While Canada continues to follow Australia’s failed policies around detaining asylum seekers, there are some important differences – in Australia, the dedicated refugee detention centres are focused on their wellbeing, and are designed not to be prisons. In Canada, detained refugee claimants are sent to overcrowded provincial jails, with the convicted criminal populations. Yeah, this is really going to end well.
On the Robocon file, online postings from before the 2011 election match the complaints that Elections Canada was getting about calls telling people that their polling locations had changed. Meanwhile, over in the Federal Court case where those six ridings are being challenged, the Conservative party lawyer has filed a factum that says that there’s no evidence that these calls actually dissuaded anyone from voting.
Kady O’Malley outlines the next steps in the battle over Omnibus Budget Bill 2: The Revenge.
The Privacy Commissioner has concerns about the new Electronic Travel Authorisation that is part of our new border plans with the Americans – specifically how the data will be used and how long the government plans to keep it.
The premiers totally promise not to gang up on Harper if he were to show up at the First Ministers meeting later this week. He’s not going to show up, but if he did, well, they’re totally swearing they’ll be nice.
Colin Horgan dissects Rona Ambrose’s new talking points around the fighter jet procurement process, while Philippe Lagassé notes that we shouldn’t be asking what other fighters the Secretariat is looking at until we know whether or not they’re revised the rigged Statement of Requirements.
The government has spent some $8 million in television advertising to commemorate the War of 1812.
Maclean’s looks at some of the major problems that we have in this country when it comes to reporting adverse drug reactions. Meanwhile, Macleans.ca’s Science-ish lists five of the drug-related problems that our healthcare system faces.
Senator Colin Kenny has awarded Parliamentary Budget Officer Kevin Page with the Diamond Jubilee Medal.
Laura Stone talks to Olivia Chow about the calls for her to run for mayor of Toronto. What’s shocking, however, is that she keeps Merlot in the fridge. Merlot. In the fridge. I’m resisting the urge to shout a few choice expletives.
Pierre Poilievre is pleased that We The Media recognise that he’s learned his talking points.
Senator Patrick Brazeau may be facing some real financial difficulty, and now questions are being raised about his housing allowance, and that he may be abusing it. It also makes me wonder whether he meets the Senate’s property requirement anymore either.
Paul Wells looks at Justin Trudeau’s endorsement of the Nexen deal, and sees some echoes to his father’s policies and some interesting choices ahead for Harper.
Here is your recap of last night’s political shows.
And if you’ve been wondering about those NDP talking points from the past couple of weeks about how the government collects more personal income tax than corporate tax, well, economist Stephen Gordon points you in the direction of these two explainers about why they’re entirely wrong.