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Thanks for reading Ottawa Playbook.

In today’s edition:

→ Cabinet ministers unveil their plans for spending and restraint — and the next time we’ll learn more about the nation’s finances.

→ Environment Minister STEVEN GUILBEAULT dishes on his “unsupervised” group chat with global enviro-ministers.

→ The skinny on canceled committees.

FINALLY, A DATE — Just as the runway for the parliamentary week ran out, Finance Minister CHRYSTIA FREELAND produced November’s most anticipated date: The Fall Economic Statement lands on Nov. 21, around 4 p.m.

If it seems a little late, that’s because last year the big day was Nov. 3.

The mid-year fiscal update has increasingly been leveraged to announce new spending, and it’s expected housing and financial relief will play some part in this one.

But it comes as the Liberal government faces an affordability crisis and ballooning debt servicing costs.

— Penny pinching begins: Treasury Board President ANITA ANAND gave the first glimpse of her big spending review — not half a billion in cuts, but in spending “refocusing.”

— Tamp down on travel: She unveiled the new figures in the latest Supplementary Estimates, taking aim at consulting, professional services and travel expenses.

— Defense hit the hardest: Coming ahead of all other departments, National Defense coughs up C$211 million.

Anand, the country’s previous defense minister, told reporters Thursday that when she wrote to Cabinet ministers tasking them with finding areas to cut back on, “we deliberately said that the Canadian Armed Forces would not be touched, health transfers to provinces would not be touched.”

— Slightest of belt tightenings: There’s a looooong way to go still. Anand’s marching orders:cut C$15 billion. She promises more to come.

“This is just the first tranche of the results relating to our spending review,” she said. “You are going to see additional examples of departments coming forward, and it won’t always in the separate tranches be precisely equal.”

— Complicating narrative: The Globe’s screaming headline earlier this week, “Ottawa paid nearly $670,000 for KPMG’s advice on cutting consultant costs,” sends out a competing message at the same time.

— Related reading: CBC’s ELIZABETH THOMPSON crunched the numbers put out on the new spending cutbacks.

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MO’ MEETINGS, MO’ PROBLEMS — Parliament is still struggling to boost its talent pool of official interpreters, following a string of work-accident injuries that caused hearing damage and a retiring labor force.

“The handful of new graduates who joined the pool each year is not enough to offset those who retire,” PSPC CEO DOMINIC LAPORTE told the Board of Internal Economy on Thursday. “We are thus unable to achieve a net gain in capacity each time we issue a new call for tenders or hold a new accreditation exam.”

Today’s the big day for those seeking to become parliamentary interpreters as they head into the fall accreditation exam. Though, at the last one in June, 30 applied, and just four made the cut.

— Bigfooted by ya BOIE: Officials touted that their capacity to hold meetings has returned to pre-pandemic levels. Yet, resources are still stretched thin.

Every time the Board of Internal Economy meets, another meeting gets canceled.

Bloc Whip CLAUDE DEBELLEFEUILLE criticized that interpretation services always seem to be on the “brink of disaster.”

“The procedural committee is not meeting because the board is meeting,” she said. “I find that completely unacceptable.”

Laporte said they are “doubling down” on recruitment and expects in the short term something around a 10 percent bump in capacity.

— More meetings coming: When MPs return and the committee broadcast lights go on, the House of Commons administration aims to add remote simultaneous interpreters (located outside the national capital region), a pilot program that’s gone through a series of tests over the past few months.

That could add eight new committee meeting slots a week, if all goes to plan.

— Talks to support more talking: Parliament can currently only recruit interpreters from two schools due to the strict certifications. Ottawa is seeking to expand that number, but is still in discussions with universities about widening the pool of programs available that produce graduates who can apply to become interpreters.

TAKE THAT, DCOMMS — STEVEN GUILBEAULT says he’s a member of a private WhatsApp group with “30-35” environment ministers from around the world that’s “unfiltered” and “unsupervised.”

Guilbeault made the disclosure at the Canadian Climate Institute’s annual net-zero conference at the Shaw Centre on Thursday, overlooking a picturesque first snow day on Parliament Hill.

He and Energy Minister JONATHAN WILKINSON were asked by moderator CATHERINE ABREU to ruminate on what she described as the “false dichotomy” between affordability and climate action, and if there’s anything different about the level of polarization about the latter in Canada.

— Guilbeault’s response: No. The politics of affordability are smacking governments hard coming out of the pandemic in both the United States and Europe.

— Not so hot: He pointed to Quebec Premier FRANÇOIS LEGAULT’s career arc as an example of a leader who rose to rockstar status during the pandemic but has now fallen in popularity: “The man walked on water. And now, oof, you know, it’s not looking super good.”

— Credit where credit’s due: Guilbeault gave a nod to Conservatives for being good at jumping on “easy to understand sound bites” like when Bank of Canada Governor TIFF MACKLEM attributed the carbon tax to a 0.15 percent increase in inflation.

Now, he said, they’ve created new political divisions over an old carbon tax.

— The e-word: “We did the 2019 election on carbon pricing, we did the 2021 election on carbon pricing — there were other issues,” Guilbeault said. “It looks like the next federal election will also be a lot about carbon pricing.”

— Prime Minister JUSTIN TRUDEAU is in Northern Ontario, where he will visit a local electricity provider, tour a housing development and visit a legion.

— Deputy Prime Minister CHRYSTIA FREELAND is in Toronto to participate in the University of Toronto’s Remembrance service.

UP: Heat pumps, making a splash in Canadian politics like never before.

DOWN: JUSTIN TRUDEAU’s chances of reining in leadership speculation as more headlines bearing MARK CARNEY’s name fly off the shelves.

— Quebec politicians condemned a clash over the Israel-Hamas war at Concordia University, PHILIP AUTHIER writes in the Montreal Gazette. The Jewish community is reeling over shocking acts of antisemitism in the city this week.

— BRYAN PASSIFIUME reports in the National Post that Conservative senators are blowing their stacks over debate suddenly shutting down on Bill C-234, a carbon tax exemption for farmers.

— RACHEL AIELL reports for CTV on the Liberal-NDP push for anti-scab legislation.

— KEN BOESSENKOOL writes for The Line: “There is a dumb way to transition to an industrial-only carbon price, and a couple of smart ways. The Liberals chose the dumb way.”

— GT and Co.’s DON GUY is on the Herle Burly podcast talking about the sticky situation the Liberals are in.

— GLEN MCGREGOR on Canadaland’s short cuts podcast compares the press gallery’s pack-hunting instincts on Trudeau’s political career to old insurance commercials that depicted an “injured wildebeest that got separated from its herd on the Serengeti” just before the “pride of lions sees weakness and descends.”

If you’re a subscriber, don’t miss our latest policy newsletter … Guilbeault laments carbon tax waffle by ZI-ANN LUM and NICK TAYLOR-VAISEY.

In other news for Pro subscribers:

— Freeland to share financial update on Nov. 21
— Senior Democrats push Biden to drop trade from IPEF
— Democrats look to flex environmental muscle following Republican losses
— Senate OKs ‘Buy America’ EV resolution in rebuke of Biden
— UK softens stance on fossil fuels ahead of COP28 summit
— International talks on deep-sea mining regulations punted to 2024

Birthdays: A very happy birthday to MPs LEN WEBBER and XAVIER BARSALOU-DUVAL, former MP BORYS WRZESNEWSKYJ, Sen. KIM PATE and MELANIE NICHOLSON (chief of staff to Sen. JANE CORDY).

Celebrating Saturday: Sen. PATRICK BRAZEAU, former MP NORMAN DOYLE, Blackbird Strategies’ MADDY EISENBERG and McMillan Vantage’s JONATHAN FALCONE.

Send birthdays to [email protected].

Spotted: The human backdrop at SEAMUS O’REGAN‘s C-58 press conference: Liberal MPs VIVIANE LAPOINTE, PETER FONSECA, SUKH DHALIWAL, IREK KUSMIERCZYK, and MARIE-FRANCE LALONDE; NDP MPs ALEXANDRE BOULERICE, DANIEL BLAIKIE, MATTHEW GREEN, and TAYLOR BACHRACH; Sen. HASSAN YUSSUFF; and labor leaders BEA BRUSKE, LANA PAYNE, CAROLINE SENNEVILLE, FRANÇOIS LAPORTE, RUSS SHEWCHUK, GIL MCGOWAN, BRANDON DYCK, MARTY WARREN and MAGALI PICARD.

NDP Leader JAGMEET SINGH and the party’s national director, ANNE MCGRATH, hung around the West Block foyer for O’Regan’s presser.

En route to Newark: MP JOYCE MURRAY.

At the Canadian Club of Ottawa’s luncheon at the Château Laurier, Employment Minister RANDY BOISSONNAULT ducking out early with chief of staff ELLIOTT LOCKINGTON in the middle of CAE CEO MARC PARENT’s keynote speech. Conservative MP JAMES BEZAN made time for the event, as did Pendulum Group co-founder HEATHER BAKKEN, ISED Deputy Minister SIMON KENNEDY and Ukrainian Ambassador YULIYA KOVALIV.

RICHARD MAHONEY and TIM MURPHY scrapping on social media over the bid by YASIR NAQVI and NATE ERSKINE-SMITH to team up against BONNIE CROMBIE by trying to share supporters in the Ontario Liberal leadership race.

HÉLÈNE BUZZETTIpointing out that, a day after the CAQ accidentally leaked its own media lines to the press, Premier FRANÇOIS LEGAULT’s comms team did it again “by popular demand.”

Repeat appearances of the Verizon guy’s catchphrase (sorry, Gen Z) appearing at MELANIE JOLY’s virtual presser amid technical difficulties.

After casting abstentions since 2011, Canada voted in favor of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency draft resolution titled, “Assistance to Palestine refugees” and against a handful of other motions.

Movers and shakers: JAN GORSKI joined Natural Resources Minister JONATHAN WILKINSON’s office this week as senior policy and prairies adviser. Gorski comes from the Pembina Institute, where he worked for more than five years dealing with policy development, and emissions and energy modeling.

From Gorski’s bio, provided to Playbook by his new employer: “Jan spends much of his spare time either on a bicycle or exploring the Rocky Mountains, sometimes both at the same time.”

— The House is adjourned until Monday, Nov. 20.

— The public inquiry into foreign interference is expected to release more details about its work plan and will formally issue a call for applications for standing by interested parties.

9:30 a.m. Environment Minister STEVEN GUILBEAULT and Tourism Minister SORAYA MARTINEZ FERRADA will be in Montreal to make a green funding announcement.

10 a.m. Veterans Affairs Minister GINETTE PETITPAS TAYLOR will be at Ottawa City Hall to attend a “Turn to Busan” commemorative ceremony.

Thursday’s answer: JOHN PEARSON designed the Memorial Chamber on Parliament Hill. Bonus: FRANK HOLLISTER did the glasswork.

Props to: CAMERON RYAN, MATT DELISLE, JENN KEAY, MICHAEL DONOHOE, and ROBERT MCDOUGALL

Bonus props: JENN KEAY, MICHAEL DONOHOE and ROBERT MCDOUGALL

Today’s question: What was the unfortunate nickname of the JOHN TURNER campaign plane in 1984?

Send your answer to [email protected]

Think you have a harder trivia question? Send us your best.

Playbook wouldn’t happen without: POLITICO Canada editor Sue Allan, editor Emma Anderson and Luiza Ch. Savage.

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