Despite the meeting arranged with Stephen Harper, Idle No More protests continued across the weekend, including at border crossings. Former Prime Minister Paul Martin met with Chief Theresa Spence on Saturday and said that she’s an inspiration for many. Spence is continuing her hunger strike until she’s sure that “concrete action” will be taken, which seems to be yet another case of goalposts being moved, each one fuzzier than the last. While APTN checks the math that SunTV did on Attawapiskat’s finances and comes to a few different conclusions, a year-old CBC report from the community reappeared over the Twitter Machine yesterday which shows that there are some serious governance problems on the reserve.

As the Parliamentary Budget Officer turns his gaze to the contract for joint support ships that the Royal Canadian Navy has been planning on building for years now, it looks like that particular process is its own mess, but in a reverse fashion from the F-35s, where the civilian side is taking too much control and there seems to be little regard for what the military’s needs are, while the focus remains solely on costs.

Stephen Harper will be meeting with the head of the African Union tomorrow, as questions continue to circulate about whether Canada might play a role with the situation in Mali.

Changes to EI around things like job alerts and the working-while-on-claim pilot project went into effect yesterday.

Susan Delacourt writes about the shrinking middle class, the desire to grab the political centre, and the fortunes of Second Cup in the middle of the Tim Horton’s versus Starbucks debate. But it works – really!

And Tabatha Southey has some cosmic political questions for Marc Garneau.