Stephen Harper has finally called those four by-elections in Toronto Centre, Bourassa, Brandon-Souris and Provencher for November 25^th. Toronto Centre NDP candidate Linda McQuaig has put out a YouTube video challenging Chrystia Freeland to a debate. Pundit’s Guide updates the lay of the land in the four ridings here.

Alison Crawford looks at five ways in which the impasse over Justice Nadon’s appointment to the Supreme Court can be resolved, including declaratory legislation, which is a novel approach that I hadn’t yet heard mentioned before.

The move to suspend Senators Wallin, Duffy and Brazeau without pay is causing some very serious soul-searching in the Senate about the kind of precedent that would send. While suspension is totally within their powers, the suspension of pay is more questionable, and may not be feasible because of the way that parliamentarians salaries are set by statute in order to protect them from intimidation. As well, because it is one of Parliament’s privileges to set its own rules, it makes it hard to see how Senator Wallin could get judicial review for her suspension. Meanwhile, these spending issues and the Auditor General’s look into their expenses is giving rise to the need for better paper trails within Senate administration, which isn’t such a bad thing.

Thomas Mulcair thinks the timing of Harper’s trip to Brussels to sign the draft agreement for CETA is awfully curious. Really? You don’t think that he timed the Throne Speech to be for when the draft was going to be ready, and that he would be able to fly off directly to put on a big show about signing it? This is politics. He’s trying to set the agenda.

An internal audit at the Bank of Canada finds that its economists don’t write very well, and is marked as one of its areas of improvement.

Brian Mulroney thinks that it’s a mistake for Stephen Harper to boycott the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Sri Lanka, and that one gets more done sitting around the table than outside.

Kady O’Malley looks at the government’s use of Twitter to bypass the media in some circumstances, but also notes that it’s not necessarily a bad thing because sometimes the media itself can get more direct answers from ministers, where they wouldn’t be able to by traditional means.

The Alberta government’s decision to bar certain Métis and Aboriginal groups from oilsands hearings is raising questions.

And Maclean’s has an excerpt of Paul Wells’ new book, The Longer I’m Prime Minister…, which is a very worthwhile read and now I’m looking forward to the book itself.