What's going to happen on Sept. 23? Did someone forward you this newsletter? Sign up here to get it delivered weekday mornings. Welcome back from the long weekend. Now that summer draws to a close amid colder weather and ever-shorter days, the news cycle has reached the calm before a potential storm. The big question: will a fall election be called after Justin Trudeau's throne speech on Sept. 23? Political leaders keep saying they don't want that, but their actions may prove otherwise. As Erin O'Toole settles into his role as Conservative leader, he's quickly begun assembling his team, based on who helped him get to this point. Manitoban MP Candice Bergen has been named deputy leader; former TD Bank executive James Dodds will head the Conservative Fund; Fred DeLorey, who ran O'Toole's successful leadership campaign, will spearhead the party’s national campaign; Tausha Michaud has been tapped as O'Toole's chief of staff; former Quebec MP Alupa Clarke will act as senior adviser; and his campaign's communications head, Melanie Paradis , is also continuing her work for the Official Opposition. O'Toole spoke with the Globe and Mail last week to describe his initial plans, which include taking a decade to erase the nation's $340-billion-and-counting deficit and revamping Canada's immigration program to focus more on family reunification, in anticipation of fewer economic immigrants in a post-COVID world. For a deeper dive into how O'Toole got to where he is, the National Post published a lengthy look at the strategies his campaign employed to win a hotly contested race against frontrunner Peter MacKay. And the rest of Canada? What do Canadians think of O'Toole and the Tories, now that the country has had a couple weeks to adjust to the idea? Really, it depends on which media-commissioned Nanos poll you look at. CTV and the Globe both reported on Nanos surveys from the long weekend, but came away with strikingly different ledes: CTV says "Canadians are more likely to say they are not open to voting for the Conservatives in the next federal election than they are to say they are open to doing so," whereas the Globe declares that "Canadians are more likely to say new Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole is a good choice to take the helm of the party than a poor choice". If both conclusions are true, then O'Toole himself may be the party's best chance at convincing unsold Canadians to give the Tories a second look. The grass is always greener. In a different national leadership race, the Green Party of Canada is currently deciding who will take over their top job in their Oct. 4 election, after longtime leader Elizabeth May steps down. In the latest edition of Maclean's, Marie-Danielle Smith sketches the race, which is packed with eight highly qualified professionals (including an ER physician, an astrophysicist, a former mayor and several lawyers). A tear in the Ford-Trudeau friendship. An Ontario Superior Court judge has ruled that those anti–carbon tax stickers, which Doug Ford's government mandated every gas station slap onto their pumps, are in fact unconstitutional. It's unclear whether the Ontario government will try and appeal the ruling, since a) this is arguably a very dumb use of government money during a pandemic, and b) Ford has been getting along so well with Trudeau, why spoil things now? For those curious, here's a snippet of the ruling by Justice Edward Morgan , who nicely plays along with the government's running pun: A government or political party can, in the words of Ontario's Minister of Energy, 'stick it to' another tier of government or political party as a matter of free speech in an election campaign or otherwise. But a government cannot legislate a requirement that private retailers post a sticker designed to accomplish that task. A refreshing voice. In late August, the United Conservative government of Alberta appointed Canada's first Black justice minister, Nigerian-Canadian MLA Kaycee Madu. Madu appeared on The West Block this weekend to discuss the delicate balance between his life as Black man and institutional racism in Canadian courts and police forces. His immediate priorities include stamping out carding and appointing diverse judges to the provincial court. An attempted American invasion. In anticipation of the Labour Day weekend, the Canada Border Services Agency released statistics that showed more than 18,000 people have tried to drive into Canada from the United States since the border closed on Mar. 22. Some Americans have successfully snuck in, but that doesn't make them safe: one family was found, after using the infamous "Alaska loophole" (claiming they were driving to Alaska), simply vacationing in Vancouver . The B.C. RCMP fined them $2,000 for violating the Quarantine Act. And, sure, B.C. is beautiful, but is it really worth all that trouble? Then again, Americans would be forgiven for to trying to flee their country. In the wake of more violent protests, and Donald Trump's inability to do anything resembling bridge-building, Adnan R. Khan notes that we are witnessing the Great American Implosion: They think back to 2016 and the rosy glow of confidence that was so brutally crushed when Trump won the election. They worry about how the current regime in the White House is laying the groundwork to contest the results if he loses. They envision a scenario in which Trump riles up his minions with nightmarish visions of a Marxist takeover, where gay people and feminists and Washington’s baby-eating cultists upend the natural order and impose their degenerate views on Betty Crocker and the Beavers. —Michael Fraiman | 