On Power & Politics on Friday, Rona Ambrose asserted that there was “no evidence” that heroin-based therapy is effective for those heroin addicts for whom other treatments have proven ineffective. She repeated this several times. She was wrong, and Aaron Wherry points out why.
Thomas Mulcair went out of his way to repeat that he would not raise personal income taxes on the wealthy as part of his next campaign, despite that being one of the things that his star candidate, Linda McQuaig, continues to espouse. Because apparently people don’t pay for corporate tax increases either. Mulcair is also planning to unveil a new pan-Canadian energy policy sometime later in the fall.
The two Canadians being held without charge in Egypt have finally been released and are in the care of consular officials, and should be headed back to Canada in days.
Stephen Harper left Malaysia with a promise of $36 billion in direct investment in the Canadian Liquefied Natural Gas sector, much of it through Petronas, the Malaysian state-owned oil company. Of course, where the $36 billion figure comes from is not clear, as there was previously talk of $19 billion with respect to a particular plant and pipeline in BC.
The Information Commissioner says that MPs’ expenses should be covered by the Access to Information Act, but considering the storm that created in places like the UK, I have a feeling our MPs will be mighty reluctant to go that route, and will use the excuse about the time and resources necessary to make these kinds of requests happen.
A symposium of academics and aboriginal leaders is meeting in Ottawa today to mark the 250th anniversary of the Royal Proclamation of 1763 – not that the government really did anything to mark such an occasion.
Elections Nova Scotia is investigating and will almost certainly levy fines against people who were tweeting out photos of their marked ballots. Because apparently people don’t that secret ballots are actually an important thing, and that they didn’t learn the lessons from the days of rum bottle politics.
Coming up this week, the Supreme Court will be hearing a security certificate case, which will include a very rare day where the testimony is entirely behind closed doors given the nature of the case. Normally our Supreme Court is far more open than others, and usually has its proceedings televised (unlike even the Americans’).
Kate Heartfield writes a lengthy examination of just what Stephen Harper’s problem with Elections Canada is, from his long-ago lawsuit to overturn some of their rules, to the more recent scandals of in-and-out and deceptive robocalling. Adding this look in with the “rebel to realist” journey of Harper, Heartfield comes to an interesting conclusion about his willingness to bend any rule to win.
The reorganisation of the Canadian Forces’ command structure is hoped to save some $18 million annually by ensuring there is one single headquarters to report to rather than three.
The HMSC Toronto has made a “major” drug seizure while on patrol in the Gulf of Arabia.
And CTV’s investigative series W5 did a complete hack-job on the Senate, declaring it useless after not bothering to do even the slightest bit of actual due diligence, observing it or its committees in action, and by coming up with facile metrics about Senators’ public appearances in September, and then ties it all together with the abolition referendum in Ireland, using entirely specious comparisons between the two upper chambers. Fact-free journalism! Hooray! (Incidentally, the abolition referendum failed, and the Seanad will continue to exist in Ireland).