Roundup: Kenney and Rajotte back Wright

More signs of independent thought emerge within the Conservative caucus, as Jason Kenney has proclaimed that he’s still going to defend Nigel Wright’s character while Harper has taken the route of demonizing him in the wake of the whole ClusterDuff affair. Later in the day, James Rajotte joined that chorus. That Kenney, a minister, has a message deviating from Harper’s, is the third minister now who has had a different message from the boss, which John Geddes points out, is a blow for the notion of cabinet solidarity, which is a pretty fundamental notion in Responsible Government as the executive needs to speak with one voice. I’m not sure what it all means yet, but it’s certainly interesting – especially on the eve of a party convention where unity in the face of adversity will no doubt be the message that they are trying to put forward.

Speaking of dissention in the caucus, Senator Hugh Segal still refuses to go along with the Conservatives’ new suspension motions in the Senate, and the Liberals there continue to proclaim that they are just as flawed as the original trio of motions, and still want them sent to committee for further study – and investigation. The final votes won’t take place until next week sometime. Progressive Conservative Senator McCoy writes about the notion of fairness and her amendment to put the three senators on a leave of absence until the RCMP investigation in concluded.

Peter Mansbridge dissects what happened on February 11th and 13th between Nigel Wright and Mike Duffy. And it’s very worthwhile viewing.

Oh look – Pierre Poilievre and Preston Manning say boneheaded things about the Senate! Quelle surprise! At one point Poilievre called the Senate a “political science experiment” that apparently went wrong. Um, really. Our minister of democratic reform is completely civically ignorant? Not that I’m surprised, but it is pretty disheartening.

As for that convention, the cloud of the Senate issue hangs over the crowd as people feel it is a distraction and wish it would go away. Kady O’Malley previews what is on the agenda over the weekend. CBC’s At Issue panel looks at the mood of the convention and the party base. Paul Wells gives his impressions of the first day on the ground there.

The quarterly fundraising numbers are in, and while the Conservatives have once again out-fundraised everyone else, the Liberals are now proclaiming the fact that they have more donors than the Conservatives did.

Liberal MPs Scott Brison and Ted Hsu have some very serious questions about FATCA – the American Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act – which will impose a significant cost on Canadians who once lived or worked in the US, and is unlikely to even be constitutional in this country.

The public service spent some $52 million last year on long-term training for its employees, while the government wrote off $231 million in writing off some 44,000 uncollected student loans.

The Security and Intelligence Review Committee is concerned about the lax standards of information sharing between CSIS and CSE.

He may have recused himself from sitting on the Supreme Court until the questions around his appointment are cleared up, but Justice Marc Nadon has his office set up in the Supreme Court building already. And of course, the Bloc and the NDP are playing politics with this.

And the Liberals have released new ads about their “priorities,” in both a 30-second and one-minute version. I would certainly quibble about how they portray the graph on middle-class wages, and I’m not sure what exactly the “political class” is supposed to be, but it’s messaging without overt attacking or making things personal, so I guess we have to wait and see how effective it will be.