It’s official – MPs are now abusing the mandate of the Parliamentary Budget Officer. A report was released from his office yesterday, which announced the costing of the Conservatives’ election promise to create a fitness tax credit for older adults once the budget was balanced. That’s right – MPs were getting him to check on an election promise that is years away from seeing the light – probably not until after the next election. Strange, but this doesn’t seem to have anything to do with independent budget forecasts or help in deciphering the supply cycle. In fact, this is little more than MPs fobbing off their homework to the PBO so that they can wrap themselves in his independent-and-therefore-credible analysis. Because math is hard! Is it any wonder that the government has become suspicious of the way in which the PBO has been operating, when opposition MPs are using it in such a way? It doesn’t matter that this particular report came from a Conservative MP either, because it’s still dealing with election promises rather than forecasts or the estimates and it still plays the independent-and-therefore-credible game. It also shouldn’t be a personal calculation service, as Galipeau was using the PBO in that manner before he “brought a recommendation” to Flaherty in advance of the budget – he has a caucus research bureau for these sorts of things. This is also an argument for not making the PBO an independent officer of parliament, because he would have no accountability to anyone at that point. When this kind of abuse by MPs for partisan gain becomes his modus operandi rather than the actual work he’s supposed to be doing then it’s hard to see how this won’t become a major problem for the way that our system of government functions.

Those BC doctors who got authorisation from Health Canada to provide medicalised heroin for severe addicts who don’t respond to alternative treatments plan to go ahead with the treatments despite the minister’s opposition – especially as the legislation doesn’t give her a veto. The Conservative Party, meanwhile, has decided to start fundraising off of this incident, because they’re the hard-done-by outsiders and not the government. Oh, wait…

The NDP wants in on the “tough on crime” game as well.

Pat Martin insists he’s doing nothing wrong with taking those donations for his legal defence fund, and if anyone has a problem they should change the rules. It should probably be noted that he was the NDP MP on the committee when those rules were changed in 2006, when he gleefully went along with everything because the changes were largely intended to punish the Liberals.

Our embassy in Washington is hosting a party for proponents of climate pricing – but the Harper government wants you to know that this is an initiative from the Alberta government, who shares a separate office space with the embassy, and that the Harper government opposes a “job-killing carbon tax.”

At the UN, John Baird helped launch an initiative to combat child marriages and forced marriages, all part of the Muskoka initiative around maternal and child health. Meanwhile, Canada is holding off on signing a treaty around small arms trafficking while the government continues to “consult” and ensuring that international treaties don’t affect farmers and duck hunters.

The Information Commissioner plans to unveil the results of a three-year investigation into allegations of political interference in the Access to Information system this fall. She’s also hoping that the Senate expenses scandal will finally shows MPs that the Parliamentary exemption for Access to Information requests needs to change.

Laura Stone talks to Senators Serge Joyal and Anne Cools about their facta to the Supreme Court on the Senate reference. Neither say that they are fighting for their jobs, but rather the principles of federalism and the constitution.

The RCMP are conducting interviews about Senator Pamela Wallin’s expenses, which means that they are actively investigating them, as they are with Duffy and Brazeau.

The forthcoming by-election in Brandon-Souris continues to find new, strange angles as the Liberal candidate is now defending his claims that he was a “senior Facebook executive” when eh was simply working for a company that did Facebook advertising sales in Canada, and he’s in a punk band that has songs with naughty titles.

There are renewed concerns about corruption taking root in the Canada Revenue Agency after an investigation revealed that a $400,000 cheque was cut to Nicolo Rizzuto, father of the alleged mob boss, at a time when he owed the Agency $1.5 million – and nobody could explain how said cheque escaped internal controls. And yes, the RCMP are investigating.

It looks like the plan to rehabilitate the government conference centre will be some $190 million – work that is desperately needed for a failing heritage building. Once the work is completed, it will become the temporary Senate chamber for the estimated ten years it will take to rehabilitate the Centre Block, before returning to its current function as a convention centre.

The Liberals have started a “real-time” donation counter on their website, rather than just waiting for the quarterly filings to Elections Canada. No doubt this is an effort to show momentum and encourage more donations in the race against the other parties, but questions remain about just how real-time the counter is, and how exactly it works.

Andrew Coyne takes on Brian Topp and Michael Ignatieff’s tendency to go easy on themselves after their failures in politics while missing the bigger picture of why they failed.

And the great Quebec Maple Syrup Heist is soon to be a Hollywood film, starring Jason Segal. Apparently if we don’t tell our own stories, someone else will.