1/ So this is pretty interesting, and it does change the timeline somewhat, but not necessarily the basic story. In fact it suggests something much more interesting which journos may want to follow up. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-docs-suggest-bureaucrats-were-nudged-to-look-to-we-charity-for-student/?utm_medium=Referrer:+Social+Network+/+Media&utm_campaign=Shared+Web+Article+Links

2/ The picture we got from the Finance hearings was: PMO/Finance makes a goofy decision to create CSSG, ESDC is horrified when it sees details on Apr. 22, responds by trying to offload it to an external partner because it can't handle it, WE is an obvious choice b/c reasons.

3/ My reading of these excerpts is that they just move this exact story forward by three days, from 22nd to 19th. And if you think the date of the program announcement means something, yes that makes it look like the fix was in. But it's an interesting question: does it?

4/ Technically speaking, nothing's written in stone until the memo goes to cabinet, which was in mid-May. The new policies Trudeau was announcing every day from the cottage steps...I don't think many of them were put before cabinet prior to announcement. No time.

5/ But read those excerpts: on the 19th, you have public servants acting *as if a decision has already been taken* and they are just there to figure out how to make it work. For them the discussion about the basic parameters (if not all the details) of CSSG are already set.

6/ Who made this decision? When? We don't know. We never know. Policy *directions* given from the political level are never really minuted. We only record when they were *publicly announced* and when they were given force by cabinet and/ or Parliament.

7/ And yet public servants have to march to the beat of the policy directions, because only they can "make it happen". They deliver the details. They write the memos to cabinet. And only once they are done does the public find out about anything.

8/ My point here is that 22/4 has been the focus of a lot of attention because that's when *we* found out about CSSG. But that would not have been a key date from public service's perspective and no reason they would not have been working on implementation issues before that date

9/ So don't assume these revelations mean "they rigged the CSSG to give it to WE" (they might have, but no proof yet). There is still a need to understand where the policy direction came from and how the thinking about CSSG came about. Look pre-19/4. That's where the prize is.