Housefather's spring of discontent

May 02, 2024

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In today's edition:

→ ANTHONY HOUSEFATHER checks in after a loooooong few weeks.

→ Party fundraising numbers are out. Rinse and repeat the usual tale.

→ World Press Freedom Canada honors this year's boldest in the biz.

DRIVING THE DAY

Liberal MP for Mount Royal Anthony Housefather speaks with reporters as he makes his way to Question Period earlier this spring.

MP Anthony Housefather on the Hill earlier this spring. | Adrian Wyld, The Canadian Press

MOUNT ROYAL'S MAN — It's been a month for ANTHONY HOUSEFATHER, the three-term Liberal MP from Montreal who seriously considered a floor-crossing that would have rocked Ottawa and made JUSTIN TRUDEAU's government very, very uncomfortable.

Housefather, an outspoken Jewish MP in a time of alarming antisemitism in Canada, kept his talents with the Liberals — an anticlimactic conclusion, but not a boring one.

— This week's backdrop: Tensions are rising at the campus nearest Housefather's riding.

Organizers of a six-day-old encampment at McGill University have said they'll only pull up stakes if the school divests from companies that do business with Israel. On Wednesday, a judge struck down a request for an injunction to disband the encampment.

Housefather has urged the university, and police, to ensure students' safety.

The University of Toronto has warned students against similar gatherings. "Unauthorized activities such as encampments or the occupation of university buildings are considered trespassing,” read a Sunday letter from a senior university administrator.

→ South of the border: New York City police arrested hundreds of demonstrators at Columbia University and City College of New York on Tuesday night. Police also reacted to violent skirmishes between pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian protesters at UCLA. The New York Times reported protest-related arrests at more than two dozen campuses since April 18.

— A spring to remember: On Wednesday, Housefather took his seat in the Commons just like any other day. He sat through question period, quietly applauding Trudeau's responses to pointed questions from PIERRE POILIEVRE.

But he occupies an extraordinary space at this moment in Canadian politics.

His constituents constantly alert him to antisemitic behavior the likes of which he's never witnessed. On March 18, he voted against a non-binding NDP motion on Israeli-Palestinian affairs that only two other Liberals opposed. He left the chamber that evening feeling jilted by his party's commitment to Israel's security, and unsure of his future in its caucus.

"There was a successive series of decisions made with respect to Israel where I was on the losing side," he told Playbook last week.

When we got on the horn with Housefather, he was worn down by events — but talkative, as ever, in a 45-minute call about his efforts to navigate it all.

— Coming soon: The MP has championed a House justice committee study on antisemitism focused on campuses. He expects that work to get underway in the near future.

— New responsibilities: When Housefather reaffirmed his Liberal allegiance in a statement last month, he said Trudeau asked him to work with DEBORAH LYONS, the federal envoy for combating antisemitism, on "concrete actions to make the Jewish community feel safe across Canada."

That work is still in its early stages. Housefather and Lyons met Wednesday, the first day of Jewish Heritage Month.

ALTERNATE TIMELINES — Housefather considered at least two other options following the dramatic House vote. He could've sat as an independent in the far corner of the House, beside partisan castaways KEVIN VUONG and ALAIN RAYES.

He also could've joined PIERRE POILIEVRE's Conservatives — which, in Housefather's telling, wouldn't have been such a wild idea.

"Political parties are not black and white. [The Liberal] party is not perfect, and it's not horrible. Political parties are creatures of an amalgam of people and amalgam of values," he tells Playbook. "I just don't believe that other parties are inherently evil or inherently good."

→ Translation: A floor-crossing was an active conversation. Whispering Conservatives agree those talks were serious, adding that Housefather even put conditions on the table. But all that chatter led him back to the Liberals, which he hopes to pull toward his worldview.

"One day," he tells us, "maybe I'll be on the winning side of more decisions."

→ Sharpening knives: Expect Conservatives to flood Mount Royal with resources in the next election in a bid to harness anti-Liberal sentiment. The Tories came within 2,260 votes of winning the seat when STEPHEN HARPER swept to a majority government in 2011.

A message from Spotify:

As the CRTC consults on the implementation of the Online Streaming Act, the Canadian music industry faces a fundamental question: whose music counts as Canadian? This comes at a time when Canadian and Indigenous artists are finding success on streaming platforms including Spotify like never before. Last year, Canadian artists were discovered on Spotify by first-time listeners more than 3.8 billion times and generated royalties exceeding $435 million. Learn more.

Where the leaders are

— Prime Minister JUSTIN TRUDEAU will participate in the Intergovernmental Leaders’ Forum, which will "focus on strengthening relationships with Self-Governing and Modern Treaty Partners from across the country." That's 8:40 a.m. on his itinerary.

— Deputy PM CHRYSTIA FREELAND will speak remotely at a 9 a.m. Chatham House event on "repurposing frozen Russian central bank assets."

— Conservative Leader PIERRE POILIEVRE hosts a 6:30 p.m. fundraiser at Wine Academy, a member-only social club in Toronto's financial district.

— Green Party Leader ELIZABETH MAY starts the day in Ottawa, where she'll sit in the House, before heading home to her riding.

DULY NOTED

— Ontario voters cast ballots in two provincial byelections. The race in Milton is expected to be close. The Liberal candidate is GALEN NAIDOO HARRIS, the son of a former MPP. ZEE HAMID, a local city councilor and former Liberal, is running for the Progressive Conservatives. Voters also elect a new MPP in Lambton-Kent-Middlesex.

— Day 2 of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce's "North American Economic Security Mission" in Washington features a "private morning session" with Future Borders Coalition executive director LAURA DAWSON, Brookings Institution senior fellow JOSH MELTZER, and "senior American political staffers from both sides of the aisle."

The chamber also co-hosts an afternoon event, “North American Economic Security in an Era of Geopolitical Uncertainty”, alongside the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Speakers include KIRSTEN HILLMAN, PETER MACKAY, former Mexican ambo to the U.S. GERÓNIMO GUTIÉRREZ, and former U.S. trade rep RONALD KIRK.

— Trade Minister MARY NG welcomes Singapore Trade and Industry Minister GAN KIM YONG to Ottawa.

— Governor General MARY SIMON will invest 13 officers and 52 members into the Order of Canada during a Rideau Hall ceremony.

8:45 a.m. It's an early start for Bank of Canada Governor TIFF MACKLEM and Senior Deputy Governor CAROLYN ROGERS. They'll pay a visit to the House finance committee.

For your radar

PATTERN RECOGNITION — Anyone who wanted to know which way the NDP would vote on the budget didn’t need to wait until party leader JAGMEET SINGH anticlimactically announced his support ahead of Wednesday's QP.

All signs pointed to bluff, and the freshest clue was sitting right there out in the open on Elections Canada's website before Singh walked up to the mic.

— Key datapoint: Polling analyst ÉRIC GRENIER noticed first: C$1.3 million, the party’s fundraising figure for the first quarter.

A pretty standard result, with no signs the NDP is revving up the election engines.

The party's fundraising emails last quarter covered subjects like election readiness, policy wins and a contest for an expenses-paid trip to Ottawa where Singh would take a supporter and their friend to his favorite ice cream shop. (Playbook’s guess: Moo Shu Ice Cream. Dippers, are we warm or cold? Let us know.)

At the end of the year's first quarter, one such email included an urgent appeal for cash as “media, pundits, and people across the country will use our end-of-quarter fundraising numbers to measure our strength against the Conservatives.”

— Locked-in: The Conservatives not only continue to dominate, but are still improving their quarterly haul. The party eclipsed all others, netting C$10.7 million — more than three times the governing Liberals.

The LPC was left behind in the dust, again, at nearly C$3.1 million, another fairly standard Q1. Tory Q1s over the past few years tallied dollars in a range from C$3-8 million.

— Hit me up: Both the Liberals and the Conservatives this week opted to cash in from this week’s wacko antics in the House — an apparently notable boon for the Liberals.

ALSO FOR YOUR RADAR

PRESS FREEDOM — Journalists and some of their biggest supporters on the Hill will gather at the National Arts Centre today for World Press Freedom Canada's annual shindig. The Ottawa-based nonprofit is handing out the following awards.

— Press Freedom Prize: Winnipeg’s MELISSA MARTIN, who reported from Ukraine "under the constant threat to her own safety to provide factual and vivid articles."

— Career Achievement Award: The Globe and Mail's ROBYN DOOLITTLE, who "for many years has been one of Canada’s most tenacious and impactful investigative reporters."

— WPFC Student Achievement Award: L'Université du Québec à Montréal student journos CHARLES SÉGUIN and NAOMIE DUCKETT-ZAMOR, who "faced threats and the theft of newspapers designed to thwart their coverage but carried on."

— Certificates of merit: Toronto Star’s SARA MOJTEHEDZADEH, the Globe's FRÉDÉRIK-XAVIER DUHAMEL, LighthouseNOW Progress Bulletin's KEITH CORCORAN.

— International Editorial Cartoon Contest: BRUCE MACKINNON, for a cartoon about artificial intelligence. Second place went to Brazil’s DALCIO MACHADO. Third place went to Serbia’s JUGOSLAV VLAHOVIC.

— Lunchtime keynote: MARGARET SULLIVAN, a Guardian columnist and executive director for the Craig Newmark Center for Journalism Ethics and Security at the Columbia Journalism School.

— Spotted at a WPFC soirée Wednesday at the German ambassador’s residence: Heritage Minister PASCALE ST-ONGE; Speaker GREG FERGUS; High commissioners SUSANNAH GOSHKO (U.K.) and SCOTT RYAN (Australia); Estonian Ambassador MARGUS RAVA; Swedish Ambassador SIGNE BURGSTALLER; Danish Ambassador HANNE FUGL ESKJÆR; MARGARET SULLIVAN; HOWARD FREMETH, AMY CASTLE and HEATHER SCOFFIELD of the Business Council of Canada; BEA VONGDOUANGCHANH of Compass Rose; HEATHER BAKKEN and YAROSLAV BARAN of Pendulum Group; Bluesky’s ALYSON FAIR; the NDP’s ANNE MCGRATH; LESLIE DICKSON and STUART BENSON of The Hill Times; ZI-ANN LUM and SUE ALLAN of POLITICO; Edelman’s DAVID RODIER; PAUL GENEST of Power Corporation; MAÉVA PROTEAU and CATHERINE IVKOFF of Global Affairs Canada; journos ELIZABETH THOMPSON, STEPHANIE LEVITZ, DYLAN ROBERTSON, DAVID LJUNGGREN; “retired” journos DON NEWMAN, SHAWN MCCARTHY and GORD MCINTOSH; and DAVID SCHIMPKY and YVES-GÉRARD MÉHOU-LOKO of the UNESCO Canadian Commission.

A message from Spotify:

MEDIA ROOM

— “The scourge of opioid addiction continues to defy simple answers,” AARON WHERRY writes this morning at CBC News. “But all such nuance is in danger of being drowned out by the shouting.”

— File under SEAMUS O'REGAN Headaches of the Future: "North America supply chains imperiled by Canada rail strike vote," via Bloomberg.

— “The agenda is divide and conquer as opposed to build and inspire,” former NDP campaign manager writes on The Hub of JAGMEET SINGH’s failure to inspire millennial and working-class voters.

— Foreign interference was discussed when JONATHAN MANTHORPE joined “The PAUL WELLS Podcast.” The author and foreign correspondent says Canada ought to be most worried about fear and intimidation against members of the Chinese diaspora in Canada.

— POLITICO’s NATALIE ALLISON, ALEX ISENSTADT and BRITTANY GIBSON explain why RFK JR. is quickly becoming a thorn in DONALD TRUMP’s side.

PLAYBOOKERS

Birthdays: HBD to LYNN KREVIAZUK of McMillan Vantage.

Send birthdays to ottawaplaybook@politico.com.

Spotted: Tory MP KAREN VECCHIO, the recently ousted chair of the status of women committee, seated in her new-ish spot on the backest of backbenches … An anticlimactic QP, in which PIERRE POILIEVRE and JUSTIN TRUDEAU quietly asked and answered questions — and their caucuses mostly refrained from heckling.

Tory MP RACHAEL THOMAS, raising an afternoon point of privilege during which she pointed out the curious omission of the words "I withdraw" from Hansard's transcript of Tuesday's raucous events in the House.

Sen. CLAUDE CARIGNAN paying tribute to the late Québécois singer-songwriter JEAN-PIERRE FERLAND: “One of our musical giants is now gone.”

HEATHER MCPHERSON and ALISTAIR MACGREGOR celebrating dual early-May birthdays at Brixtons with colleagues, including ANNE MCGRATH and CAROL HUGHES.

Movers and shakers: Liberal MP PAM DAMOFF announced Wednesday that she will not be seeking reelection. In a message to constituents, the Oakville MP pointed to the “hyper-partisan nature of politics today.” Damoff, who was first elected in 2015, said “the threats and misogyny I have experienced as a member of Parliament are such that I often fear going out in public.”

LESLIE CHURCH, a former chief of staff to CHRYSTIA FREELAND, picked up the Liberal nomination in Toronto-St. Paul’s last night.

Tory MP KYLE SEEBACK, his party’s shadow minister for international trade, has picked up an additional role as shadow minister for labor.

— Sandstone Group welcomes two new hires: senior policy adviser SHANE MCCLOSKEY and senior associate LAURÈL LAURIN.

Media mentions: IRENE GALEA will be a 2024 Arthur F. Burns Fellow with the International Center for Journalists.

PROZONE

Canadian Defense Minister Bill Blair gives a statement to the media.

Defense Minister Bill Blair told an audience Wednesday that he had a heck of a time trying to convince federal government bean counters to hit Canada’s NATO defense-spending commitment. | Sean Gallup/Getty Images

Don’t miss our latest policy newsletter for Pro subscribers from KYLE DUGGAN and SUE ALLAN: Why NATO’s target is a hard sell in Ottawa.

In other headlines for Pros:

— U.S. officials warn of risks to ‘certain groups’ of people amid bird flu outbreak in cows.

— Takeaways from the Democrats’ trove of Big Oil documents.

— Car companies under fire for giving police data without a warrant.

— California electric vehicle sales continue to slow.

— China’s challenge of US export controls appears stalled at WTO.

A message from Spotify:

The CRTC’s current definition of Canadian content designed for radio may be excluding those Canadian artists who work with a global mindset and are increasingly finding success all around the world.

That includes staples by The Weeknd, Celine Dion or Shania Twain and even new hits like greedy by Calgary-born Tate MacRae, which garnered 860 million plays globally and spent four weeks as the world’s most popular song.

All Canadian, right? Maybe not.

That’s because these songs only fulfill some of the CRTC’s criteria which focuses on songs written, performed or produced almost exclusively by Canadians in Canada.

We think that needs to change.

The CRTC must prioritize its work on redefining Canadian and Indigenous content to ensure it reflects the global nature of today’s music industry.

Read more about Spotify’s position and how we are helping Canadian artists grow their audiences globally in our For The Record blog post.

ON THE HILL

→ Find House committees here.

→ Keep track of Senate committees here.

8:15 a.m. The House human resources committee will take Bill C-58 through clause-by-clause study.

8:45 a.m. The House finance committee hosts Bank of Canada Governor TIFF MACKLEM and Senior Deputy Governor CAROLYN ROGERS.

9 a.m. The Senate fisheries and oceans committee will hear from BARRY DARBY and HELEN FORSEY of Changing Course, a fishery research and advocacy initiative.

9 a.m. The Senate committee on internal matters has a meeting on the books, part of it in camera.

9:15 a.m. The Senate energy, environment and natural resources committee gives clause-by-clause consideration to Bill C-266.

11 a.m YOSHUA BENGIO, founder and scientific director of Mila, will be at the House ethics committee as it studies the impact of disinformation and misinformation on parliamentarians. The witness roster also features: BEN NIMMO of OpenAI, JOEL FINKELSTEIN of Network Contagion Research Institute, MARCUS KOLGA of DisinfoWatch and SANJAY KHANNA.

11 a.m. The House agriculture committee will hear from Canada Organic Trade Association, Wild Blueberry Producers Association of Nova Scotia, Canadian Agricultural Human Resource Council, Canadian Federation of Agriculture and the Canadian Mushroom Growers' Association.

11 a.m. The House health committee continues its study of women’s health.

11 a.m. The House committee on science and research returns to its consideration of how Ottawa distributes funds to post-secondary institutes.

11 a.m. Senior officials from Air Canada, Air Transat, WestJet Airlines Ltd. and Flair will be at the House transport committee as it discusses airline competition.

11:30 a.m. Max Bell School of Public Policy Director CHRIS RAGAN will be at the Senate finance committee to discuss Bill S-243. JASON CLARK and PHIL DONELSON of the Insurance Bureau of Canada are also on the witness roster.

11:30 a.m. Canada’s engagement in Africa will be the focus of the Senate’s foreign affairs and international trade committee.

11:45 a.m. The House legal and constitutional affairs committee studies Bill S-15.

3:30 pm. IAN BRODIE is top of the witness roster at the House heritage committee as it takes on Bill C-316.

3:30 p.m. Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development JERRY DEMARCO will be at the House environment committee joined by government officials to discuss his spring audits.

3:30 p.m. The House fisheries and oceans committee continues to study Yukon salmon stocks.

3:30 p.m. The House public accounts committee will launch its three-hour meeting in camera to discuss the auditor general’s report on Covid-19 vaccines. At 5:30 p.m., it will be “open doors” to discuss committee business.

3:30 p.m. Arctic Gateway Group, Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency and Federal Economic Development Agency for Northern Ontario are up in the first hour of the House international trade committee as it studies global supply chains. Canadian Agri-Food Trade Alliance, Canadian International Freight Forwarders Association and PECO Pallet will appear in the meeting’s second half.

TRIVIA

Wednesday’s answer: MICHELLE REMPEL GARNER used the word “fart” in the House.

Props to CAMELLIA PENG, PIERS YOUNG, PETER KATZ, JONAH ROSEN, CHIP SMITH, GWENDOLYN MONCRIEFF-GOULD, KATE DALGLEISH, DIANNE SHERRIN, NANCI WAUGH, BRANDON RABIDEAU, SARA MAY, ROBERT MCDOUGALL, MACKENZY METCALFE, CAMERON RYAN, SHEILA GERVAIS, OWEN CRAWFORD-LEM, JIM CAMPBELL, SABRINA PAYANT SMITH, SHAUGHN MCARTHUR, PAUL TAILLON, MEASAR MUSA, NATI PRESSMANN, DOUG RICE, JOHN ECKER, BRANDON RUSSELL and MARCEL MARCOTTE.

Today’s question: “It had head-spinning rides, fireworks and traffic jams. It had umbrellas, aerobatic jet planes, marching bands, magicians and 107,000 clicks on the turnstiles.” What happened on this day in history?

Send your answer to ottawaplaybook@politico.com

Writing Friday's Playbook: KYLE DUGGAN.

Playbook wouldn’t happen without: POLITICO Canada editor Sue Allan, editor Willa Plank and Luiza Ch. Savage.

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.

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