Politics This Morning: I like your Seoul, baby

Good Friday morning, A visit from Korean President YOON SUK YEOL will keep things lively in Ottawa today. He’ll be received at the Ottawa Airport by a welcoming party that includes Diversity Minister AHMED HUSSEN, Treasury Board President MONA FORTIER, as well as Global Affairs’ chief protocol officer, STEWART WHEELER, South Korea’s top diplomat in Canada, and the president of a local Korean community association. Fortier will accompany President Yoon to the National War Memorial for a short ceremony. Roughly 26,000 Canadian troops fought to keep communists from wresting control of South Korea during the Korean war, and 516 died. Governor General MARY SIMON will take the next leg of the carefully choreographed visit, meeting with Yoon at Rideau Hall. Then, it’s on to lunch with Prime Minister JUSTIN TRUDEAU in the nearby Canadian Government Guest House—the spouses of the president, PM, and GG will be participating in all of this, it’s worth noting—and a photo-op on Parliament Hill. At 2 p.m., the PM and president will hold a proper bilateral meeting, which will include a collection of Korean officials, and on the Canadian side, Foreign Minister MÉLANIE JOLY, Industry Minister FRANÇOIS-PHILIPPE CHAMPAGNE, Canada’s top envoy to Korea, TAMARA MAWHINNEY, and a short list of senior public servants and PMO staffers. Interestingly, none of Minister Joly’s staff were listed on the itinerary for the meeting. After the meeting, the PM and president will hold a joint press conference, and then Yoon Suk Yeol will head to the airport and fly home. Also interestingly, this will be President Yoon’s first official visit to another country (not countering multilateral engagements) since he won power in March. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will face the press alongside South Korea's president at 3:30 p.m. today. The Hill Times photograph by Andrew Meade Canada and Korea are allies and trading partners, of course. Still, it’s hard to imagine a Korean leader striding into office post-election and thinking, “first thing’s first: where do things stand with Canada?” Then again, things have been a bit tense with neighbouring Japan, and Yoon’s Korea is perceived by some to be walking a tightrope between China and the United States (and that recent hot mic incident may not have helped the latter.) Plus, Yoon was in the neighbourhood, attending international events in New York, and who could get upset about a visit to Canada? As for what he'll want to talk about, the South Korean leader told The Globe and Mail that his country is “keenly interested in securing more liquified natural gas suppliers through the construction of LNG facilities on Canada’s West Coast.” What’s cabinet up to? While her cabinet colleagues are engaged with President Yoon, Families Minister KARINA GOULD will be in Burnaby, B.C., where she will make an announcement related to child care subsidies alongside B.C. Minister JENNIFER WHITESIDE at 10:30 a.m. local time. Indigenous Services Minister PATTY HAJDU and Mental Health Minister CAROLYN BENNETT are in Toronto today, where they will deliver the opening and closing remarks at a national summit on Indigenous mental wellness. In Parliament MPs are scheduled to spend this morning debating the government’s dental care and housing payout bill, C-31, then move on to its bill to temporarily double the GST credit, C-30, after Question Period. That’s the same schedule MPs followed yesterday, perhaps a sign that Government House Leader MARK HOLLAND is aiming to push both of the government's “affordability”-themed bills through Parliament on the same timeline. The Senate is not sitting today. In committee The joint committee on Medical Assistance in Dying is meeting at 8:45 a.m.. The committee will hear from physicians, psychiatrists, and advocates for assisted dying. Three House committees are holding public meetings today, all at 1 p.m. The Environment Committee is hearing from a collection of industry groups as part of its study of clean technologies. The International Trade Committee is interviewing agricultural groups for its study of business opportunities in the “Indo-Pacific.” Finally, the Heritage Committee is meeting to begin its study of government Bill C-18, which proposes to effectively force social media platforms to negotiate payments to news outlets in exchange for the right to allow users to post news stories on those platforms. Tomorrow’s witnesses include JAMIE IRVING, the chair of Postmedia, head of industry lobby group News Media Canada, and grandson of Atlantic media baron JAMES IRVING; MICHAEL GEIST, the University of Ottawa’s Canada Research Chair in internet and e-commerce law; JEN GERSON and DAVID SKOK, each of whom founded independent news businesses, and others. Liberal MP Hedy Fry chairs the House Heritage Committee, which is meeting today to begin its study of government Bill C-18. The Hill Times file photograph by Jake Wright What else is happening today? A group of medical doctors associated with the Canadian Tourism and Travel Roundtable will hold a press conference in the Shaw Centre at 11:30 a.m. to mark the release of a report examining the effectiveness of the government’s pandemic border and travel restrictions. The media advisory announcing the press conference gave the game away, so to speak, by promising that the report would “declare federal government travel restrictions ineffective at protecting Canadians from COVID-19 spread.” The Canadian Tourism and Travel Roundtable counts as its members Canadian airlines, tourism associations, hotels, and businesses like casinos and zoos that rely on tourism. It would therefore be rather shocking if the doctors responsible for drawing up the report gave the government’s policies a thumb’s up. That said, public health experts have been warning since early in the pandemic that closing Canada’s borders didn’t really make much sense, since (a) the border could never really be entirely closed—essential goods had to be imported, citizens had a right to come and go—and (b) COVID was already running rampant throughout Canada for much of the time the border was clamped, supposedly to keep COVID out. The government officially dropped its remaining pandemic-related border restrictions yesterday. In the news Disabilities Minister CARLA QUALTROUGH cast the introduction of her new bill to create a Canada Disability Benefit as a landmark akin to the creation of the Guaranteed Income Supplement for seniors. Almost all of the relevant details, however, have yet to be determined. KEVIN PHILIPUPILLAI reports. In case you missed it PBO reports on bank taxes released The office of Parliamentary Budget Officer YVES GIROUX issued two reports yesterday on the Trudeau government’s plans to impose new taxes on banks and life insurance companies. You can read them here and here. Long story short, the PBO expects the proposed one-time tax grab to claw in $3-billion for the public purse, and the new permanent tax to bring in $2.3-billion over five years. Send your news tips to pmazereeuw@hilltimes.com Correction: An earlier version of this newsletter incorrectly hyphenated the name of Yoon Suk Yeol. PTM regrets the error. The Hill Times

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Politics This Morning

Politics This Morning: I like your Seoul, baby

Plus, the Heritage Committee begins its study of the online news bill C-18.

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