Rest assured, though, the King’s 24-hour visit across the Atlantic to read a speech, this time vetted if not written by the Canadian prime minister, is likely no accident.
I think we can assume this classifies as a do-over, and it will be a speech dripping with great lines about the sanctity of Canadian sovereignty.
Thank you, King Charles: give the speech, plant a tree, wave to crowds, inspect a guard of honour, look up to a flypast, and then it’s off for the flight home. We’ll pick up the tab, I’m sure.
As someone who has covered the royals, including Charles, through many a moment since a 1970 visit to Manitoba, I’ve enjoyed every assignment. I quite admire certain members of the family, with Charles’s late mother at the top of the list. She was amazing, and we can only wonder how she would have handled this latest Trump invite issue.
Janet Davison of the CBC has this piece about how unprecedented this trip will be:
Why King Charles's upcoming visit to Canada is unprecedented in many ways
So, ten weeks after Mark Carney was sworn in as Prime Minister, what’s your take on the way he is shaping the office around him?
Well, here’s a view for you to consider. It comes from The Hub’s Joanna Baron:
Joanna Baron: Mark Carney is the prime minister—he should stop acting like a president
What should we expect in the Throne Speech as it outlines the Carney government’s agenda for the parliamentary session ahead?
Lawrence Martin had some thoughts on that in The Globe:
🔒 High expectations are an albatross for Carney. His Throne Speech must lower them
No matter who the prime minister is, he or she can often be judged by the man or woman who stands at their side.
Who determines access. Who monitors the successes or failures of ministers. Who helps assess policy. That person is the PM’s Chief of Staff. Mark Carney has one, but not for much longer and it seems he’s having trouble finding a permanent one.
The Globe’s award-winning Bob Fife focused on that this week:
🔒 Carney unable to find permanent chief of staff after courting high-profile candidates
Just weeks after pulling the Liberal party from a near-death experience in the polls, it’s a bit strange to see that Mark Carney is having problems with a restive caucus.
But when veteran journalists like the Toronto Star’s Susan Delacourt tell you so, you listen up:
If you have been trying to follow the puck on where the new government really stands on the key issue of housing, then you probably feel a little like a Toronto Maple Leaf. Whenever you think you see the puck in front of you, it isn’t.
But let’s try to figure this out because maybe it’s not as complicated as it looks. Maybe.
David Moscrop has a great piece in the current Walrus:
Mark Carney Promised Affordable Housing. Now Comes the Impossible Part
There are all kinds of cabinets.
Inner cabinets, outer cabinets, shadow cabinets to name a few. Most parties try to keep the number of members low, at least when they start. But I guess if the leader is a little worried about keeping everyone happy while he/she is trying to hold on to his/her job, you have to keep the troops happy. Is that what’s happened with the Poilievre Conservatives? Would you believe a 74-member shadow cabinet?
Let’s check in with Stephanie Taylor at the National Post:
🔒 Poilievre picks experience over fresh faces in 74-person 'shadow cabinet'
Whither the NDP? Things look pretty bleak for the party that just a decade ago was the official opposition with more than a hundred seats.
Not now, barely holding onto seven seats and without official party status. Things have been this bad before, like during the 1990s. They came back then, but can they come back again? And if they do, where does it start?
Maybe the west, far west. Wolfgang Depner wrote this for Canadian Press:
B.C. seen as 'final frontier' for federal NDP as leadership question looms
Time for our end-of-The-Buzz feature for this week.
In July, I’m heading for what I’m told is needed eye surgery. Cataract to be exact. I’m a bit anxious about it as I’m sure anyone would be when someone, an expert surgeon of course, is going to be poking around your eyes with a sharp instrument. But I’ve read a lot, Watched videos. Met with the doctor. So, I’m cool.
Especially so when I read what the future may bring for eye surgery, like this from studyfinds.org
Revolutionary Contact Lenses Let Humans See The Invisible
