Who's ready for a teachable moment?

The PM will testify for 90 minutes. So we will have an hour and a half to learn together.

Semi-related: Why don't we just give everyone money?

If the public service wasn't able to deliver this sort of program in a timely manner, why not? And should we, you know, get on that?

Because I'm a professional, I will not -- will *not* -- refer to the prime minister as the "third Kielburger brother."

If everyone is doing so much due diligence, why didn't someone say "This is going to look *very bad* and we shouldn't do it like this."

Also, if as the PM says, it was either this project with WE or no project at all, was it not possible to scale it down or amend it to take another route? This was literally the only option?

The PM knew his family had been involved. He didn't know all the details. He learned the details *after* the program launched?

Why not, you know, ask for details ahead of time?

I really don't think this is about corruption or quid pro quo. I don't think there's any malice here. This is about entitlement, fatigue, the need for haste, and very serious blind spots in a country governed by a small cadre of elites.

So, it was someone's job to check the lobbyist registry. Not sure who. Someone in the office. But not the PM.

Again, is no one doing a smell test on this thing?

The PM continues to say "our professional public service," which helps us distinguish, I suppose, from our unprofessional public service.

Fun with framing.

Again, I think the true scandal here is that according to the PM -- and, as he suggests, the public service itself -- the PS wasn't prepared to deliver this program through the service corps.

Why not?

If we gave people money -- and collected revenue accordingly -- we wouldn't have this problem.

We'd have other problems, but they'd be better problems. We wouldn't be wasting time on this nonsense.

The limits of the Canada Service Corps finally comes up -- and gets 20 seconds. That's too bad. Again, this is central to this issue.

You can really tell when a group of people grew up as debate kids and model UN nerds.

(I did.)

This isn't fun anymore, I'm going to take a break to get some pizza.

Years ago, I went to an Indiana Jones marathon at Scotiabank Theatre. I made the mistake of watching Temple of Doom instead of taking a break in the middle.

Anyway, I'm going to eat this pizza for a bit.

Wait: This is what the government came up with after *being concerned about perception*?

What would their choice have been if they weren't concerned with perception? Just setting a pile of cash on fire in front of young people about to default on their student loans?

Liberal MP Julie Dzerowicz truly doing the heavy lifting of giving the government the benefit of the doubt and plenty of time to evangelize the Good Word.

I'M SORRY: shit pay and job security, absurd real estate prices, climate change, and NOW we're worried about a lost generation?

We've had years and years to build the programming, institutions, and society we need to protect each and every generation, but we've done middling, piddling half-measures instead.

NPD MP Peter Julian with a strong line of questioning here -- finally asking, to what extent was the PS involved in this process and considered to run the program?

Telford says the PS said it should be a third party.

Julian asks: who made the decision?

No real answer.

I wish we could stay on that line of questioning -- who recommend what, when, and why? And what does this tell us about PS and other capacity, or its lack?

Think of how much trouble we could avoid if we just stopped doing events.