Finance Minister Jim Flaherty delivered his fall economic update in Edmonton yesterday, and faced a grilling inquiry by none other than the Conservative chair of the Finance Committee, James Rajotte. Ooh. Flaherty said that there will be a healthy surplus by 2015, paid for by frozen spending (aka de facto cuts when you factor in inflation), and asset sales that haven’t yet happened (which is one-time income, and not sustainable). Any future pay increases for public servants have to come out of those same frozen department budgets as well, which further limits any increases. As you can imagine, it went over like a lead balloon with the opposition. Flaherty also confirmed that he does plan to run again in 2015, despite his health challenges – for what it’s worth. Economist Stephen Gordon has a hard time seeing how the cuts will replace sluggish revenue growth, and remains sceptical about the projections. Former Parliamentary Budget Officer Kevin Page gives his read of the update, and sees a whole lot of missing information.

The Supreme Court heard the first of three days of arguments in the reference around Senate reform and abolition, and they were pretty dubious when it comes to the federal government’s argument – which is just as well, because their arguments were pretty bad. Things like saying that consultative elections weren’t elections at all – just consultations that a Prime Minister could ignore at will, which flies in the face of this government’s own rhetoric. Plus there was a general sense that the federal government would prefer the court literally read the amending sections rather than look at it means for the country as a whole. Paul Wells writes about the case the government is making, and how it’s not one that the Justices are likely to be sympathetic to since it built around what is politically expedient rather than what is written in law.

The Canadian Forces’ Disaster Assistance Relief Team (DART) has deployed for the Philippines in the wake of the typhoon they’ve faced. They’re expected to be there for a couple of months as they render what assistance they can, be it with water purification or medical supplies.

The Ontario Court of Appeal has ruled that a mandatory minimum sentence for a gun crime is unconstitutional since the circumstances of one case, where someone was found posing with a gun that wasn’t his while he was house sitting and the cops burst in on him. You can bet that this will be appealed to the Supreme Court.

The Parliamentary Budget Officer has been looking to Access to Information to get costing data on the Arctic Offshore Patrol Ships. The operational requirements used to be posted on the department’s website, and were taken down once Irving Shipyards got the contract.

The government as decided to impose a more stringent cap on its Canada Experience Class of immigration applicants, and to bar certain professions from it, including cooks and retail managers. This is likely because temporary foreign workers in those fields could apply for permanent residency, and this blocks them from doing so after the government moved to close the loopholes that were being exploited.

Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne says that an economic crisis is looming if efforts aren’t taken to deal with pensions, such as by strengthening the Canada Pension Plan. Flaherty has previously said that it’s a worthy idea, but not right now because the economy is too fragile to deal with the increased payroll contributions.

Here’s a look at yet another Duffy-related email acquired by CTV, which talks about the script around the supposed RBC loan for the $90,000, and it names two people in PMO who were involved with crafting that message.

Days after his resignation as an MP, we find that Ted Menzies will be taking over as the head of CropLife Canada. Here is some context as to how the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner’s consultation fit in with this new gig.

A new site popped up yesterday looking to petition the government to impose term limits for SCC justices. My immediate reaction – that this is a parody, right? But apparently no, this group seriously thinks that there must be some partisan bias on the court since justices that were appointed by a Prime Minister can stay on the bench long after that PM is gone. OH NOES! Because our high court is obviously so awfully partisan that it fulfils the wishes of prime ministers all the time! (Seriously? Seriously?!).

Speaker Bercow in the UK has ruled that the government must make announcements in the Commons first, before they do it over Twitter. Let us hope that this particular sentiment makes it over here to Canada.

And the Remembrance Day ceremony in Toronto produced the most awkward Canadian political photo in recent memory. Ouch.