Not much of a stockpile there Did someone forward you this newsletter? Sign up here to get it delivered weekday mornings. Auditor-General Karen Hogan released a report on Wednesday that found the Public Health Agency of Canada failed to maintain its stockpile of personal protective equipment (PPE), which will not come as a surprise to health-care workers who found themselves rationing masks and gowns early in the pandemic. The problem appears to have been the fault of officials who ignored internal audits in 2010 and 2013 urging them to stock up on supplies. The agency was not tracking expiry dates, did not test ventilators as it was supposed to do and had inadequate systems for tracking supplies. "We found that information needed to govern, oversee and manage the federal stockpile was missing, outdated or lacked clarity. This had a negative impact on the operation of the federal stockpile," the report said. The AG praised the agency for eventually rallying and organizing a national emergency PPE acquisition effort. The Globe points out that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau acknowledged that the government failed on this file in a year end interview: “There are stories of front-line health workers who had to bring their masks home and wash them. That shouldn’t have happened,” he told CTV. The Public Health Agency of Canada had a change of leadership in September. Grim COVID news: In struggling Manitoba on Wednesday, the province revealed that a COVID patient died en route to an Ontario hospital. Manitoba's hospitals can't cope with the level of infection, which seems to have Premier Brian Pallister showing signs of strain. Alberta, which has been posting fewer new cases every day, announced a three-stage reopening plan on Wednesday, with each step linked to rising vaccination rates and falling hospitalization rates. The first step is worship, on Friday, with outdoor patios coming June 1. We can expect more reopening stories in the days ahead. Half of all Canadians have now had at least one jab, ahead of the United States. But Chief Public Health Officer Dr. Theresa Tam is not calling for wide open society yet: she wants three-quarters of the population fully vaccinated before most restrictions are lifted. So long to the old Duff: Senator Mike Duffy reached the retirement age of 75 on Wednesday, which means he is free to return to his primary residence in Cavendish, P.E.I. Duffy, whose expense account controversy posed a terrible political problem for the government of Stephen Harper, admonished his colleagues last month, reminding them of the rough treatment they gave him during that time: “The Senate is unelected and unaccountable to anyone other than itself. Sadly, that concept has been twisted to mean that senators are not permitted the procedural fairness available to every other resident of Canada,” he said. “Even the Charter of Rights has no application here.” Horror in Joliette: An inquest into the death of Joyce Echaquan heard devastating testimony from another patient about the abuse heaped on the Atikamekw woman as she lay dying. "If I had known I would have hugged her," Annie Desroches told the inquest in Trois-Rivières, Quebec. No: In the House of Commons on Wednesday, Liberal justice minister-turned independent Jody Wilson-Raybould was the sole MP to object to a Bloc Quebecois motion calling for MPs to endorse Quebec’s bid to change the Canadian constitution to recognize French as the only official language of Quebec. Also not a fan: Writing for Maclean’s former NDP leader Thomas Mulcair chides Trudeau for standing by while Quebec launches a sneak attack on language rights. Trudeau seems to have veered away from his often espoused vision of a bilingual multicultural Canada towards one where linguistic and religious minorities are on their own. When he and Lametti refused to lift their little fingers to help hard-pressed religious minorities fighting in court against Quebec’s discriminatory Bill 21, the writing was on the wall. This is my childhood: Also in the magazine, a feature on Sophia Mathur, who is, at 14, one of Canada's most high-profile climate activists. Mathur is one of a number of young people suing the Ford government, alleging it has "violated Ontarians’ Charter-protected rights to life, liberty and security of the person" by gutting restrictions on emissions. CPP boondoggle: In the Globe and Mail, columnist Andrew Coyne continues his lonely mission complaining about the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, (CPPIB) whose "active management" is expensive and does not beat the market. Coyne argues that it's all a waste of money. Whatever gains the CPPIB might have hoped to achieve from the switch to active management—picking individual stocks and other investments, rather than buying the market as a whole—have been almost entirely wiped out by the massive increase in costs it has incurred in the attempt: from less than $4-million in 2000, the year the CPP first started investing in the markets, to more than $4.4-billion last year. At the outset, the fund had just five employees; today, it has close to 2,000. Its first chief executive officer, John MacNaughton, earned a little more than $600,000 in salary, bonuses and benefits in his first full year; today, the average compensation for its top five executives is in excess of $3.5 million. — Stephen Maher | 