In a surprising move, Marc Garneau decided to up sticks and pull out of the Liberal leadership race. The assumptive number two challenger who was providing a lot of the heft in the race did the math and figured that he wasn’t going to be able to win, so it was time to be a loyal soldier and support Justin Trudeau – never mind the number of attacks he launched at him in the past few weeks, and his comments about his lack of depth. Mind you, he probably did Trudeau a lot of good by giving him some good practice for the kinds of attacks that will be launched at him should he win the race and have to face the Commons daily. Oh, but wait, the other challengers said – a preferential ballot where all of the ridings are weighted equally may mean that a sheer numerical advantage may be blunted. Well, maybe. I’m also sure that David Bertschi, who should have sashayed away a long time ago, is overjoyed that he’s no longer in eight place, and that he’s now gaining momentum. Chantal Hébert notes that this exit may have saved Garneau from a humiliating defeat where Joyce Murray might have overtaken him as she has a kind of “ballot box” issue to run on, where Garneau didn’t really. Paul Wells looks to the coming Trudeau Years, and what will likely be two years of people complaining about what a disappointment he’s been as leader. Andrew Coyne looks at how actual party memberships seem to have evaporated under the new “supporter” category, making the party little more than a personality cult that exists more in theory than in practice. Oh, and the party brass acceded to Trudeau’s request to extend the deadline by an extra week in order to work out all of the “technical glitches” with getting all of their supporters registered to vote.

The Commissioner of Elections has recommended that charges be laid in the Guelph robocall case, and it now remains to be seen if the Director of Public Prosecutions feels that there’s enough evidence for charges to go ahead.

The government is moving to restrict its own data-mining activities from government websites. These rules do not apply to social media sites that the government has set up.

The Prime Minister of France is in town, and there appears to be a deal in the works about biofuels derived from seaweed.

Here’s a look at Thomas Mulcair’s speech to the Woodrow Wilson Centre in Washington DC yesterday. Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall did not take kindly to Mulcair’s trip, and said that Mulcair leaves a “swath of destruction for the energy sector” in his wake.

John Baird was in Hong Kong to talk about trade with China, and the need for a pipeline to the west coast to facilitate that trade.

Here is a look at the $60 billion in tax breaks the government has given to businesses over the past several years, and whether it’s actually been effective.

Dean Del Mastro thinks it’s no big deal that he’s missed more than two dozen Ethics Committee meetings, because he’s just so busy with other committees and duties and stuff.

The Queen sent greetings to Chris Hadfield as he took command of the International Space Station. (Queen of Canada!)

And here are the three non-pope related things you need to see from last night’s political shows. Because seriously – Power & Politics was wall-to-wall pope news.