A view of the Canadian Museum of History is shown in Gatineau, Que., on Tuesday, Oct. 16, 2012.
POLITICS BRIEFING
The Liberal government threw open the doors of the Senate to regular Canadians earlier this year, and it's now working its way through the hundreds of other patronage appointments it can give out. (Michael Wernick, clerk of the Privy Council, hinted as much to The Globe in his first public interview earlier this year.)
Now the Liberals have gotten to another important institution: our national museums. The government is "calling on Canadians" to apply for dozens of positions on the boards of Museum of History, the Museum of Human Rights and others. Trustee positions, for instance, pay annual retainers of a few thousand dollars and a few hundred dollars for per diems (you'll work about 15 to 20 days a year, the postings warn). And you're expected to be bilingual.
WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW THIS MORNING
> The federal Liberals have many looming pipeline decisions to make, and they will make calls on Enbridge's Northern Gateway pipeline (across northern B.C.) and Line 3 (from Edmonton to Wisconsin) in the coming days.
> Canadian softwood lumber producers are getting ready for a costly trade war after a quiet decade.
> Your long read for lunch time: The Globe's Robert Fife and Steven Chase investigate the Wealth One Bank of Canada, which targets Chinese Canadians, and the murky past of its founder.
> Experts urge Canada not to leave Mexico behind when discussing North American free trade with the new Trump administration. "The election of Donald Trump is proving, at least in the short term, as disruptive to Canada-U.S. relations and Canada-Mexico relations as 9/11," former diplomat Colin Robertson said.
> Liberals have introduced a bill to reverse many of the changes in the former Conservative government's Fair Elections Act, but the committee studying electoral reform is set to recommend that any big changes be put to a referendum, CTV reports.
> Former Conservative MP and cabinet minister Chuck Strahl has quit the board of the Trudeau Foundation. He says he was being used as a "foil" by the Liberals, under fire for donations the organization had recently received.
> Some serious secrecy in the defence department: More than 200 civil servants working on replacing Canada's fleet of fighter jets are being told to sign gag orders for life.
> Following in the tradition of presidents and prime ministers, B.C. Premier Christy Clark has a new official photographer: the award-winning, former Globe and Mail chronicler John Lehmann. (His salary is to be paid by the party, not by government.)
> 24 Sussex may cost more empty than full.
> Vice tries to figure out what an "elite" is.
> And a revealing interview with Danielle Campbell, who broke some glass ceilings at the Edmonton Police Service, on her long career. "Police agencies need to reflect the communities that they serve and our service still has yet to reflect that," she told the Edmonton Journal.
WHAT EVERYONE'S TALKING ABOUT
Globe and Mail editorial board: "The Fair Elections Act, which we named the worst legislation of 2014, was one of the low points of Stephen Harper's government. … So fierce was the backlash – from the opposition, the Senate and a wide cross-section of the Canadian public – that, before the bill passed, the Harper government backed down and struck some of the most offensive proposals from the law. But not all. Now the Trudeau government plans to finish the job."
Yves Boisvert (Globe and Mail): "Can a city challenge the religious rights of a minority in a referendum? The mayor of the bourgeois Outremont borough in Montreal sees no problem with that. Last week, citizens of a small portion of the borough were asked if they support the ban of new 'places of worship' on a commercial street. The majority voted to uphold the ban. In theory, the prohibition targets all religions. But its effect is to prevent the construction of a new synagogue for the Jewish ultraorthodox Hasidic community."
Vafa Akhavan (Globe and Mail): "There is only one problem with diversity and inclusivity in the boardrooms and executive levels of Corporate Canada: There isn't any. In the relative context of our knowledge and capacity we could – and should – be much further ahead."
Gary Mason (Globe and Mail): "I understand that lines can be crossed; jokes, sometimes in the form of costumes, fall flat or are just plain offensive. At the same time, I think we need to be extremely careful about making a distinct connection between what we witnessed at Queen's – or Bowdoin College before it – and overt racism."
Vicky Mochama (Metro): "For those of us who are the recipients of it, racism is simply the most apt and specific way to describe the events in our lives. But its directness scares people. Whiteness is so fragile that an accurate description is too much to bear. So instead of calling a racist by name, we've developed language that distances individual people from racist acts. … This is how young privileged students at Queen's University come to believe that their party does no harm. "
Ashley Csanady (National Post): "It's as if a whole swath of people are finally realizing that the act of believing women when they accuse somebody of assault or harassment isn't as simplistic as a hashtag. It's complex, especially when the accused is someone close to you. Someone you respect."
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Compiled by Chris Hannay. Edited by Steven Proceviat.