Politics Briefing: The British Lord who quit for being late

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Good morning,

The past few weeks have seen Canadian politicians quit suddenly for all sorts of reasons.

But in Britain, a peer in the House of Lords resigned for a slightly different reason.

"My Lords, with the leave of the House, I offer my sincere apologies to the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, for my discourtesy in not being in my place to answer her Question on a very important matter at the beginning of Questions," Lord Michael Bates, minister of state for international development, told the Chamber on Wednesday.

He had arrived a few minutes late for question period.

"During the five years in which it has been privilege to answer Questions from this Dispatch Box on behalf of the Government, I have always believed that we should rise to the highest possible standards of courtesy and respect in responding to the legitimate questions of the legislature. I am thoroughly ashamed at not having been in my place, and therefore I shall be offering my resignation to the Prime Minister with immediate effect."

"No!" his fellow lords cried as he left the chamber.

"I hope the noble Baroness the Leader of the House and the noble Lord the Chief Whip will have heard the House. An apology from the noble Lord, Lord Bates, is perfectly sufficient," Baroness Smith of Basildon rose and said.

"It was a minor discourtesy, of which any of us can be guilty on occasion."

Prime Minister Theresa May, reportedly, rejected his resignation and he has stayed in his post.

Of course, this isn't the first time Lord Bates has quit cabinet. In 2016, he stepped down so that he could walk 3,000 kilometres across South America for charity. He was reinstated when he got home.

This is the daily Politics Briefing newsletter, written by Chris Hannay in Ottawa, Mayaz Alam in Toronto and James Keller in Vancouver. 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. Have any feedback? Let us know what you think.

CANADIAN HEADLINES

China and Canada are quietly continuing to pursue trade talks, with high-level Chinese officials recently meeting with senior members of the Trudeau government.

The Alberta government is retaliating against British Columbia over B.C.'s latest attempt to block the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion. Premier Rachel Notley says she's suspended talks to buy electricity from its neighbour— an arrangement that could eventually be worth $500-million a year to B.C. Ms. Notley says the measure is just the first step in Alberta's fight against new regulations in B.C. that effectively block new oil shipments connected to the pipeline project.

The federal government is pledging to fully fund Indigenous child welfare agencies to allow them to help Indigenous families without having to take kids away from their parents. The announcement followed an order from the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal, which concluded the government failed to comply with a 2016 ruling that found it discriminates against Indigenous children by underfunding child welfare services.

"We have to explain to the population who we are, what we do, why we do it and how we do it," new Supreme Court of Canada Chief Justice Richard Wagner told students at the University of Western Ontario. Justice Wagner, a 60-year-old from Quebec who was nominated by former prime minister Stephen Harper, replaced Beverley McLachlin in December. In addition to highlighting the need for Canada's top court to communicate with not only lawyers and law professors but the public at large, he also warned against complacency in our democracy. "I think we are very lucky in Canada to have strong institutions, compared to other countries where some basic principles are under attack. I think we have to protect those assets. I think we have to work for it on a daily basis," he said.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told a town hall that the federal government can't provide everything that veterans want, because they are "asking for more than we are able to give right now."

The NDP have temporarily suspended Saskatchewan MP Erin Weir over an allegation of harassment from a caucus mate. The allegation does not specify what Mr. Weir did or to whom.

There are two new contestants in the race to lead the Ontario Progressive Party into the provincial election later this year: Christine Elliott and Caroline Mulroney. The former MPP and the newcomer to politics, respectively, join Toronto city councillor Doug Ford as leadership hopefuls. Former Postmedia executive Rod Phillips, a political neophyte, may also join the race, tweeting that he will have "more to say in the coming days." New polling done by Leger indicates that even despite the ongoing crisis within the PC Party, the Tories enjoy slightly more support than Premier Kathleen Wynne's Liberals among decided voters (the difference is within the margin of error). Ms. Elliott received the strongest support, according to the survey, followed by Ms. Mulroney.

British Columbia's public auto insurer doesn't have enough capital to cover claims — a reality that observers say is putting the Insurance Corp. of B.C. on the road to insolvency. ICBC has just 50 per cent of the capital needed to cover claim costs, nowhere near the 200 per cent benchmark required for private insurers and far below ICBC's required ratio of 100 per cent.

B.C.'s mayors are calling on the provincial government to take aggressive action in next month's budget to tackle skyrocketing housing prices.

Economic development in the Canadian Arctic lags behind other northern regions elsewhere in the world, according to the Centre for International Governance Innovation. "There's just no sign of the vision and long-term political energy required to bring us up in any way close to the gap that's emerging with Russia and Norway as the Arctic Ocean opens," John Higginbotham said.

The RCMP is struggling to handle all the access-to-information requests filed by its own staff.

And Library and Archives Canada has told the CBC it can't disclose a nearly century-old document about the treatment of First Nations children because of "solicitor-client privilege."

Globe and Mail editorial board on pipelines: "The approval of pipelines is without question the jurisdiction of the federal government, as is control over coastal waterways. It would be disastrous if a province were allowed to pretend to recognize that authority while shamelessly undermining it."

Gary Mason (The Globe and Mail) on pipelines: "Mr. Trudeau should face down this challenge by B.C. immediately. If this has to go to court, then fast-track the process given the tight time frames at play. If Trans Mountain doesn't get built, it would spell disaster in a part of the country in which Mr. Trudeau is hoping to rebuild his party's sagging fortunes – the West. And he and the Liberals would get everything they deserve, too."

Thomas Gunton (The Globe and Mail) on the pipeline wars: "Conflict resolution always involves compromises. No party gets everything they want. But there is a compromise to the pipeline war that can go a long way toward meeting everyone's interests and is far better than the current acrimonious trajectory that will leave us all worse off. The challenge for governments is to take advantage of this opportunity that has been provided by the U.S. approval of Keystone and the challenges to Trans Mountain to organize a collaborative dialogue to reach an agreement that avoids an unnecessary conflict and leaves us all better off."

Robyn Urback (CBC) on electoral reform: "In other words, everything is on the table except for the things the Liberals want off the table. The choices are endless, among a few heavily vetted options. And you can still have electoral reform, as long as it's the Liberals' preferred type of electoral reform."

Don Martin (CTV) on NDP Leader Ruth Ellen Brosseau: "So the fluke that Brosseau was supposed to represent has become a force as key negotiator at Canada's political epicenter. It showcases an added dimension to the sudden overdue empowerment of women on Parliament Hill."

Denise Balkissoon (The Globe and Mail) on Tina Fontaine and Indigenous peoples: "For a brief moment after Tina's death, it seemed like Canada had finally been shamed into action. Manitoba's former NDP government pledged to stop housing foster children in hotels except in 'exceptional circumstances,' and track the use of these rooms. Meanwhile, the federal Liberal government formed the long-awaited inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls. But last year, Manitoba's Conservative government declared that 'hotel use is not tracked as it is not permitted,' a bit of doublespeak that only says that it doesn't bother to check up on the children in its care. The MMIWG inquiry has been dogged from the start with allegations of disorganization and disrespecting families – it's been shedding staff like old skin, yet the federal Liberals are resisting calls to restart and reconfigure it."

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INTERNATIONAL HEADLINES

As America recedes from the world stage through its America-first policies, Russia is seeing an opening to play power broker in the Middle East and beyond. The Globe's Mark MacKinnon reports from Sochi, where the Kremlin was hoping to find a solution to the crisis in Syria on its own terms.

U.S. President Donald Trump and the FBI find themselves at odds over a contested Republican memo. Christopher Wray, the director of the bureau who Mr. Trump picked after he fired James Comey, has gone on the record to say that he has grave concerns about releasing the memo, which deals with  law-enforcement officials' handling of the Russia investigation. For those of you who are confused about the escalating chaos in Washington regarding the document, the explainers at Vox have you covered.

Mr. Trump falsely claimed that the ratings from his first State of the Union address were the "highest number in history."

Women in Iran have been protesting their theocratic government by removing their hijabs, which they are required to wear under Iranian laws imposed after the Islamic revolution in 1979. "We are fighting against the most visible symbol of oppression," Masih Alinejad, an activist, said.

Syria, which used chemical weapons on its own people last year, may be making "new kinds of weapons." In 2013, the government promised to abolish its program.