By Nick Taylor-Vaisey

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In today's edition:

→ How relevant is Canada in the Middle East?

→ A sampling of the NDP's weekend convention Policy agenda.

→ What do the polls say about contentious provincial pronoun policies?

TRIVIA TIME — If you're in the mood for highly competitive political trivia with the smartest geeks in town, you're in luck. Turns out we have a couple of open tables for next Monday's Playbook Trivia Night in Ottawa.

You won't want to miss this edition. We have a heck of a special guest to deliver the first round of questions. (No spoilers.)

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Palestinians inspect damage to their homes caused by Israeli airstrikes on October 10, 2023 in Gaza City, Gaza. | Ahmad Hasaballah/Getty Images

SUPPORTING ROLE — The war between Israel and Hamas has stretched into its sixth day. Canada is scrambling to evacuate its own citizens and to push for humanitarian aid for those who need it in the region.

It's time for that eternal question in Ottawa: How relevant is Canada in all of this?

— The official word: The Canadian Armed Forces are dispatching military planes to Tel Aviv. Their mission is to pull out citizens in Israel who want a ride home — a rare step when commercial airlines are still booking tickets out of the country. Hundreds a day can be evacuated to Athens, where Air Canada will help travelers complete their journeys.

Global Affairs Canada’s Standing Rapid Deployment Team is headed to the region to provide "emergency response, coordination, consular assistance and logistical Support."

Foreign Minister MÉLANIE JOLY urged warring parties to open a corridor to Gaza: "We call upon all parties … to provide humanitarian access to Palestinian civilians," she told reporters Wednesday, insisting that all sides respect international law.

The Canadian Press noted Joly's refusal to take a position on Israel's airstrikes in the Palestinian territory.

— Still, we're left asking: How relevant is Canada in the Middle East?

Playbook called ARIF LALANI, a longtime diplomat and former ambassador to the United Arab Emirates, Afghanistan, Jordan and Iraq. Lalani is also a distinguished fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation and a senior adviser at StrategyCorp.

Lalani says Canada's influence depends on several factors. Global Affairs Canada's diplomatic bandwidth could be consumed largely by consular assistance and the need to commit resources to competing files — say, the bilateral spat with India.

Canadian influence with major players in the region is "very limited," he adds.

— Capabilities gap: "Can we quickly move to rescue people? Can we quickly move to support allies? Can we quickly move on humanitarian assistance? Can we move beyond writing checks?" Lalani asked.

His take: "Our bandwidth is stretched. Our policy capacity doesn't lean towards creativity and independence, and our military and humanitarian lift capabilities are very low."

— Where that leaves us: It all adds up to a supporting role as the world reacts to the war: "Which is not a negative thing. You can't have 60 different leaders in these crises."

Lalani says Canada can exert modest influence on future efforts to revive a peace process in the region, and contribute badly needed humanitarian aid to Palestinians caught in the crossfire.

ABOUT THAT ‘QUINT’ THING — Monday night served up a gift to the most vocal critics of the Trudeau government's foreign policy. Five allies, each of them a member of the G-7, released a joint statement on Israel. Canada wasn't on the list.

JUSTIN TRUDEAU was excluded, the outraged nay-sayers claimed. The prime minister, some former diplomats worried both quietly and publicly, had dropped off White House speed dial.

KERRY BUCK, a senior fellow at the University of Ottawa's Graduate School of Public and International Affairs and a former Canadian ambassador to NATO, offers Playbook an alternate take on the Canada-is-nowhere narrative.

— Not our table: The five nations posted their statement in their informal formation — yes, that's a thing — as The Quint, a decades-old multilateral group that meets only occasionally and often neglects the Q-word in communiqués.

Buck emphasizes the word informal. The Quint stretches back at least to the early days of the EU, when Americans and Europeans wanted modest input on each other's foreign policy — a delicate balance for policymakers in London, Paris and Berlin, who never want to be seen as allowing Washington to dictate foreign policy. The Italians joined a few years later.

— The upshot: "There's no world in which Canada would have or should have been a member of the Quint," says Buck. The world, she says, is replete with "plurilateral groupings" that may arise in response to a specific issue and live on to tackle others.

Besides, she says, don't be surprised if the G-7 releases a statement in the coming days.

— In short: "Canada's foreign policy commentary is too often guided by FOMO," she said.

— Prime Minister JUSTIN TRUDEAU is in Yellowknife.

7 a.m. (12 p.m. GMT+1) Deputy Prime Minister CHRYSTIA FREELAND is in Marrakech, Morocco and will be a panelist on an International Monetary Fund seminar titled, ”Boosting growth with domestic resources: How to pay for it all.”

8 a.m. (9 a.m. AT) The House finance committee roadshow visits Halifax.

8:30 a.m. (10:30 a.m. MT) Trudeau will make a housing announcement. Northwest Territories Premier CAROLINE COCHRANE will join. They'll hold a news conference.

11 a.m. (1 p.m. MT) Trudeau will participate in a roundtable with the Yellowknife Chamber of Commerce.

2:30 p.m. (3:30 p.m. AT) Health Minister MARK HOLLAND and provincial and territorial health ministers hold a news conference in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island.

8 p.m. (5 p.m. PT) Tory Leader PIERRE POILIEVRE heads to downtown Vancouver for an evening event in the Terminal City Club Tower.

60 BIG IDEAS — New Democrats are cramming for three days of policy debates in Hamilton, Ont., the gritty steeltown at the heart of the party's working-class identity — but an electoral dogfight with Liberals and Conservatives outside the city's urban core.

Doors open at noon. Delegates will hear from ANDREA HORWATH, a longtime provincial leader who found new digs at Hamilton city hall after facing electoral defeat last year. Also on the agenda: labor leaders BEA BRUSKE and ROBERT COMEAU, as well as British Columbia Premier DAVID EBY. JAGMEET SINGH caps the day with a "caucus showcase."

The party's biggest winner of the year, Manitoba Premier-designate WAB KINEW, won't be in the room. He's got other business back home in Winnipeg, working with his transition team on settling into government.

In between speeches, delegates will enter their happy place: policy debates that shape the party's next sales pitch to voters, whenever that opportunity comes knocking. (Yes, the betting odds are still on 2025.)

— What didn't make the cut: A pair of perennial lightning-rod resolutions on Canada's response to tensions in the Middle East — tricky debates even during peacetime, when nuance is marginally easier to inject into complex public policy conversations — didn't make the list of priority resolutions.

— Climbdown: NDP MPP SARAH JAMA's political career hangs in the balance after she urged Israel to "end all occupation of Palestinian lands and end apartheid." Premier DOUG FORD called for her resignation. JOHN FRASER, the interim provincial Liberal leader, called on NDP Leader MARIT STILES to boot Jama out of caucus.

Jama, who represents the Hamilton riding where the federal convention is going down, walked back her comments on X on Wednesday afternoon. "I understand the pain that many Jewish and Israeli Canadians, including my own constituents, must be feeling. I apologize," she wrote, reiterating that Israel's "bombardment and siege on civilians in Gaza" is "wrong."

Convention organizers are likely relieved at an agenda that sidesteps the conflict.

— What did make the cut: Delegates will consider priority resolutions divided into six groupings with headings that appear to have been fed through a euphemism generator: Taking better care of each other; Respect for our planet and workers; Making life more affordable; Indigenous justice and human rights in Canada; Strengthening Canada's institutions and Canada's place in the world; and the party constitution.

Here are five policies on the table:

→ Expand healthcare: “To include all medically necessary healthcare services, including dental, mental health, pharmaceutical, auditory and vision care.”

→ Create a youth Climate Corps: "To respond to climate impacts and support conservation efforts through new jobs helping restore wetlands, protecting nature and planting the billions of trees that need to be planted in the years ahead."

→ Create a telecom crown corp: "To increase access to internet and cell phone service at affordable prices across the country."

→ Listen to the families of missing and murdered Indigenous women: Call on the federal Liberals "to ensure that a search of the Prairie Green Landfill" in Manitoba, where the remains of Indigenous women are thought to be buried, "is undertaken without delay."

→ Boost foreign aid: "Indexing any increase in defense spending with an increase to Official Development Assistance, in recognition that development assistance is a key component in preventing armed conflict."

— How the debate will work: Delegates will mull priority resolutions Friday, Saturday and Sunday. They'll also find time Friday to consider emergency resolutions.

A potential issue for that time slot: a grassroots-led resolution on pharmacare. The motion's boosters want the party to threaten to pull the plug on a governing deal with the Liberals if the government doesn't legislate single-payer, universal pharmacare.

— Food for thought: The Parliamentary Budget Officer publishes a timely report today: “Cost estimate of a single-payer universal drug plan.”

PRONOUN POLLING — If provincial pronoun politics are divisive in parents' group chats, a recent Spark Advocacy survey commissioned by Egale Canada explains why.

The nation's parents appear to be split on whether or not teachers should be required to inform them if their children decide to change their gender identity in school.

The polling is timely, as provincial premiers push through the controversial policies — and federal politicians are occasionally pulled into the debate.

Spark found that 49 percent of parents support a duty to inform, with 51 percent preferring that teachers have discretion "based on individual circumstances."

From there, the poll results only grow more complex. Here are six observations from Spark's questions about the debate that has families talking all over Canada.

→ A clear partisan divide: 67 percent of Conservatives support policy that requires teachers to inform parents. 59 percent of Liberals prefer to give teachers discretion.

→ The gender divide is real: 56 percent of men support the policy. 58 percent of women support teacher discretion.

→ The opposite of harm reduction: 34 percent of respondents who believe children are "likely or certain to be harmed" by the policy still support it.

→ Constitutional override: 31 percent support provinces invoking the notwithstanding clause to override courts that strike down pronoun policies.

→ Not a priority: 7 percent of parents listed pronoun policies among their top three most urgent issues. It's even lower — 6 percent — for pronoun policy supporters.

→ The top three for parents: 50 percent prioritize improving healthcare, 49 percent want to see the cost of living addressed, and 44 percent want housing to be more affordable.

— A second opinion: Leger published survey results this morning on the same issue. Here are three findings from that one:

→ 65 percent of those polled were "aware of the ongoing discussion around sexual orientation and gender identity in Canadian schools."

→ 63 percent support pronoun policies in general, with 45 percent saying parents ought to be informed "even if the child does not feel safe informing their parents."

→ 59 percent of parents support provinces invoking the notwithstanding clause to override courts that strike down pronoun policies.

— Further reading: Leger spoke about the results with the Canadian Press.

U.S. President Joe Biden will be 82 next year. | Evan Vucci/AP Photo

AN AGE-OLD ISSUE — The most pressing political challenge confronting U.S. President JOE BIDEN is that which he can do the least about, POLITICO’s JONATHAN MARTIN reports: Americans have profound misgivings about his age and fitness to serve another full term.

— Adding to the challenge: Biden does not even want to address questions about his capacity to run for reelection next year, when he’ll turn 82.

— Martin writes: “He can’t slow the march of time, of course, and nor can he fully defuse the issue. But Biden can do more than to ad-lib a joke about being 110 years old. His own supporters and lawmakers are all but pleading with him to take the matter seriously, because simply saying ‘watch me,’ as he often retorts when asked about his age, is precisely the problem: people are and it’s still the overriding issue troubling them the most about his candidacy.”

— NATO defense ministers are gathered in Brussels where regularly scheduled intel briefings have been taken over by a region mostly forgotten in the past two years: the Middle East. A team from POLITICO reports that NATO allies are now grappling with a renewed sense of urgency over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

— Hub contributors RAHIM MOHAMED, SEAN SPEER, AMAL ATTAR-GUZMAN and KARAMVEER LALH join a roundup of analysis on the Israel-Hamas war.

— The Star’s RAISA PATEL sets up the NDP convention.

— Top of POLITICO this morning: ‘Israel is going to have to make some tough calls’: Former intelligence official CHRISTOPHER COSTA on the challenges of conducting military actions while Hamas holds so many captive civilians.

— The National Post spoke to IRWIN COTLER about antisemitism and the absence of outrage.

— In Nunatsiaq News, JEFF PELLETIER writes on a three-way race for mayor of Iqaluit. Municipal elections will be held Oct. 23.

Birthdays: HBD to former senator JOAN FRASER … And birthday greetings to KATIE BOOTHBY-KUNG of Enterprise Canada, SHANNON ZIMMERMAN in the deputy prime minister’s office, former Liberal MP GURBAX MALHI and former Alberta NDP leader BRIAN MASON.

Send birthdays to [email protected].

Spotted: Survey questions from pollster NICK KOUVALIS's Campaign Research, which touch on DOUG FORD's handling of the Greenbelt land swap scandal — including his policy reversal and apology for getting the process wrong. One question: “Do you believe his apology to be sincere?”

Among the hobnobbers at the Toronto Global Forum at the Royal York Hotel: Treasury Board President ANITA ANAND and Innovation Minister FRANÇOIS-PHILIPPE CHAMPAGNE, speakers on Day 1. BEN MULRONEY was in the crowd. Puerto Rico’s Governor PEDRO PIERLUISI opens Day 2.

EU diplomats, successfully lobbying for entry into Canada without needing to pull out a passport (via Canada Gazette).

Movers and shakers: Manitoba Ppremier-designate WAB KINEW announced his 11-member transition team, which includes Canadian Labour Congress President BEA BRUSKE.

Transport DM ARUN THANGARAJ recently joined the board of directors at The Royal's Institute of Mental Health Research.

CHRIS RAGAN is leaving his post as director of the Max Bell School of Public Policy. (Applications are open.)

Media mentions: Business journalist KEVIN CARMICHAEL is leaving his perch atop the Financial Post to join The Logic as economics columnist and editor-at-large.

Farewells: Former Prince Edward Island premier JAMES LEE has died at the age of 86.

If you’re a subscriber, don’t miss our latest policy newsletter: Looming deadlines in a global tax showdown.

In other Pro headlines:

— U.S., allies reveal details around global EV minerals strategy.

— Stellantis to build second EV battery joint venture in Indiana.

— It’s the EU and U.S. against the rest of the world in new steel club.

— Biden faces calls to block Iran’s oil — even if prices soar.

— Why shutdown ‘dysfunction’ is uniquely American.

Parliament does not sit this week; business is scheduled to return Oct. 16.

9 a.m. The parliamentary budget officer will release a new report titled, “Cost estimate of a single-payer universal drug plan.”

Wednesday’s answer: On Oct. 11, 1869, Métis ÉDOUARD MARION discovered government surveyors on his land and rallied his neighbors and LOUIS RIEL to stop them. Find out about the Red River Resistance here.

Props to Speaker of the House GREG FERGUS, DOUG RICE, GEORGE SCHOENHOFER, BOB GORDON, ROBERT MCDOUGALL and DOUG SWEET.  

Today’s question: Canada Post recently issued stamps featuring MADELEINE PARENT, SIMONNE MONET-CHARTRAND and LÉA ROBACK. What do they have in common?

Send your answer to [email protected]

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