The omnibus budget bill has passed Second Reading without any procedural trickery, and is off to committee for study, while it also begins pre-study in a number of different Senate committees. The NDP, however, are promising “novel” ways to engage the public on the issue. My question is why it’s taken them two weeks to start engaging the public.

The reaction to John Baird’s outburst in QP yesterday that they were shutting down the National Round Table on Environment and the Economy because they didn’t like their recommendations has largely been “told you so.” (Said outburst included a slip where he said a carbon tax would “kill Canadians” when he obviously meant “kill jobs.”) While some people say that everything Baird says is calculated, I’m not so sure – this had a bit more of a tone of mocking and an attempt to goad the Liberals that may have backfired, and I suspect that he may have been given a stern talking to by PMO, and will be reading his responses during his next turn as back-up PM.

Even though Diane Finley refuses to give a dollar figure, Jim Flaherty says that the changes to OAS could save the treasury between $10 and $12 billion.

A recently tabled yearly planning report on the F-35 fighter jets indicates that it’s still full steam ahead with plans to acquire those particular planes, despite the “all options on the table” rhetoric.

The RCMP public complaints commissioner’s report into the Force’s conduct in the G8/G20 demonstrations clears that particular force of any wrongdoing but did raise concerns about the “kettling” incident. The reports into OPP and Toronto City Police conduct are ongoing.

Stéphane Dion is now coming out swinging against Mulcair and his comments on the oil sands. Dion says that even though he had advisors who wanted him to attack the oil sands development, he would never play region-against-region under his leadership, and he makes a few other points about Mulcair’s “Dutch disease” assertions to go along with it.

Here’s a little more about that incident where a pledge donation to the Shriners looked as though it was due to head to Conservative headquarters, and on the face of it, it does actually look like an administrative mix-up as the firm uses the same bulk-mailer as the Conservatives.

Job cuts are coming to the senior ranks of the public service, where they find that unbridled growth of the executive ranks (due in part to “classification creep”) has created a number of unnecessary positions.

What’s that? Stimulus funds may have gone to Quebec companies now under investigation for corruption? You don’t say!

And Kady O’Malley continues to dig into the issue of committee secrecy comparisons and the preliminary results are interesting indeed, if you compare them to the assertion that the Liberals were “more secretive.”