Or should we call them Justin and Joe? Did someone forward you this newsletter? Sign up here to get it delivered weekday mornings. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau wasn't exactly subtle as he addressed U.S. President Joe Biden for the first time in front of TV cameras. Once the cameras were rolling, Trudeau invited the president to kick off the proceedings in the most casual terms available: "Take it away, Joe." This was a warm meeting, performatively so. The gathering's agenda was no secret. The White House had earlier released a "roadmap" on the Canada-U.S. relationship, which read as a cross between a joint manifesto and a ministerial mandate letter. The themes included COVID-19, "building back better," climate action, diversity and inclusion, security and defence, and global alliances. Nothing about a certain industry that rhymes with boil and glass. (A prime ministerial communiqué did "highlight" that the continent's "integrated energy infrastructure, including oil and gas ," would be "essential" on the way to net-zero emissions.) By evening, the PMO had published a more detailed version of the roadmap, which listed 40 bullet points of shared priorities. The casual observer might assume there's nothing about which the leaders disagree, though any mention of the ill-fated Keystone XL pipeline—now a distant memory in diplomatic terms—would put that to rest. Biden and Trudeau's awkward opening: In a world without handshakes to analyze, Marie-Danielle Smith watched the stilted, relatable Zoom formalities grafted onto a meeting of world leaders. But the rest of us were left to guess what happened after those opening statements, when journalists left the room and the real conversation got going: Then we were left to imagine what could possibly be happening behind closed doors. With a lengthy list of Canadian cabinet members joining an expanded meeting scheduled an hour into the summit, did they all switch to “gallery view”? Were there any technical difficulties? Did anyone forget to mute themselves? New Democrats attempted to roast the Liberals' Canada-U.S. agenda, but the joke suffered from a key weakness—the NDP forgot to bring the funny. The party posted a satirical agenda for the Trudeau-Biden confab with red-pen markup of key items. The tweet's ratio was telling, and the quote-tweets were, um, unfriendly. Next time, run everything through spell check. Our politics really could use a little humour. Trudeau had two other world leaders on his agenda yesterday. He spoke to Australian PM Scott Morrison, and published a readout that pledged cooperation on the fraught effort to regulate global tech giants (and avoided any mention of China). The PM's itinerary also mentioned a catch-up with Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu. Equalization nation: Say the word "equalization" in the wrong room in Canada and you're in for the nerdiest argument you'll ever hear about federal-provincial transfers. The learning curve is steep on the complex formula that aims to ensure every Canadian has access to broadly comparable social programs. Luckily, a think tank called Finances of the Nation has launched what these debates desperately need: an interactive equalization simulator. Play with resource revenues, electricity prices and even give Alberta a sales tax —then watch the "have" and "have-not" provinces shift in real time. The parliamentary budget officer published an estimated price tag for compensation owed to First Nations children who have had services delayed or denied. The PBO pegged the total cost of the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal order at up to $4.2 billion, but also did the math on a much larger pool of children that might also be eligible according to various interpretations of the CHRT order. That number adds up to $15 billion—a number that caught the attention of NDP MP Charlie Angus. A new report from Ivan Zinger, Canada's correctional investigator, details the sharp increase in COVID-19 infections behind bars between the virus's first and second waves. Zinger's report says he's received 500 complaints related to COVID-19, including "staff non-compliance with protective measures" and "potential maladministration of medical isolation measures." Capitalism's connection to our ever-worsening mental health: Andray Domise muses about what Mark Fisher, the late British cultural theorist who wrote about the relationship between depression and social conditions produced by capitalism, would think of a 2021 he never lived to see: I have seen too many people thrown out of their homes, shed tears with too many people who’ve lost loved ones to a pandemic exacerbated by our compromised and incompetent political class. I often wonder what Fisher would make of our current reality, haunted by the ghosts of last century’s optimism and endless fictional possibilities that were quietly snuffed out by the endless existential crises—forget a pandemic, we’re still staring down the barrel of catastrophic climate change—brought about by the many violences of now. The federal medical assistance in dying law was back in the House of Commons for debate after Senate amendments. The Red Chamber voted for a provision that would eventually extend assisted dying to Canadians suffering mental illness. The latest version of the bill would enact that rule only after a two-year period. The Bloc Québécois supports those changes. Tories and New Democrats, however, loudly oppose them. Bank of Canada governor Tiff Macklem told a virtual meeting of the Calgary and Edmonton chambers of commerce that his governing council isn't worried about inflation—but is keeping an eye on "excess exuberance" in the housing market, driven by low interest rates and rising prices. Macklem's speech warned that economic normalcy is aways away . "We can expect a long adjustment process and a protracted recovery," he said. "The economy will need support for quite some time, and the bank will continue to do its part." Get well soon: Treasury Board President Jean-Yves Duclos is recovering at home and "feeling well" after receiving treatment in Quebec City for a pulmonary embolism. —Nick Taylor-Vaisey | 