First Reading is a daily newsletter keeping you posted on the travails of Canadian politicos, all curated by the National Post’s own Tristin Hopper. To get an early version sent directly to your inbox, sign up here.

This week, the office of Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly said Joly was not aware that her department had controversially purchased a $9-million condo in the New York City neighbourhood known as Billionaires’ Row.  As her office confirmed to National Post, Joly found out like everyone else when the news first appeared in the New York Post.