Mark Carney gave his first post-election news conference yesterday, and he ensured that it was something of a news tsunami, but also that the tone and tenor of his government is vastly different from that of his predecessor. (Well, his predecessor post-2017ish. For the first couple of years, Trudeau was still trying pretty hard to hold to the things he campaigned on in a promise to be a generational change). This included some timelines for the next few weeks, and it’s a lot. So with that in mind, Carney goes to Washington on Tuesday to meet with Trump, the new Cabinet will be sworn in on the week of the 12th, Parliament will be recalled on the 26th for the election of a new Speaker, and then the 27th will be the Speech From the Throne, and it will be delivered by the King, for the first time since 1977 (and the first time a monarch has opened our parliament since 1957). In addition, he says we have the biggest reorientation of our economy to accomplish since the Second World War, and he’s going to balance the operating budget within three years with no cuts to services (indeed, the rollout of full dental care is continuing on schedule), and he’s not going to enter into any kind of formal arrangement with the NDP as there is no point in doing so. Here are five of the priorities outlined by Carney.

https://twitter.com/RoyalFamily/status/1918325678144884794

There will, of course, be a bunch of grumbling about the King arriving to deliver the Speech, but the thing we need to get out of the way is that he’s the King of Canada, not the King of the UK (or England, which hasn’t had a separate Crown since 1707) as far as we’re concerned, and so he’s not a “foreign monarch.” Canada has had a separate Crown from the UK since the Statute of Westminster in 1931, and even before that, the Crown in Canada manifested in very different ways from the UK since Princess Louise was the Chatelaine of Rideau Hall. (I have more on this in the Crown chapter of my book). The fact that we are bringing out the King to play a bigger role as our sovereignty is threatened is a reflection of just how different we are from the US, and why we will never be part of them, and because Trump idolises the royals, this becomes a thumb in his eye. We cannot forget that.

The other major development yesterday was that Conservative MP Damien Kurek has offered up his seat to Pierre Poilievre, so that he can return to the House of Commons, and surprising nobody, it’s one of the most conservative (and indeed, whitest) ridings in the country, where he got 81.8 percent of the vote in Monday’s election. While Carney said he would call the by-election at the earliest opportunity, Kurek can’t actually resign until a certain point because of rules in place, after which it’s a five-week campaign, and so that means it probably won’t happen until early July, so Poilievre will be out of the Chamber for the entire spring sitting (which is only slated to be about four weeks long). Kurek was six months away from qualifying for an MP pension, so one imagines that the party will work to compensate him in some way.

Ukraine Dispatch

A mass drone attack late Friday hit an apartment block in Kharkiv, injuring 46 people. The US State Department has approved the sale of $310 worth of training and sustainment for Ukraine’s F-16 fighter jets.

Good reads:

• Carney also announced over social media that President Zelenskyy will be attending the G7 summit in Kananaskis in June.
• Carney had a meeting with Danielle Smith, which they described as “positive.”
• The Ontario seat of Milton East—Halton Hills has flipped from Conservative to Liberals after Elections Canada verification. (Judicial recount still to come).
• Here is a look at some Indigenous-led hybrid-models being developed for internet connectivity in the north and remote First Nations that are displacing Starlink.
• Newfoundland and Labrador premier Andrew Furey is set to step down as his successor gets chosen this weekend.
• Jared Wesley explores the two paths the Carney government has before it in dealing with federalism—more benign neglect, or a robust re-engagement.
• Stephanie Carvin looks into the challenge facing the government of reduced information sharing with the US as a result of Trump.
• Justin Ling calls on Carney to throw out the political playbook of his predecessor to try for a more conciliatory approach (but I reject some of his ideas outright).
• Paul Wells remarks on how refreshing the level of candour Carney exhibited in his presser yesterday was.

Odds and ends:

For Xtra, I wrote about which queer MPs won, lost, and didn’t run again in the last election.

Want more Routine Proceedings? Become a patron and get exclusive new content.