Canada's Governor General Julie Payette delivered the speech from the throne yesterday, outlining the Liberal Government's pledge to do "whatever it takes" to support the economy through the pandemic.

What is a Throne Speech?
Good question, the speech from the throne is delivered by the Governor General to Parliament at the beginning of a new sitting. Although the GG is technically the representative of the Queen, the speech is written by the governing party and used to provide an overview of their legislative agenda.

What's On Tap This Parliament?

Another good question, look at you! Attention grabbing announcements made in the speech include:

What's Next?
First, the throne speech must pass parliament, which requires the support of at least the Conservatives or NDP, failure to get the votes would lead to an election. If passed, Canadians will just have to wait and see if and how the Liberals will deliver on their promises in turbulent times.

One of the three police officers involved in the shooting death of Breonna Taylor has been indicted by a grand jury on three counts. The two other officers who fired shots were not charged, and no charges have been announced for actually causing her death.

Back Story: Breonna Taylor was killed by police this summer in Louisville, KY, when they raided her apartment late at night. Her death, that of George Floyd and many others at the hands of police drove the massive Black Lives Matter protests that erupted across the United States and the world over the past several months.

Soft on Crime: The charges against the, now former, officer Brett Hankinson, are neither homicide nor manslaughter but the much lighter "wanton endangerment," which carries a maximum sentence of five years. The crime Hankinson allegedly committed was firing through a glass door and window, both of which were covered by blinds, a violation of police department policy requiring a clear line of sight to fire a weapon.

Fallout:

Zoom Out...This summer the United States experienced months of intense and energetic protests against police brutality with Breonna Taylor as a central rallying point. This outcome has a lot of people who are hungry for change feeling that the people in power aren't responding.

Two Shopify employees have been turfed after it was revealed they stole an unknown amount of  customer information from 200 merchants. This is a blemish on the squeaky clean Canadian company, they've reassured customers that no credit card or banking information was stolen, and that the breach is not a technical vulnerability but the result of employees going "rogue."

Fallout:

Longterm: Shopify remains a home grown global powerhouse, and this breach is practically already a distant memory. We're still big Shopify fans.

Belarusian President  Alexander Lukashenko channeled Billy Idol when he inaugurated himself, in a surprise ceremony, to a 6th term in office on Wednesday. It's safe to assume the low key swearing in wasn't because Lukashenko just wanted some alone time. 

Backstory: Belarus has been dealing with mass protests ever since the country's August 9th election, where Lukashenko claimed victory with 80% of the vote. Opposition parties and western observers are calling the results fraudulent. On the ground the people of Belarus believe the election was fairly won by Svetlana Tikhanovskaya.

Canada's Involvement: Our government, along with others, has called for an expert mission to investigate the electoral fraud and violence towards protesters. Canada had sanctioned Belarus from 2006 until 2016, when the Liberal government attempted re-engage Lukashenko.

Big Picture: The European Union attempted to pass sanctions against Lukashenko and allies, but the measures were vetoed by Cyprus, an EU member country who, like Lukashenko, is aligned with Russia. Belarusian opposition are public stating that Canada and the United States must step up on sanctions to provide a counter balance.