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politics briefing newsletter

Good morning,

While you’ve been sleeping, MPs have been voting. And voting. And voting. And...

The Conservatives forced another all-night sitting of the House to protest what they say is unclear costing around the Liberals’ carbon-pricing plan.

Meanwhile, in the Senate, senators passed the Liberals’ budget bill -- which contains the carbon policy -- without amendment or a standing vote.

One fun fact about overnight filibusters: until the House adjourns, it’s technically still Thursday.

This is the daily Politics Briefing newsletter, written by Chris Hannay in Ottawa and James Keller in Vancouver. If you’re reading this on the web or someone forwarded this email newsletter to you, you can sign up for Politics Briefing and all Globe newsletters here. Have any feedback? Let us know what you think.

TODAY’S HEADLINES

The House of Commons and Senate will not move into their new chambers until January, 2019. The internal boards of both places made the decision yesterday. The move was delayed from this summer over concerns that technology and security upgrades were not yet in place.

A Senate standing committee is calling on the Liberal government to improve how it monitors whether Canadian-made military goods are being employed to abuse human rights after they’re exported to foreign countries. A report from the standing Senate committee on human rights‘ follows an investigation by Global Affairs into the deployment of Canadian-made combat vehicles against minority Shia residents in eastern Saudi Arabia.

The federal government has ordered the telecom regulator -- the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) -- to probe the aggressive sales tactics of Canada’s biggest operators.

The public service executives who oversaw the Phoenix debacle did not lose their jobs, the Public Services deputy minister says. Two of them still work for the department, while the third retired.

The ethics commissioner says MPs are not to tell the media when they file complaints with his office.

Former Parliament Hill staffers say they were only given a day’s notice by a Senate committee to testify about their experience with workplace harassment. “Really [it felt like] they’re paying lip service, that they want to jam as many people into a single hour and then they can tick the box and say that they’ve heard from women and then they’ll go on to the people who really matter,” Lauren Dobson-Hughes told iPolitics.

Uber is making a new pitch to governments as it responds to efforts to regulate ride-hailing businesses, casting the company’s platform as an opportunity to revolutionize transportation across multiple services — from bikes to taxis to public transit. The company has been lobbying the British Columbia government, which is expected to announce soon how it will approach Uber and similar services.

Nunavut’s premier has been defeated in a non-confidence motion following controversies related to government spending and his leadership. Paul Quassa was defeated after just seven months on the job and replaced by MLA Joe Savikataaq.

Civil liberties and First Nations groups have filed a formal complaint over the Vancouver Police Department’s use of street checks, or carding, following a Globe and Mail report that found Indigenous and black people have been disproportionately targeted.

And Tom Mulcair has delivered his last speech in the House of Commons. “ We have a lot more in common than anything that divides,” he told his fellow MPs.

Chrystia Freeland (The Globe and Mail) on Canada-U.S. relations: “We share the world’s longest undefended border. Our soldiers have fought and died alongside yours in the First World War, in the Second World War, in Korea, in Afghanistan, and in Iraq. The idea that we could pose a national-security threat to you is more than absurd – it is hurtful.”

David Jacobson (The Globe and Mail) on a looming trade war: “While economists can argue about whether NAFTA supports eight or nine or 12 million jobs in the U.S., it is clearly enormously beneficial to our economy and to the jobs Americans depend on. That’s why most representatives of the United States business community, from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce (on whose board I sit), the Business Roundtable and the overwhelming majority of American CEOs support NAFTA with some modernization, oppose tariffs and stand against the possibility of a trade war.”

Preston Manning (The Globe and Mail) on Trudeau’s energy policies: “It was George Santayana who observed that those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it. The current gyrations of the Trudeau government on the energy/environment front may well provide further proof of the truth of that statement.”

Susan Wagner-White (CBC) on plastic-straw bans: “ These are people who rely on using plastic straws on a daily basis — people like myself, a Canadian thalidomide survivor born with essentially no arms, for whom holding any cup or glass is virtually impossible. Experience has shown me that a bendable straw is the only safe method. “

John Ivison (National Post) on the feud between auditor and public servant: “[PCO Clerk Michael] Wernick is clearly frustrated that the failures of the bureaucracy are placed under a microscope, while its successes are ignored. Public Services and Procurement, the department at the heart of the Phoenix pay mess, is the same one that is delivering the parliamentary precinct renovation on time and on budget, he said.”

Globe and Mail Editorial Board on B.C.’s child-welfare system: “There are few things a government can do that is more irresponsible than failing to heed dire warnings about threats to the children in its care. And yet in British Columbia, such warnings have been repeatedly ignored, and a bad situation has been left to deteriorate further by a government that sometimes seems to be unaware there is even a problem.”

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