Trudeau hosts NATO chief

Jun 19, 2024

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In today's edition:

→ What brings JENS STOLTENBERG to town.

→ Canada’s ambassador to China arrives in Xinjiang.

→ What we know about DPM CHRYSTIA FREELAND’s secret working dinner in Washington.

DRIVING THE DAY

Jens Stoltenberg speaks during a press conference.

Jens Stoltenberg is in Ottawa today to receive the NATO Association of Canada’s 2024 Louis St. Laurent award. | Pool photo by Daniel Leal

TODAY’S SPECIAL — NATO Secretary General JENS STOLTENBERG makes a whistle stop in Ottawa today to pick up an award before heading back to Washington.

Props to schedulers who found an opening in the secretary general’s schedule. Stoltenberg has been in and around Capitol Hill since Monday, meeting President JOE BIDEN, members of the Senate foreign relations committee and U.S. Secretary of State ANTONY BLINKEN.

— The window: Today is Juneteenth, a federal holiday in the United States. An opportune opening for a quick flight to Ottawa for a chin wag with Prime Minister JUSTIN TRUDEAU.

Stoltenberg will be on the Hill to receive the NATO Association of Canada’s 2024 Louis St. Laurent award for outstanding service to peace and security.

The prize, named after the late PM who signed the NATO treaty in 1949, confirming Canada’s membership in the military alliance. The prize named in his honor does not have a long history and is a bit obscure.

Past recipients include former prime ministers JEAN CHRÉTIEN, PAUL MARTIN, BRIAN MULRONEY and the NGO’s late director Bulgarian-Canadian billionaire land developer and philanthropist IGNAT KANEFF.

— Doors open: Fingers crossed for working air conditioning in the Sir John A. Macdonald building where Stoltenberg will deliver a speech at 4 p.m. The program also includes a fireside chat with journalist LISA LAFLAMME with a Q&A worked into the schedule.

— Bringing the heat: The secretary general’s one-day visit will once again focus minds on the fact Canada remains a NATO laggard — a tricky reputation to manage heading into next month’s big summit in Washington.

Yes, Trudeau, National Defense Minister BILL BLAIR and Foreign Affairs Minister MÉLANIE JOLY have repeatedly stated Canada’s military spending is increasing. But new NATO numbers this week have Canada’s defense spending estimate at 1.37 percent.

You don’t have to be a numbers nerd like Stoltenberg (who apparently would choose a statistics book as his desert island read) to clock that’s still under NATO’s 2 percent — a target that may move up to 3 percent if DONALD TRUMP returns to the world stage.

Related read from POLITICO’s STUART LAU: Record 23 countries hit NATO spending target.

— Last hurrah: NATO’s Washington summit will be Stoltenberg’s last as secretary general. His term was extended last year and he’s set to wrap up in October before the U.S. election.

Meanwhile, outgoing Dutch prime minister MARK RUTTE is closer to locking the high-profile NATO job. Stoltenberg said as much in Washington Tuesday, pointing to Hungarian Prime Minister VIKTOR ORBÁN’s support for Rutte for a role where Deputy Prime Minister CHRYSTIA FREELAND was once considered a potential contender.

“It’s obvious that we’re very close to a conclusion in the alliance for allies to select the next secretary general,” Stoltenberg said and teased that a decision about his successor will come “very soon.”

— Homework time: The NATO Association of Canada will host U.S. Ambassador to DAVID COHEN for a Thursday virtual discussion on “what’s at stake” with next month’s summit.

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For your radar

SOMETHING ‘DIFFERENT’ — JENNIFER MAY’s visit to Xinjiang today makes her the first Canadian ambassador to visit the western region of China in more than 10 years.

“I’ll take this opportunity to share Canada's concerns with the region’s leaders and to observe conditions on the ground,” May told the special Canada-China committee via videolink this week ahead of her trip.

— Xinjiang notes: Western countries have expressed alarm over the years about Beijing’s treatment of the region’s Uyghur population and Muslim minorities. A United Nations report from 2022 flagged “serious human rights concerns” in the region and asked for investigations into allegations including torture, sexual violence and forced labor.

China has long pushed back against the claims of widespread human rights abuses against Uyghurs, arguing its re-education camps are part of a counter-terrorism program.

— New road ahead: Foreign Affairs Deputy Minister DAVID MORRISON told the same committee this week that Canada’s new “pragmatic diplomacy” doctrine is “becoming effective” in paving a new relationship with Beijing.

“We are on track to a different kind of relationship than we had at the end of the Michaels saga,” he said. “It’s taken some time to put things back together.”

Beijing has sent a new ambassador to Ottawa: WANG DI, a bureaucrat who joined China’s foreign affairs department in 1991. Wang’s career reflects expertise in West Asian and North African affairs cultivated by postings in Algeria, Egypt and Saudi Arabia. He was China’s ambassador to Kuwait between 2015 and 2018.

Since arriving in Ottawa in late May, Wang has been filling his datebook with meetings with Canadian cellist and Music and Beyond festival executive director JULIAN ARMOUR, GAC Assistant Deputy Minister WELDON EPP, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada Assistant Deputy Minister KATHLEEN DONOHUE, University of Ottawa President JACQUES FRÉMONT, Tourism Industry Association of Canada President and CEO BETH POTTER and Ottawa Tourism CEO MICHAEL CROCKATT.

ALSO FOR YOUR RADAR

LOL TRANSPARENCY — Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister CHRYSTIA FREELAND’s office isn’t dishing on her secret dinner in Washington Monday.

Freeland’s itinerary disclosed plans to join a “working dinner with members of the U.S. Administration focused on Canada-U.S. economic co-operation.” Pretty vague.

Naturally, we had questions.

Washington’s a long way to go for a dinner on the public’s dime, so Playbook made calls to the DPM’s office for details about who Canada’s No. 2 leader met with to merit such an expense.

If they get back to us, we'll share the details in a future Playbook.

Are you CHRYSTIA FREELAND or one of her Monday dinner dining companions? We want to hear some dinner table details. Email ottawaplaybook@politico.com.

Where the leaders are

— Prime Minister JUSTIN TRUDEAU has plans to be at caucus and Question Period before hosting a dinner honoring Stoltenberg in the evening.

— Deputy PM CHRYSTIA FREELAND will be at caucus and has private meetings on her schedule.

— Conservative Leader PIERRE POILIEVRE will hold a 7 p.m. rally at the Hellenic Community Center in Montreal’s Park Ex neighborhood where the rallying cry is not “Axe the Tax,” but rather “Let’s Bring Back Common Sense.”

— Bloc Leader YVES-FRANÇOIS BLANCHET and his party’s house leader ALAIN THERRIEN will hold an 11 a.m. end-of-session press conference in Room 310 of the Wellington Building.

— NDP Leader JAGMEET SINGH has a 9:30 a.m. date with caucus and plans to attend Question Period in the afternoon.

— Green Party Leader ELIZABETH MAY has a caucus meeting in the Confederation building and has plans to get another fix of Question Period before summer.

DULY NOTED

— It’s caucus day on the Hill.

1 p.m. The Canadian Association of Feminist Parliamentarians co-chairs, NDP MP LINDSAY MATHYSSEN and Sen. MARILOU MCPHEDRAN, will hold a press conference in West Block to draw attention to a new parliamentary pledge to end harassment and workplace toxicity on the Hill.

1:30 p.m. Environment and Climate Change Canada along with Health Canada officials will hold a briefing about heat wave conditions in Ontario, Quebec and Atlantic provinces.

4 p.m. JENS STOLTENBERG will deliver remarks at a NATO Association of Canada event in Room 200 of the Sir John A. Macdonald Building.

4 p.m. Minister of Fisheries and Oceans DIANE LEBOUTHILLIER will be in the National Press Theatre to make an announcement about wild Pacific salmon protection — days after unnamed sources leaked the news to the Globe’s BOB FIFE. At 4:15 p.m. (1:15 p.m. PT) Natural Resources Minister JONATHAN WILKINSON is scheduled to speak on the same issue in Vancouver.

A message from Canadian Dental Association:

MEDIA ROOM

Britain's Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, with his wife Akshata Murty and children Krishna (2L) and Anoushka (2R), pose for a photograph whilst on holiday, at Santa Monica Pier in Santa Monica, California on August 3, 2023. (Photo by Emma McIntyre / POOL / AFP) (Photo by EMMA MCINTYRE/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)

Britain's Rishi Sunak and his family on the Santa Monica Pier in California. | POOL/AFP via Getty Images

— Top of POLITICO this morning: EMILY SCHULTHEIS reports that RISHI SUNAK’s California ties and $7.2 million beach home are fueling speculation about where he could land if he winds up out of office.

— Just published via the Globe’s BOB FIFE and STEVE CHASE: Human rights activists have raised concerns about two senators’ alleged ties to Beijing.

— New from AARON WHERRY of CBC News: The capital gains debate has turned dramatic and mysterious. “Will Canadians buy the equity argument, or Poilievre's vague promise of tax reform?”

— National Post reports that airplane food cost more than $220K on Trudeau's Indo-Pacific trip.

— The Star’s ROSIE DIMANNO has weighed in on foreign interference. “Justin Trudeau is a witless for the prosecution,” she said in a column advocating for the naming of names.

— TONDA MACCHARLES and ROBERT BENZIE report on the PBO’s latest study. The headline: “Canada’s EV strategy will cost C$6B more than announced.”

— “Behind the standard cynicism about politics is a wish to reclaim and reinvigorate it, to have it work better. Now we experience a cynicism defined at its core by rejection, the repudiation of politics as a democratic value,” BOB BAUER, President JOE BIDEN’s personal attorney, writes in The Atlantic.

PROZONE

Our latest policy newsletter for Pro subscribers by KYLE DUGGAN: Could Canada even hit 2 percent?

In other news for Pro readers:

— U.S.-South Korea defense trade pact delayed amid ‘Buy American’ concerns.

— Canada touts ‘a different kind of relationship’ with China.

— Hungary and Slovakia back Dutch PM Rutte as NATO’s next chief.

— Biden administration sets labor rules for clean energy tax credits.

— First ocean-based carbon removal plant planned in Canada.

PLAYBOOKERS

Birthdays: HBD to author JOHN RALSTON SAUL and ex-U.K.PM and Canadian beef fan BORIS JOHNSON (60!).

Spotted: MP ZIAD ABOULTAIF using his SO31 for a pre-game pep talk: “Our hopes and dreams, as a nation, now rest with the Edmonton Oilers in their quest to bring the cup home where it belongs,” he told the House. Game 6 goes Friday in Edmonton.

Sens. PETER BOEHM and ROSA GALVEZ with singer-songwriter JIM CUDDY. “You never know who you will meet in the Senate.”

Anishinaabe elder and water-rights activist JOSEPHINE MANDAMIN honored with her Canada Post stamp … Canada’s Chief Public Health Officer THERESA TAM bestowed an honorary doctorate from Carleton University.

French Ambassador MICHEL MIRAILLET conferring Premier Tech President and CEO JEAN BÉLANGER with the insignia of Knight of the National Order of the Legion of Honour, France’s highest distinction.

The Hub’s SEAN SPEER and Public Policy Forum CEO ED GREENSPON in New Hampshire checking out the Mount Washington Hotel “where the Bretton Woods agreement was negotiated.”

Movers and shakers: In Toronto, Navigator has added LIANNE GEORGE, former Chatelaine editor and ex-director of lifestyle content for Rogers Publishing, to its team.

GAC’s centre for China policy research director DANIEL HOLTON picked up a Deputy Minister’s Award for “excellence in policy development.”

GAC confirmed to Playbook that JULIE SUNDAY will stay on as assistant deputy minister of consular, security and emergency management until August when TARA DENHAM will move into the job. Sunday was just appointed Canada’s next high commissioner in Australia. GAC has yet to find a backfill for Sunday’s other role as senior official for hostage affairs.

In memoriam: MP KODY BLOIS paid tribute on Tuesday to the life of former MP JOHN MURPHY, who died last week. “He was a man of faith, and when I visited him in his final days, he was not afraid of death,” Blois told the House. “He knew he had lived a good life worth living and was enjoying one of his favourite songs, the Irish tune, ‘Danny Boy.’”

ON THE HILL

→ Find House committees here.

→ Keep track of Senate committees here.

9 a.m. International Development Minister AHMED HUSSEN will deliver opening remarks as host of the Caribbean Development Bank’s 54th annual meeting.

9 a.m. Canadian humanitarian agencies including Islamic Relief Canada, Save the Children and Oxfam Quebec will host a press conference in West Block to call on the government to end the war in Gaza “and prevent further mass atrocities.”

10 a.m. The Canadian Counselling and Psychotherapy Association will hold a press conference in West Block about Bill C-59 and a “significant win” for mental health.

1:30 p.m. The Bank of Canada will release a summary of deliberations that led to its first rate cut in more than four years.

4:30 p.m. The first hour of the House government operations committee will focus on Canada Post’s rural services. At 5:30 p.m. Treasury Board President ANITA ANAND will appear to take questions on Supplementary Estimates.

4:30 p.m. The House committee on Indigenous and northern affairs will be focused on Bill C-61.

6:45 p.m. The Senate national finance committee will consider Supplementary Estimates with help from senior officials representing four departments.

Behind closed doors: The Senate audit and oversight committee will meet at 1:30 p.m.

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TRIVIA

Tuesday’s answer: Formal federal Cabinet records were first kept by the Privy Council Office in 1944.

Props to BOB GORDON and ROBERT MCDOUGALL.

Wednesday’s question: When does Canada celebrate Emancipation Day?

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