Bill Morneau comes to call

How often does this happen? My doorbell rang and there was Canada's Finance Minister wanting to talk to me. And we stood talking for 15 minutes - he perhaps relieved at a sympathetic reception - though I told him not to shake my hand because of my cold. We discussed Blackfacegate and SNC - agreeing that the PM has made foolish choices in his past and that the bright, capable women he chose for cabinet were inexperienced at politics and did not know how to play the game. "They hated to compromise," he said. "I have to compromise all the time. I never get exactly what I want."

I liked him tremendously, found him honest, direct, and personable. I told him as a former actor that Trudeau needs voice lessons to sound less breathy and indecisive, and he said they've tried. He told me about sitting down with Trump in Washington - that he's a master salesman who decides what he wants to pitch and goes for it and it alone. And it works. I was wearing my worst slumpy clothes, sweaty and probably smelly, but we had a great talk.

Now there's a red Liberal sign in my front yard. Pragmatic politics with some heart is, I think, the best we can do right now, in this age of right-wing lunatics and frenzied online hatred. And looking at the rest of the world, pragmatic politics with a heart is not bad at all.