Politics This Morning: Biden in the House

Good Friday morning, U.S. President JOE BIDEN’s visit has derailed the business of the House, and the Senate doesn’t sit on Fridays, so there won’t be any lawmaking in Ottawa today. Prime Minister JUSTIN TRUDEAU will greet Biden when he arrives on the Hill today around 11 a.m., then introduce him to the rest of the official welcoming party, which is scheduled to include the speakers of both Chambers, the leaders of the opposition parties, top clerks and parliamentary officials, and a handful of Senate leaders. Biden and Trudeau will have a 25-minute private meeting in the PM’s office in West Block, then the two will head to the cabinet meeting room to bring a collection of ministers into the meeting. You know well by now the priority bilateral issues: Haiti, Ukraine/Russia, China, mining and green energy, and border migration. Not to mention perennial trade disputes over softwood lumber and dairy protections, and politicking over pipelines. Biden will deliver a speech to the House shortly before 2 p.m., then he’ll hold a joint press conference with the PM in the Sir John A. Macdonald Building at 3:45 p.m. The two leaders, cabinet ministers, and a few hundred VIPs will attend a formal dinner tonight held in Biden’s honour at the Aviation and Space Museum. First Lady JILL BIDEN and SOPHIE GREGOIRE TRUDEAU have their own joint agenda. In addition to attending the state dinner, the two women will visit a local curling club and hold a public discussion about youth mental health today, and take in an exhibit celebrating Canadian women artists at the embattled National Gallery of Canada. Sophie-Gregoire Trudeau will visit an Ottawa curling club with First Lady Jill Biden in a publicized event today. The Hill Times photograph by Cynthia Münster The Bidens will jet back to their family home in Delaware following the dinner tonight. Feds post want ad for trade lawyers The government is looking for veteran trade lawyers to include on a roster of names that it can draw upon if it runs into a trade dispute with the UK. Under the “trade continuity” agreement struck between the two countries post-BREXIT, trade disputes go through a process that can include the use of arbitration panels, in which trade lawyers from each country, and a few from neither, help to settle the matter. Canada’s government appealed for trade lawyers to put their name into the mix in a recent issue of the Canada Gazette. Legislation corner The government introduced two new bills into the House of Commons this week. Bill C-42 bears the forgettable name, An Act to amend the Canada Business Corporations Act and to make consequential and related amendments to other Acts. C-42 is essentially an anti-money laundering bill. It builds on a process that the government has been working on for years, and promises the Liberals made in both their 2019 and 2021 election platforms: creating a beneficial ownership registry for federally-incorporated businesses, to make it easier for authorities to track the movement of money in and around the country. Canada has long been described as a popular and easy target for money laundering by criminal organizations at home and from abroad. C-42 requires that some limited information about corporate owners be made public, including their name, date of birth, address, and citizenship. However, it also creates a series of exemptions that allow some owners to keep their identity hidden from the public. That includes if the owner is under the age of 18, or if the director of the company in question deems that the owner is “incapable” of providing the relevant information, or that making public the information would “present a serious threat to the safety of the individual.” It also creates an exemption for public office holders who are divesting assets in order to avoid a conflict of interest. Industry Minister FRANÇOIS-PHILIPPE CHAMPAGNE is sponsoring the bill. The other new bill, C-45, proposes to give First Nations more authority and flexibility to collect taxes on reserve and manage their financial affairs and the services they provide. It also proposes to create a First Nations Infrastructure Institute, which would be mandated to provide technical support to First Nations that would like help with managing their infrastructure. Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister Marc Miller is sponsoring Bill C-45 in the House. The Hill Times photograph by Sam Garcia In the news A member of the Oxford, Ont., Conservative riding association has filed a complaint with the Commissioner of Canada Elections that alleges that fraudulent members from outside of the riding have been recruited to try to swing the contest. ABBAS RANA reports. IAN CAMPBELL, meanwhile, dove into the NDP perspective on forcing the PM's chief of staff, KATIE TELFORD, to testify before a House committee studying foreign election interference. You can find that story here. And, LAURA RYCKEWAERT has the latest in Hill Climbers news, with the round-up of new press secretaries in the offices of Indigenous Services Minister PATTY HAJDU, Families Minister KARINA GOULD, and Tourism Minister RANDY BOISSONNAULT. Photo of the Day Prime Minister Justin Trudeau greets U.S. President Joe Biden as Sophie Grégoire Trudeau embraces First Lady Jill Biden at Rideau Cottage in Ottawa on March 23, 2023, for Biden's first state visit to Canada. The Hill Times photograph by Andrew Meade In case you missed it Feds, N&L eyeing more wind power The federal agency responsible for environmental impact assessments is working with Newfoundland and Labrador to study the potential impact of new offshore wind farms in the province. The 18-month study is formally known as a “regional assessment.” The idea is to do a broad study now of potential pitfalls to new wind projects in the area, and thereby make it easier to speed through the individual assessments required for those projects if/when they are actually proposed. The government is planning to do the same thing in Nova Scotia, according to yesterday’s press release. Newfoundland and Labrador already produces the vast majority of its electricity sustainably, through hydroelectric plants. A lot of that power is exported to Quebec. It does also operate a large oil-powered generating station that supplies almost a quarter of the electricity that the island actually uses. Just 0.4 per cent of its power came from wind farms in 2019. Across the Gulf of St. Lawrence, Prince Edward Island produces nearly all of its electricity using wind power. Send your news tips to pmazereeuw@hilltimes.com. The Hill Times

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Politics This Morning

Politics This Morning: Biden in the House

Plus, the feds want trade lawyers.

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