Isn't it nice when Trudeau and Ford get along? Did someone forward you this newsletter? Sign up here to get it delivered weekday mornings. Over the weekend, news broke that the federal Liberals have an $84-million contract with a real estate firm that's administering its COVID emergency rent-assistance program. The firm, MCAP, employs Robert Silver, who is married to the prime minister's chief of staff, Katie Telford. But the situation isn't as insidious as it seems, as the PMO was quick to note that Telford has recused herself from any decisions made regarding MCAP or the federal program. Canadian Twitterati on both sides of the aisle seemed to mostly shrug this one off, though National Post columnist Matt Gurney summed it up best : "That's good, as far as Telford goes, but it also serves to make the repeated screwups by her boss starker in comparison." Digging deeper into the behind-the-scenes logic of the WE scandal for Maclean's, Andrew MacDougall is skeptical of Justin Trudeau's story about being given a "binary choice" between WE or nothing. Specifically, he wants to see a copy of the Memorandum to Cabinet (MC), unlikely as that may be: Normally any MC (as they’re referred to in official Ottawa) would forever be kept under lock and key thanks to Cabinet confidence, but the creature described by Trudeau and Telford is such a rare bird its release would do much to enlighten future students of governance. More importantly, and given its centrality to our story, its release would go a long way to confirming the official government narrative. Trade war, round two. After Donald Trump announced he would reimpose a 10-per-cent tariff on Canadian aluminum ("Canada was taking advantage of us, as usual," he claimed), various Canadian politicians hit back hard. Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland called the attack and "absurd decision to harm its own people at a time when its economy is suffering the deepest crisis since the Great Depression," and announced retaliatory tariffs valued at CAD$3.6 billion. Ontario Premier and former Trump supporter Doug Ford snapped back as well, calling the president's actions " totally unacceptable " and expressing support for his federal counterparts. A contact-tracing app is only as good as the number of people who actually use it. When Alberta announced it would develop its own, the federal government more or less shrugged, pushing ahead with their planned nationwide one. The federal app is now available in Ontario to start; Alberta, after acknowledging their app suffered from security and accessibility issues anyway, announced on Saturday they would adopt the federal one after all, even after Jason Kenney had earlier insisted the feds help fix their provincial one. There's no date set for when Alberta will migrate its 234,000 users to the federal system. The case against Huawei. Writing in Maclean's, digital strategist Marcus Kolga lays out the case for why Huawei is such a threat to Canadian privacy and security, including its involvement in surveillance of Uyghur minorities and Hong Kong activists. Despite Huawei’s insistence that it will not compromise the privacy and security of Canadians, it would have no choice but to hand over Canadians’ data if the Chinese government asked it to do so. China’s National Intelligence Law states that “any organization or citizen shall support, assist and cooperate with the state intelligence work in accordance with the law”, and that it is illegal for an individual or organization to refuse such a request. As such, the security of the Canadian government, our businesses, organizations and every Canadian risks being exposed to Chinese government surveillance if Huawei is not banned. About 9,743 short. In the year since marijuana became legal, 458 people have applied for a pardon of their criminal charge of pot possession, and only 257 have been granted that pardon—even though the Liberals estimated 10,000 Canadians would be eligible. (To be fair, that was never a guess at how many would actually apply, let alone in the first year.) A source tells CBC News the number is "lower than anticipated" because people facing multiple criminal convictions in addition to pot possession aren't eligible. Another Atlantic premier resigns. In case you missed it, Nova Scotia leader Stephen McNeil abruptly announced his resignation Thursday night. McNeil has led the Liberals through two majority governments since 2013, which is kind of weird if you know any Nova Scotians, because most of them have disliked the guy from the start. There's no obvious successor, but pundits are putting their money on Scott Brison, the former longtime Liberal MP and cabinet member who stepped down in 2019. McNeil's resignation is also notable for following that of Dwight Ball , the Liberal premier of Newfoundland and Labrador, who announced his resignation earlier this year. After a massive explosion killed more than 150 people in Beirut and left more than 300,000 people without homes, international charities began collecting donations to help the city recover. On Saturday, Canada's International Development Minister Karina Gould announced the government would match, dollar-for-dollar, all donations made by individual Canadians to specific humanitarian organizations until Aug. 24. The donation cap is $2 million, and this announcement comes on top of the government's previous $5 million pledge of support. —Michael Fraiman | 