His trip to Tofinio became the latest thing Justin Trudeau has apologized for, as he preceded a press conference about federal vaccine mandates with contrition that Indigenous leaders desired. During his silence, pundits speculated if he was better off quitting. Gerald Butts then accused the Globe and Mail of conspiring against his pal.
An exiled MP finds a friend
Having once been tossed from the NDP caucus amid harassment allegations, former MP Erin Weir is cheering on Kevin Vuong as a potentially more useful parliamentarian if the Liberals don’t want him. Meanwhile, a six-hour Conservative caucus meeting ended with Erin O’Toole remaining as leader, but MPs have the power to remove him.
Waiting to see whether Ontario will approve trick-or-treating on Halloween. The new holiday guidelines are set to arrive before Thanksgiving, but the province’s top doctor, Kieran Moore, hinted at greater latitudes than the restraints of 2020. Ontario’s active COVID-19 caseload hit its lowest point in six weeks.
Fiction is wherever you find it
Among the Americans who vacationed in Canada this summer were Hillary and Bill Clinton, as they returned to Quebec’s Eastern Townships to hang with their author friend Louise Penny. State of Terror, which Hillary collaborated with Penny on, not unlike Bill’s thrillers with James Patterson, has arrived for a pre-publication Twitter ratio:
Father Charles Coughlin has become a new podcast fixation. Radioactive is an eight-part series produced by Tablet, investigating how the priest who left Toronto for Detroit in 1923 became a American mass media demagogue. The story of Coughlin also laid the foundation for a current CBC podcast, The Flamethrowers.
Finally, metal on metal on metal
Eve of Darkness, a new book about the 1980s Toronto metal scene, has stirred up memories in a few directions, including how the legendary shop Record Peddler provided the retailing refuge. The companion to Tomorrow is Too Late, a parallel history of Toronto punk, it had a recent time-warping launch in a literal heavy metal parking lot: