The PM decides to stick around Did someone forward you this newsletter? Sign up here to get it delivered weekday mornings. Ball's fall. The Liberal premier of Newfoundland and Labrador, Dwight Ball, announced late on Monday that he's resigning. His five-year tenure closes amid a bubbling provincial scandal that involved government contracts awarded to companies run by people close to the premier's office, as well as the ongoing controversies surrounding the $12-billion Muskrat Falls hydroelectric project, which many locals fear will lead to higher electricity rates and government austerity. According to CBC News, party insiders say Ball's resignation wasn't a total surprise, and he's confirmed that he'll stay on until a new leader is chosen in the coming months. Barbados can wait. On Sunday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau abruptly cancelled his next day's trip to Barbados, where was was planning to continue courting global leaders for a seat on the United Nations Security Council. Under intense public and media pressure, he will instead devote his time and energy to diffusing tensions around the Indigenous blockades that have brought the nation's rail system to a screeching halt. The decision came on the heels of a trip to Ethiopia, Kuwait, Senegal and briefly Germany. (Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan stuck around in Germany to attend the Munich Security Conference, where he met with Scandanavian officials to talk about the Arctic.) During Trudeau's time outside the country, he delegated numerous cabinet members to handle the situation, including Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland, Transport Minister Marc Garneau, Public Safety Minister Bill Blair, Minister for Crown-Indigenous Relations Carolyn Bennett and Indigenous Services Minister Marc Miller, who spent nine full hours in meetings with members of the Tyendinaga Mohawk on Saturday. They're blocking a railway near Belleview, Ont., out of solidarity with the Wet'suwet'en hereditary chiefs in B.C. who are opposed to the Coastal GasLink pipeline in their own province. Similar protests have popped up across the country in recent days, including one in Niagara Falls on Sunday that held up traffic at the popular Rainbow Bridge border crossing for over an hour, and one shutting down the Thousand Islands Bridge for several hours on Monday. The day after his marathon of meetings, Miller appeared on the Sunday talk shows to speak in veiled terms about what was discussed. He stressed the importance of "keeping the dialogue open" on Global's The West Block, and reiterated that the government learned its lessons from the Oka crisis of 1990 and the killing of an Indigenous protester in Ipperwash, Ont., in 1995. These protests over the long weekend have damaged Canada's economy and international reputation (ironically, some say, counteracting the prime minister's attempt to improve the latter with geopolitical handshaking), prompting many to ask the big question: will the government step in with force to stop the blockade? For now, the answer is no. And for some helpful historical context, Maclean's Stephen Maher details the historic damage done to Indigenous peoples caused by the expansion of Canadian Pacific Railway: I don’t know how we are going to get through this winter and get the trains running again, but I believe our politicians and police should err on the side of caution, and we should keep in mind that our country only exists because of the lawful crimes our government committed to get the railway built. A long, long weekend for the PM. Trudeau also faced criticism for shaking hands with, and bowing his head before, the Iranian foreign minister Javad Zarif during his stop in Germany. This, of course, coming weeks after the Iranian government admitted it shot down Ukraine International Airlines Flight PS752, killing dozens of Canadians. Detractors call Trudeau's move "subservience"; supporters call it "diplomacy." But also: was it even really a bow? So close, and yet... Up to 255 Canadians have been quarantined on board a cruise ship near Japan since Feb. 3, but an end is nearly in sight. The Canadian government said it would evacuate any Canadians from the ship who tested negative for the coronavirus... and then quarantine them again for two weeks on Canadian soil, just to be safe. Of the thousands of passengers currently stuck aboard the ship, 355 have contracted the illness, including 15 Canadians. CBC News spoke with a few of the trapped passengers, who presumably had little better to do to pass the time than patiently speak with journalists. "We feel forced to do this under duress," said Paul Mirko , who's already tested negative for the virus, of the impending second quarantine. And then, politely, he added: "To have to endure another 14 days and possibly not have to go outside is very irksome and I feel quite upset over the whole thing." The winning recipe. With the dust beginning to settle on the federal Conservative leadership race, the question must be asked: what will it take to win? 338Canada's Philippe J. Fournier outlines the contrast between what average Canadians and card-carrying Tory members are looking for in his latest column: The point of this column isn’t that policy does not matter to Canadian voters. But with political polarization on the rise in Canada, parties will assuredly find that the largest pool of accessible voters cannot be found within your opponents’ ranks, but among Canadians who stayed home on election day—roughly a third of eligible adults. The ground game, and a detailed analysis of precious voter data, may matter far more than many would like to believe. —Michael Fraiman | 