE CHAMPAGNE as he walked into a packed evening reception Tuesday at the exclusive Detroit Athletic Club with International Trade Minister MARY NG.
They glided towards the front of the half-lit room adorned with paintings to where Canada’s Ambassador to the U.S. KIRSTEN HILLMAN waited by a fireplace. A chandelier glittered above an open bar. It was their last event of the day as a trio. Until this week, the last time they appeared together was at January’s Cabinet retreat when Prime Minister JUSTIN TRUDEAU announced they’d front a renewed “Team Canada” effort to bolster relations with the U.S. ahead of a volatile election year. Related read: 7 things Super Tuesday just taught us about the November election. — Another kind of Super Tuesday: Playbook followed “Team Canada” in Windsor and Detroit this week to hear what people on both sides of the border actually tell government officials if given the chance to meet face-to-face to share what policies are working and not. “There is no end point,” Hillman said about Team Canada 2.0’s work. There’s no single focus like when Ottawa dropped partisanship and coalesced around NAFTA talks in 2017. — The PM’s assignment: “We've been asked to find a mechanism whereby we can engage all of Canada, all of America,” Hillman said, calling it a “consciousness-raising exercise.” More on Playbook’s efforts to get the layman translation later. — The stakes: Ottawa is taking DONALD TRUMP’s threat to introduce a 10 percent universal tariff seriously. The policy would be a disaster for trade, according to Canada’s former chief trade negotiator STEVE VERHEUL. — Perennial soft power work: The Trudeau government expended a lot of political capital to get the Biden administration to climb down on its proposed EV tax credit two years ago, before the 2022 U.S. midterms. Contact lists have needed to be updated since. — The view from Windsor: Hillman and Ng’s day started in the basement of Unifor Local 444’s Windsor office where members raised concerns about Trump, China and immigration. “It’s coming,” said one union leader about Trump’s return. “Let’s call a spade a spade.” Two fruit trays, baked goods and a coffee urn greeted a dozen union members who showed up to give the special guests, and Windsor-Tecumseh MP IREK KUSMIERCZYK, their two cents on bilateral policy successes and hiccups. Concerns that China is using Mexico as a backdoor into the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement was raised multiple times by auto industry representatives. Chinese EV giant BYD recently confirmed it’s eyeing building a plant in Mexico — signalling a direct threat to North America’s growing EV industry. A woman representing the tech industry advocated for stronger competition with the CHIPS Act and asked why pension funds aren’t investing more in Canadian companies. When immigration came up, it was through the lens of viewing asylum seekers, who have taken occupancy in two of the city’s hotels, as a ready pool of potential skilled workers. A number of union leaders raised flags about the “apparent disconnect” between Immigration Minister MARC MILLER and Employment Minister RANDY BOISSONNAULT’s departments in matching newcomers’ skills to jobs. — The view from Detroit: Hillman and Ng joined up with Champagne in the Motor City on the 40th floor of a downtown law firm with a clear view of the Ambassador Bridge and the Gordie Howe International Bridge that’s currently under construction. There, over catered Panera fare that went mostly uneaten, members of the Canada-United States Business Association (CUSBA) shared concerns ranging from permitting red tape, “uncertainty” in political climates on both side of the border, and the lack of educational collabs with institutions after STEPHEN HARPER’s government cut funding a decade ago. | | | | A message from Google: Parents can use a supervised experience to guide their tweens to start exploring YouTube, once they’ve outgrown YouTube Kids. A few simple controls help parents manage content settings, block channels, and change the features their child can use within the app. To find more online safety features for kids and teens, visit youtube.com/myfamily | | |
Someone pitched the idea that Windsor-Detroit should be designated a hub, a special economic zone of sorts, to supercharge cross-border innovation and investment. Help us make it happen, Ng asked the CUSBA members around the table.
— The view from Ottawa: On the outside, Team Canada 2.0 comes off as an unoriginal label used to zhuzh up Ottawa’s election-year U.S. engagement work. Unlike the carefully chosen all-party NAFTA advisory council, this new iteration doesn’t include Conservatives or dippers at a high level. “The comparison doesn't quite fit,” Hillman told Playbook, stressing the projects aren’t the same. “That was a curated list of people that were giving very valued and important advice. This is like, we will take all comers, come.” There are also maps involved in identifying “influencers” in each state, as in business and political leaders, that Ottawa should most definitely be reaching out to make a contact. In Detroit, the high-level power brokers they sought to meet with privately with were Mayor MIKE DUGGAN and Lt. Gov. GARLIN GILCHRIST. — Message discipline: In the meetings Playbook was allowed into with Unifor and CUSBA, Team Canada tried to cut through partisanship by making the case that the world is a “very different” place ahead of Trump 2.0. The trio leaned into their audience’s bilateral interests. When Trump first came into office, there was no Covid-19, Russian invasion of Ukraine and no Israel-Hamas war. These events, they said, have put the two countries on an inseparable “trajectory of integration.” — Tactics: The goal, as Champagne put it, is to evolve Canada’s reputation in America from “the nice guys up north” to “the strategic partner for the 21st century.” Doesn’t roll off the tongue as easily, but the point it seems is to expire the pushover image. “Focus” was a word used repeatedly to describe what Team Canada 2.0 is all about — and it took a few tries to draw out a clearer explanation for the strategy driving the work. “This is focus of intensity,” Ng said. “And it really is going to require more than the three people that are here.” — Record scratch: The government hasn’t reached out to Conservative Leader PIERRE POILIEVRE for help, that much was clear in the trio’s sit-down with the Toronto Star. Playbook asked, why not? Hillman, the diplomat, said they work with Conservative parliamentarians often when they’re visiting Washington. “They're a very important part of our relations with the U.S.” Champagne added that they’ve been in touch with other Conservatives such as Ontario Premier DOUG FORD. “I'm gonna meet DANIELLE SMITH,” the industry minister said. “Mary has met the inter-parliamentary committee, which is senators and members of Parliament on both sides,” he added. Ng chimed in to correct her colleague: “All sides.” | | For your radar | |
BUMPY ROAD AHEAD — BEVERLEY MCLACHLIN joins ED GREENSPON on the Public Policy Forum's “WONK” pod, out this morning.
The former chief justice of the Supreme Court dishes on the government's sweeping online harms legislation — why it's a good idea, what could go wrong when the Canadian Human Rights Commission (CHRC) handles hate speech complaints, and the odds that somebody will launch a court challenge if the bill's proposed life sentences for "incitement to genocide" become law. — On the need for a bill: “It’s our responsibility as responsible citizens, it’s the government's responsibility, to deal with new media, new harms, new things that develop in society. So I applaud the government for taking this on, as many other countries have.” — On referring complaints to the CHRC: “When you’re talking about something like hate, if you bring a court case, a criminal case, you’ve got to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt. But in the Human Rights Commission, you don’t have to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt and in some cases, truth is not a defense. "So there’s a risk here that there could be prosecutions, people use the word overzealous prosecutions, that amount almost to persecution, or at the very least, go over that justifiable red line for intruding on free speech. . This is going to, I suspect, get a lot of debate in the House and there’ll be a lot of people asking questions about whether this is a good thing, whether it’s necessary, whether it’s too broad.” — On the introduction of life sentences: “I do predict that this is going to be challenged in the courts. We have not seen this in speech law, expression law, to my knowledge — life sentences for sending out some words. That’s heavy. And it will, I suspect, be challenged. … This is just a bill. And so we’ll see what happens to it. It may not become law.” Listen to the full episode here. | | Where the leaders are | |
— Prime Minister JUSTIN TRUDEAU and Deputy Prime Minister CHRYSTIA FREELAND are in the Toronto area to meet health care workers — and to talk about pharmacare. The pair will hold a morning media availability with reporters, joined by Women and Gender Equality and Youth Minister MARCI IEN.
— Conservative Leader PIERRE POILIEVRE and Bloc Québécois Leader YVES-FRANÇOIS BLANCHET have not released their public itineraries. — NDP Leader JAGMEET SINGH is on Vancouver Island with plans to meet Qualicum First Nation Chief MICHAEL RECALMA with NDP MP GORD JOHNS. — Green Party Leader ELIZABETH MAY is in her Saanich-Gulf Islands riding meeting constituents. | | DULY NOTED | |
8:20 a.m. National Defense Minister BILL BLAIR will be due at the Château Laurier for an early keynote speech on his schedule at the annual Ottawa Conference on Security & Defense.
9:30 a.m. Blair will hop over to national defense HQ to welcome his Latvian counterpart ANDRIS SPRŪDS to Ottawa with an honor guard ceremony to kick off their bilateral meeting. | | | | A message from Google:   | | | | | 2024 WATCH | |
PRESSURE IS ON — JOE BIDEN’s election-year State of the Union address is set for 9 p.m. tonight, with the heat cranked way up.
A crucial U.S. aid package to Ukraine is still jammed up in Congress and he’s likely to push one more time for that funding. He’ll have to demonstrate he’s in shape to serve another term after a special counsel’s report raised questions about his age and memory. And it would be a shocker if IVF didn’t make an appearance as a wedge issue. Watch for: How Biden decides to leverage the moment politically to draw contrasts as he faces down round two with DONALD TRUMP — the first presidential rematch in nearly 70 years. — It’s final: NIKKI HALEY is out. That leaves Trump waiting down the clock to collect his crown as GOP nominee after sweeping Super Tuesday and dominating this year’s primaries. POLITICO’s Natalie Allison reports how Haley chose to exit the race, including her refusal to endorse Trump by opting to instead call on him to “earn the votes” of those who did not support him. Trump seized the momentto take a parting shot: “Nikki Haley got TROUNCED last night, in record setting fashion.” — Last-minute endorsement: MITCH MCCONNELL said Wednesday he’s backing Trump for president. As POLITICO’s Burgess Everett tells us, it marks an end of sorts to their frosty feud. McConnell hadn’t spoken to him for three years since Trump tried to overturn his 2020 loss. Trump tried to oust McConnell as GOP leader after the midterms in 2022. The two still need each other: “McConnell is trying to take back the Senate majority for Republicans at the end of the year, while Trump is trying to win many of the same battleground states that are contested in the battle for the chamber.” | | MEDIA ROOM | |
— The government needs more time to mull potential changes to the Emergencies Act “because it’s complicated,” says Public Safety Minister DOMINIC LEBLANC. CBC News’ CATHARINE TUNNEY has the details. — STEPHANIE LEVITZ reports for the Toronto Sta r that Tory MPs got a mouthful from Ukrainians during an Etobicoke town hall last month about the party being M.I.A. on Ukraine. — The Western Producer’s ED WHITE reports from the Canadian Crops Convention that GT&Co’s STEVE VERHEUL said the international trading order is “fraying” and putting Canada on a bad path. — In Policy Magazine, BRIAN MULRONEY’s former official photographer BILL MCCARTHY shares some memorable snaps from the late PM’s tenure in office. — DAVID PUGLIESEreports for the Ottawa Citizen that the Navy’s Arctic and offshore patrol ships are prone to — slight problem — severe flooding. — IRPP’s JENNIFER DITCHBURN sits down with Sen. KIM PATE on the "Policy Options" pod to talk about Bill S-233 that sets out a framework for a guaranteed basic income. | | PLAYBOOKERS | |
Birthdays: Former NDP MP MYLÈNE FREEMAN celebrates today, as does former Alberta Premier ALISON REDFORD.
Send birthdays to ottawaplaybook@politico.com. Spotted: An event notice for PIERRE POILIEVRE's March 12 fundraiser at Sláinte, a whisky piano bar in St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador … Energy and Natural Resources Minister JONATHAN WILKINSON signing a memorandum of understanding on critical minerals and metals with Chilean Mining Minister AURORA WILLIAMS. Crestview’s JULIAN OVENS and KAREN RESTOULE on a critical minerals panel at the PDAC convention in Toronto. Movers and shakers: Moosehead's ANDREW OLAND is the new chair of Beer Canada's board of directors. | | PROZONE | |
Our latest policy newsletter for Pro subscribers from KYLE DUGGAN: Macklem still not showing his cards.
In other headlines for Pros: — 4 ways the EU’s Digital Markets Act is changing your tech. — EU to log electric car imports from China in subsidy probe. — SEC signs off on landmark climate rule as legal backlash looms. — Biden issues executive order to expand federal apprenticeships. — Podesta pledges to build on Kerry's push for international climate action. | | ON THE HILL | |
→ Find House committees here.
→ Keep track of Senate committees here. The House and Senate are on a constituency break until March 18. 9 a.m. The Parliamentary Budget Officer will post a report on the government’s spending plans and latest main estimates on its website. 10 a.m. PSPC Deputy Minister ARIANNE REZA will appear at the Commons public accounts committee for its study of the audit of the ArriveCan mobile app. | | | TRIVIA | | |
Wednesday’s answer: A belated HBD to the City of Toronto, which celebrated its 190th birthday yesterday.
Props to Bob GORDON, SUSIE HEATH, JOHN ECKER, MARCEL MARCOTTE, NANCI WAUGH, CHRIS RANDS, MATT DELISLE, GEORGE YOUNG, SARA MAY, ANTHONY VALENTI, CAMERON PENNER, GERMAINE MALABRE, JIM CAMPBELL, ROBERT MCDOUGALL, JOHN DILLON, NICK CHAN, GANGA WIGNARAJAH, KEN FAULKNER, RYAN CABRAL and GWENDOLYN MONCRIEFF-GOULD. Today’s question: How many federal parties registered with Elections Canada for the 2019 campaign? Send your answer to ottawaplaybook@politico.com Want to grab the attention of movers and shakers on Parliament Hill? Want your brand in front of a key audience of Ottawa influencers? Playbook can help. Contact Jesse Shapiro to find out how: jshapiro@politico.com Playbook wouldn’t happen without: POLITICO Canada editor Sue Allan, editor Willa Plank and Luiza Ch. Savage. | | | | Follow us on Twitter | | | | Subscribe to the POLITICO Playbook family Playbook | Playbook PM | California Playbook | Florida Playbook | Illinois Playbook | Massachusetts Playbook | New Jersey Playbook | New York Playbook | Ottawa Playbook | Brussels Playbook | London Playbook View all our political and policy newsletters | | Follow us | | | | |
