An American expert following the F-35 debacle asserts that the government’s response doesn’t go far enough. You don’t say! And that General Natynczyk still thinks they’re the best jet for our air force, no matter what anyone says? Get out of town! Meanwhile, here are some of the references around how this was or was not just an “accounting error,” the lifecycle being assessed – which former Assistant Deputy Minister Alan Williams calls “a distortion” – and while Peter MacKay assures us that there’s all kinds of documentation to back this up, the Auditor General repeatedly said there was not. And Andrew Coyne goes to Treasury Board guidelines to take apart MacKay’s argument.

It cost the public purse $2.3 million for Elections Canada to investigate and take the Conservatives to court over the In & Out affair, for which they paid out a meagre $52,000 in fines.

Here’s a good examination of the meaning of the government’s decision to dismantle the National Roundtable on Energy and the Economy, and the negligible savings to the treasury that will actually result.

The government has also cut all funding to the National Aboriginal Health Association, which will close in June.

Also, cuts to the Canadian Space Agency will likely impact on future projects that Canada will be able to participate in.

Hat tip to Aaron Wherry for finding the speech by John Diefenbaker in 1949 about the role of the Official Opposition, and how they were having the very same doubts about the estimates process and the role of the Public Accounts Committee back then as they are now.

So many communities tried to host a Diamond Jubilee party that the special fund has been “oversubscribed.”

And the NCC is going to start putting up plaques with the statues of the Fathers of Confederation and early prime ministers up on Parliament Hill, so that people know who they actually are and what they accomplished. Which really is long overdue, really.