From Brussels, Stephen Harper signed the draft Canada-EU Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, opening up agricultural and automotive markets while eliminating almost all tariffs, though a couple of trade-offs will mean pharmaceuticals will get two added years of patent protection. The agreement will spend the next couple of years being ratified by both the various provinces in Canada and the member countries of the EU. The full text isn’t available yet either, but so far the notes are positive – even from the opposition parties including the NDP (though their language was much more cautious than the Liberals’). CBC has some numbers of what this affects, PostMedia looks at potential winners and losers, while Maclean’s Econowatch has ten things to know about it. Maclean’s also has a look at how Jean Charest got the ball rolling on the agreement. Paul Wells notes that this really is a big win for Harper, and will probably be what he becomes known for once he leaves office. John Geddes is reminded of the portents of doom that the Canadian wine industry faced with the original free trade deal with the US – which turned out to be false – and instead heralded an upturn for the industry as they took the need to compete more seriously and got rid of their crappy vines in favour of top hybrids, which is a lesson to the whinging dairy industry. Andrew Coyne says that consumers will be the ultimate winners of CETA.

The move to suspend the embattled Senators without pay his starting to hit snags, with Senator Pamela Wallin and her lawyers threatening legal action as this is all being decided without due process. Her lawyer compares it to “third world dictatorships,” though I’m sure there are jokes about third world kleptocracies to be made as well. There are senators on both sides who are similarly concerned by the move and its implications, and some concerns about the propriety of the move. While the Senate is more or less able to do it, as the master of its own destiny, that it is being done largely for partisan reasons is a troubling precedent, since the salaries of parliamentarians should never be used as a way of threatening them – even though it is being framed as sanction for the determination by the committee of rule breaking.

The RCMP are defending their actions at the New Brunswick First Nation protest, and point to the large number of weapons, explosive devices and quantities of bear spray that were present at the site of the “peaceful” protest. They also hinted that some of the eight people charged in relation to those offences are not from New Brunswick. AFN National Chief Shawn Atleo slammed the RCMP for their “extreme use of state force,” but one has to wonder if the weapons and the shots fired during the event – and not by police – is not further justification that there was an issue, and that it wasn’t entirely the “peaceful” demonstration that organisers keep insisting was the case.

The Supreme Court has decided that doctors cannot unilaterally decide to make end-of-life decisions for certain patients – at least not in Ontario, where there is an independent consent and capacity board to weigh these matters. Some religious groups are celebrating the move, though it was noted that Ontario’s board has never allowed religious views to triumph in these kinds of matters. The Court also ruled from the bench yesterday and dismissed a case where an offender with the mental capacity of a second grader was attempting to have previous convictions overturned because he wasn’t fit to stand trial in any of those previous cases.

An Alberta judge has ruled against the attempt to have Omar Khadr moved to a provincial prison facility. He remains in maximum security while his lawyers plan to appeal. Meanwhile, Maclean’s looks at the kind of compensation that Khadr will eventually be owed by the government for failing to protect his rights while abroad.

Peter MacKay is getting into the tough on crime game by elaborating on Throne Speech promises, but wants people to know that the new measures will only apply to the “most heinous” offenders like multiple murders or sexual offenders. Never mind that it’ll be a useless law, since these kinds of offenders don’t actually get out of prison as it is, but it serves the Conservatives’ interests in keeping the suburban population fearful so that they can look like they’re doing something.

The first questions about Liberal spending in their new transparency regime have come up with new MP Yvonne Jones’ trip to Nunavut with a staffer. Jones points out that there was nothing unusual about it, considering that it’s the cost of doing business in the North.

Emmett Macfarlane weighs in on the troubling politicisation of Justice Nadon’s appointment to the Supreme Court now that the government of Quebec has also decided to intervene and challenge its legitimacy. What none of the challengers seem to grasp is that Harper could simply have appointed Nadon to the Quebec Court of Appeal for a day before nominating him to the Supreme Court, and their challenge would have been nullified, and that point makes that challenge all the more suspect and one could say baseless.

In an unprecedented move, the Harper government will intervene in a Quebec Superior Court case against Bill 99, which was a Bouchard-era piece of legislation to hit back against the Clarity Act. That he’s doing it without at fanfare is all the more surprising.

And Carolyn Harris previews Princess Anne’s forthcoming official working visit to Kingston to celebrate the 110^th anniversary of the Communications and Electronics Branch of the Canadian Forces, for whom she serves as Colonel-in-Chief.