TRUDEAU'S CRASS FAVOURITISM TOWARDS QUEBEC

 A grinning Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that his government is transferring about $6 billion to Quebec over five years in connection with its national child-care program, with no strings attached — Quebec’s government can spend those billions any way it wants.

It’s a real slap in the face to Albertans to watch Trudeau throw tax dollars around with abandon in his push toward an unnecessary early election in his bid to win a majority government, but without any sense of parity or fairness.

Quebec Premier Francois Legault, standing next to Trudeau, crowed about the arrangement, calling it a “beautiful victory for Quebec families” and described the deal as “asymmetric,” meaning that while the feds imposed conditions on the money it gave to other provinces for child care, Quebec has none.

UPDATING PFIZER COVID JAB RARE SIDE EFFECT

 Health Canada has added the facial paralysis condition known as Bell’s Palsy as a potentially rare side-effect after getting the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.

The condition is a usually temporary period of facial muscle weakness or paralysis with symptoms that can include loss of feeling in the face, headaches, drooling and the inability to close one eye.

Health Canada says 311 patients in Canada reported a case of Bell’s Palsy after getting a COVID-19 shot though that does not specifically mean the condition was caused by the vaccine.

CONSERVATIVES' SPLASH-PAD P!SSING CONTEST

 Whatever you think of Trudeau now or thought of him then, the party that chose him did not disqualify itself from governing based on that decision alone. On another competence question, Trudeau and his team dispensed in 2015 with the “if you can’t run a campaign, you can’t run a country” test. In 2019, the fact that he hadn’t excavated and addressed the blackface scandal himself before his second election may have caused as much harm as the justified outrage over the images themselves.

But Trudeau was also running against Andrew Scheer. While Scheer possessed none of the blithe ruthlessness of his predecessor, he also may have been an over-correction as the most benign successor to Harper available. When the Conservative party chose Erin O’Toole over Peter MacKay to succeed Scheer last August, it seemed to be telling Canadians, “We see your unfathomability complaint and raise you a face-palm and a WTF.”

Because O’Toole, like Scheer, seems like the kind of guy you’d be perfectly happy to have as a neighbour but whose leadership qualities have proven to be equally unfathomable to Canadians, he is currently experiencing what was once known as Tory Syndrome and is now known as a splash-pad pissing contest-free-for-all. “Erin O’Toole approaches an election with a party so fractured that some Conservatives want him to lose,” read the headline in last Sunday’s Toronto Star.

NO CHARGES LAID AGAINST ADM. MCDONALD

Military police investigating Adm. Art McDonald, the current chief of the defence staff, for alleged sexual misconduct have decided not to lay charges against him.

It’s a decision the woman at the heart of the high-profile allegation says leaves her feeling like she’s been “punched in the stomach.”

Global News has learned the Canadian Forces National Investigation Service interviewed dozens of people as part of the probe into the allegation but were unable to determine an agreed upon set of facts as many of those interviewed claimed to have been drunk at the time of the alleged sexual assault.

JUSTIN'S POLITICAL TOOL, DR. THERESA TAM

Ahead of a widely-anticipated federal election call, Canada's top doctor says she's confident in-person voting can be conducted safely through public health measures — despite the threat of a variant-driven fourth wave of COVID-19 infections.

During a pandemic press briefing today, Dr. Theresa Tam, Canada's chief public health officer, said a combination of health protocols and Canada's high rate of vaccination can protect voters at the polling booths.

"I think that safety protocols have been put in place for different elections throughout Canada during the last month, so I think that can continue to be provided," she said. "So I think that there's definitely ways to vote safely."

CANADAN TAXPAYERS PAY FOR MUSKRAT FALLS HYDROELECTRIC PROJECT

 “Muskrat Falls has been the No. 1 issue facing Newfoundlanders and Labradorians, now for well over a decade,” he said. The deal, he joked, “will finally get the muskrat off our back.”

True enough, though it will do so by landing it squarely on the backs of federal taxpayers, who are already burdened by the Trudeau Liberals’ unprecedented spending and borrowing spree. Having pushed the federal debt to unparalleled levels, Ottawa is now adding responsibility for provincial borrowing binges to its list of liabilities.

Even with more help for Muskrat Falls — Ottawa agreed to provide $5.2 billion towards costs now calculated at $13.1 billion — Newfoundland’s books remain in alarming shape, with debt servicing costs swallowing more cash than anything outside of health care. A poll in January found that more than half the province’s residents expect it to go bankrupt within a few years.

MIT STUDY: VACCINE HESITANCY HIGHLY INFORMED

 Vaccine hesitancy is a big problem, according to the Biden administration.  Less than half the public is fully vaccinated while about 56 percent have received at least one jab.

The goal of fully vaccinating the American public appears to have stalled. This should not surprise us. When the vaccines were first approved for emergency use back in December 2020, 40 percent of Americans expressed skepticism about the vaccine.

Trying to shame the holdouts has failed spectacularly. Insulting and degrading them as “morons” or “ignorant” has resulted in a vicious pushback and a hardening of positions on getting vaccinated.