Politics Briefing newsletter: Rumours of cabinet shuffle swirl

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Good morning,

Few things excite Ottawa politicos as much as speculation about a cabinet shuffle. Rumours have been swirling for weeks that the Liberals will reassign ministers this summer or early fall to promote rising stars, and demote poor performers or those not running for re-election. It could happen at about the same time as a fall Speech from the Throne (normal at the halfway point of a majority government) or earlier. The Hill Times has some of the latest gossip about who could be moving up or down soon.

This is the daily Politics Briefing newsletter, written by Chris Hannay in Ottawa and Mayaz Alam in Toronto. 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. Let us know what you think.

CANADIAN HEADLINES

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is in Ottawa today. This morning he signs a memorandum of understanding on joint priorities with the Assembly of First Nations.

The bill implementing the Liberals' second budget will reach the Senate this week. One of the biggest concerns from senators is that the legislation implementing the Canada Infrastructure Bank should be handled separately from the other measures, but Finance Minister Bill Morneau says he doesn't want that to happen.

Health Minister Jane Philpott says she's concerned about a Globe investigation that revealed doctors that are double-dipping: collecting payment from both the public system and patients themselves.

The Canadian military says it may begin bending a rule that requires all its members to be deployable in battle, due to a need for experts in cyber warfare.

The New Democrats held another leadership debate on Sunday, this time in St. John's. Pipelines, of course, emerged as one of the major points of contention.

And a new comprehensive assessment of Canada's freshwater system reveals the extent of pollution along the Canada-U.S. border.

Campbell Clark (The Globe and Mail) on Liberal foreign aid: "The Liberals are going to have a hard time selling this foreign policy to their own base, particularly their left wing. It's not that voters demand more foreign aid. It's just that a Liberal policy that responds to President Trump with the defence spending he wants but not the foreign aid he is eschewing will not seem like a Liberal balance to them."

Jess Tomlin and Rachel Vincent (The Globe and Mail) on feminist foreign policy: "The world will be more secure and more prosperous when gender equality is front and centre in foreign policy. We are not there yet, but we can feel good that Canada has started to give women on the front lines their rightful seat at the table."

Preston Manning (The Globe and Mail) on the political spectrum: "Despite all the changes that have occurred in science, medicine, technology and culture, political discourse and most interpretations of political developments in Canada are stuck in the old left-centre-right conception of political space first conceived in the 1790s."

Jenna Valleriani and Rebecca Haines-Saah (The Globe and Mail) on legal pot and youth: "Setting high age limits on access and telling young people to 'just say no' will not accomplish either goal of deterring youth use or reducing harms as this is simply doing more of the same that created our current situation."

Anna Nienhuis (National Post) on the new Conservative leader: "Given the importance of pro-life issues to many social conservatives, and their contribution to Scheer's win, we hope Scheer will have the courage to allow pro-life matters to be considered in Parliament. At a minimum, if he is to honour his commitments to free speech, MP independence, and a more positive party image, he will ensure that his caucus members are free to debate and introduce pro-life legislation in the House of Commons. Pro-life groups like ours will be working to ensure that he does."

Veldon Coburn (Policy Options) on opening the constitution: "If Trudeau doesn't want to have a conversation about the Constitution, how does he envision a renewed nation-to-nation relationship with Indigenous people?"

INTERNATIONAL HEADLINES

Emmanuel Macron and En Marche!, the political party he launched 14 months ago, are shaping up to dominate French politics for the next five years after the first round of France's parliamentary elections projected that En Marche! would win the vast majority of seats. The major centre-left and centre-right parties, which each held hundreds of seats in the previous session, have seen their support collapse.  Although Mr. Macron's movement is showing strength so far, turnout was less than 50 per cent and his party only got roughly one third of all votes cast, indicating that the margin of seats may be inflated by a fractured opposition.

In the aftermath of a British election that hobbled the ruling Conservatives and Prime Minister Theresa May, Opposition Leader Jeremy Corbyn is getting his chance to shine. Mr. Corbyn was once so thoroughly disliked by his caucus that the vast majority of Labour MPs voted to oust him. But now, after weathering the storm Mr. Corbyn is selling a new version of himself: prime minister in waiting. 

There's a method to North Korea's missile madness: they're trying to prove their weapons can hurt the continental United States. Since 2016, North Korea has launched a flurry of missile tests that have shown surprising technological advances. Observers say that the various types of launches aren't random — they're more likely to have specific targets in mind, whether they be their neighbours in South Korea or U.S. bases in the Asia Pacific. So far they've yet to successfully fire an intercontinental ballistic missile, the type of weapon that can be fitted with a nuclear warhead and that would be able to reach North America. But experts on the region say that day isn't far off.

On the strength of its natural resources, Venezuela was once able to taste comfort. Now it citizens are living in despair, with food shortages, inadequate health care and a government turning to violence. The Globe's Latin America bureau chief Stephanie Nolen reports from Caracas on the situation in Venezuela and a people that are demanding change.

And Mr. Trump accused FBI Director James Comey of lying and said he was "100-per-cent" willing to testify under oath to share his version of events. Appearing on Fox News, Donald Trump Jr. appeared to corroborate Mr. Comey's side of the story, however.  The last time Mr. Trump was required to prove his honesty under oath was in 2007, when he sued a reporter over a book questioning his net worth. It didn't go well for him.

Konrad Yakabuski (The Globe and Mail) on whether America has our back: "The sudden retreat of the United States into isolationism is much overblown. Yes, Mr. Trump withdrew his country from the Trans-Pacific Partnership and Paris climate accord. But the former was unlikely to ever make it through the U.S. Congress, while the latter is a worthy but ultimately toothless document that provides environmental cover for greenwashing governments (including Canada's) rather than actually doing much to stall global warming."

Margaret Sullivan (The Washington Post) on media coverage of Trump: "The president's supporters often say his accomplishments get short shrift. But let's face it: Politicians have no right to expect equally balanced positive and negative coverage, or anything close to it. If a president is doing a rotten job, it's the duty of the press to report how and why he's doing a rotten job. The idea of balance is suspect on its face. Should positive coverage be provided, as if it were a birthright, to a president who consistently lies, who has spilled classified information to an adversary, and who fired the FBI director who was investigating his administration?"

Molly McKew (Politico Magazine) on focusing on Russia, not Comey: "The war is in the shadows. And right now, Russia is winning. There is only one question that we should be asking: What are we going to do to protect the American people from Russian acts of war — and why doesn't the president want to talk about it?"