Roundup: Even the base doesn’t like the unfairness

The motions in the Senate around the suspension without pay of the three embattled senators remains unresolved, and the Senate will be sitting today – a rarity – in order to try to reach a resolution. As this happens, more cracks are forming within the Conservative Senate caucus, as Senator Don Plett – a former party president and not of the Red Tory wing – came out against the suspensions as being against due process and basic fairness. Oh, and if anyone says it’s about trying to please the party base, well, he is that base. Down the hall in the Commons, MP Peter Goldring also encouraged Conservative Senators to vote down the suspensions and wants the Governor General to step in if necessary. As the debate wore on, it not only touched on due process, the lack of guidelines for why this suspension was taking place, and even the definitions of what constitutes “Senate business,” which is something the Auditor General gets to grapple with. It is all raising some fundamental questions about the institution that it never really had to deal with before, and one hopes will help create a much clearer path for the Chamber going forward.

Meanwhile, Senator Wallin also wants to know who was behind the leaks that she says were orchestrated to discredit her, feeling that they had to have come from within the Internal Economy Committee’s steering subcommittee, and the Conservatives who used to be on the board are pointing their fingers at Liberal Senator George Furey. Former Liberal Senator Sharon Carstairs said that Harper could have avoided this whole mess if he’d appointed Wallin and Duffy as Ontario Senators – err, but that doesn’t actually deal with the allegations of improper claims for travel, per diems or campaigning. Michael Den Tandt writes that Harper walked into the fight with these three senators even though he could have avoided it because he wants a war, and if he’s willing to use three former loyalists to get it, then it says a lot about him – and possibly the voting public if they react in the way that Harper hopes they will.

Kady O’Malley has updated her ClusterDuff timeline with all of the revelations that Duffy dropped in the Senate Chamber on Tuesday. Mark Kennedy enumerates the questions that we don’t have definitive answers to.

Still on the Senate file, the Quebec Court of Appeal returned the province’s reference questions about the constitutional legitimacy of the government’s proposed reform bills. The verdict? That the bills are unconstitutional, that the constitutional amending formula of seven provinces with fifty percent of the population is needed for Senate reform, and that the proposed reforms are largely going against the desires of the Fathers of Confederation and their stated intentions. This will no doubt be fodder for the Supreme Court reference coming up next month.

The government is trying to curtail the ability of independent MPs to put forward amendments to bills at report stage (since they can’t sit on committees), and won a victory at Procedure and House Affairs yesterday, which could send the likes of Elizabeth May and Brent Rathgeber to the Speaker to protect their rights as MPs.

Ruh-roh! An internal report at Environment Canada shows that we’re not on track to meet our Copenhagen targets for GHG reductions, even if the emissions regulations for the oil and gas sector are implemented.

FINTRAC, whose job it is to monitor and prevent money laundering and terrorist financing, has been slammed yet again by the Privacy Commissioner for keeping too much data on ordinary Canadians who actually aren’t under suspicion, but who have been caught up in the monitoring because financial institutions and other reporting organisations are over-reporting.

The government wrongfully deported a family to Libya, where the father was tortured, then demanded that their removal costs from Canada be repaid before they could be issued visas to return. Yeah, it’s probably for the best that Immigration Minister Chris Alexander said in QP yesterday that the government is exploring all options to waive the repayment issue. Yikes!

They haven’t even begun construction yet, but the government has already named the two planned Joint Support Ships for the Royal Canadian Navy, and is naming them after battles in the War of 1812. Raise your hand if you’re surprised.

Canadian Business’ James Cowan calls out the government’s newfound “consumer friendly” policies as fundamentally anti-business and longs for the days when Maxime Bernier was Industry Minister and genuinely trying to let the market find solutions.

Energy economist Andrew Leach talks about stringent emissions regulations versus carbon pricing, and how carbon pricing may not actually do as much to reduce pollution, given that most pricing schemes aren’t stringent enough to actually induce changes because they’re not politically palatable. It’s a very worthwhile consideration that needs to be discussed, and one that the government has not done a very good job of doing.

While TD’s economists may find that the talk of a skills mismatch may be overblown, it seems that the problem may really be further down the road as the demographic challenge really become apparent.

With the upcoming Conservative convention in Calgary comes the return of the debate over the rules of a future leadership contest, which some members want to see moved from the current weighted system (which was a key compromise for the merger) to a one-member-one-vote system, while a point-system compromise is also being considered.

A poll finds that younger Canadians don’t rank our monarchy as a significant reflection of Canadian identity. Perhaps if we actually taught people about it – and in its proper context as the Canadian monarchy and not the British monarchy – and that it’s one of the most important ways in which we differentiate ourselves from the Americans, then maybe it would rank higher than Tim Horton’s commercials.

And here’s the official photo of the Queen with three generations of heirs – and a comparison photo of the last time it happened, when it was under Queen Victoria. Not present for the christening was the Princess Royal, who is concluding her working visit to Canada today, where she is undertaking duties as colonel-in-chief of several military regiments.