The premiers met in Toronto yesterday, and the Canada Jobs Grant programme was again up for discussion, and it should be no great surprise that the premiers are still united in their opposition. In fact, they said that they are looking for some clear alternatives from Jason Kenney, if he is serious about there being flexibility in the programme. The premiers also wanted some clarity around foreign investment rules, never mind that Harper has previously said that he doesn’t want too much clarity in order to have wiggle room in the event that they want to block any acquisitions they find to be undesirable.

The Privy Council Office signed an $825,000 sole-source contract with Rogers to provide basic cable in their offices. Sun News was not listed as a requirement, but was apparently included in the basic package.

A judge has lifted the publication ban in the Guelph robocalls case, and has identified the six witnesses who fingered Michael Sona as the culprit. Sona maintains his innocence and says that his day in court is going to be “cathartic.”

A year later, nobody still has any idea what happened to that student loan data that as lost by Employment and Social Development Canada, but the investigation hasn’t turned up any evidence of malfeasance.

It seems that there will be no penalty for Shelly Glover from Elections Canada for overspending during the last election, but she promises to under-spend by the same amount in the next election. James Bezan, who is facing similar charges, insists that he did nothing wrong.

After Peter MacKay’s factually incorrect criticism of Justin Trudeau speaking to Manitoba teens about legalising marijuana, we find that Conservative MP Scott Reid also favours legalisation, and had that conversation with a high school in his riding. Oops.

In the Toronto Centre by-election, Anne Kingston recaps the only debate so far that saw both Chrystia Freeland and Linda McQuaig spar, not that there were too many fireworks. A little investigative digging also found that McQuaig’s previous home is now on the market for some $5 million, which does colour her talk about affordable housing in the riding. When asked over the Twitter Machine, McQuaig said that there were only four bedrooms in the house when she lived there.

Meanwhile in Bourassa, a Liberal campaign worker was caught on camera removing NDP campaign signs near his office.

Energy economist Andrew Leach looks at the latest Pembina Institute report and finds issues with the focus on “Dutch disease,” and the “carbon bubble,” saying that the important issues are being buried by the more problematic rhetoric.

Stephen Maher writes that the courts remain Stephen Harper’s last real opposition, and they aren’t letting him get away with either his tough-on-crime legislation, nor do they seem particularly keen on his plans to unilaterally reform the Senate (though we won’t know for sure for several months).

And Andrew Coyne pens a blistering column about the Toronto civic trauma that is the Rob Ford saga, and lays much of the blame on what happened on the strategists who cultivated his “every man” image. More to the point, he calls out the condescending populism that brings about the “disdain for facts, its disrespect of convention and debasing of standards,” though I would argue that the political right doesn’t have the monopoly on this, but that the left has caught up just as well with much of this same kind of disdain and disrespect.