At long last, it’s finally by-election day today! Hooray! Toronto Centre has been the centre of a debate on income inequality, while Brandon-Souris, a long-time Conservative stronghold, is being seen as a barometer of the Senate scandals, compounded by alleged shenanigans in the nomination race, which may be driving voters over to the Liberals. Susan Delacourt notices that Bob Rae sent out a letter to Liberal supporters that employed the language of shame-based get-out-the-vote campaigns, talking about names being on voter lists, which NDP MP Craig Scott accused of being coercive, though it has been a proven effective technique where it has been applied. Michael Den Tandt looks at the by-election narratives, and notes the ways in which both the Conservatives and NDP are doing Trudeau’s work, handing him lay-ups, and allowing him to straddle the centre. (He’s wrong that this is Trudeau’s first electoral test – that was in Labrador). Paul Wells is grumpy about the whole thing – and I can’t blame him.
Stephen Harper’s new communications director took to the Sunday politics shows to try and explain that whole RCMP Information To Obtain order, and tried to spin the whole Wright going to Harper for approval as trying to compel a reluctant Duffy to repay his expenses, but this new storyline creates two competing narratives, as The Canadian Press points out – either Wright lied to the other staff in PMO that he got Harper’s approval, or Harper knew all along. Oh, how this will lead off QP on Tuesday (since I doubt we’ll see any party leaders in the House today – there are by-elections). Here is a look at how the RCMP tracked Duffy’s money trail in the ITO, which is why they are looking for a warrant to access Duffy’s bank accounts. It also explains how Duffy’s tab for expenses jumped from $32,000 to $90,000 – because he was charging per diems for meals in Ottawa, to eat at the same home he’d owned here for years, as though he were an out-of-town senator, which was a revelation that completely incensed Nigel Wright. Rosemary Barton picks out five interesting things about Nigel Wright from the RCMP documents.
The CRA doesn’t have the statistics to show whether or not its plans to tackle organised crime are working or not – which would be something you’d want to track, wouldn’t it?
Chief of Defence Staff, General Tom Lawson, says that the country’s shipbuilding goals can be met – but they’re still figuring out how, and if we’ll get the full number of ships in the end. Efficiencies will be found! Really!
John Baird is “deeply sceptical” of the proposed nuclear deal with Iran, which apparently puts us behind most of our allies. Not that this should surprise anyone, considering that our foreign policy has largely been characterised as adolescent by most grown-ups in the field.
With Senator Comeau’s early retirement and Senator Donald Oliver’s pending retirement, that leaves two Nova Scotia vacancies, and pretty much all of the diversity in that province’s representation (being as Comeau was francophone and Oliver is black). Paul McLeod explores some of the potential contenders to fill those seats, should Harper decide that he needs to start appointing senators again (and he should, lest he repeat the problem he created six years ago when he wasn’t making needed appointments).
And Tabatha Southey looks at the ClusterDuff ITO and considers the many and varied accounts of what happened to be like the Canadian Rashomon, with email, while Scott Feschuk imagines a Speech From the Throne under a future Prime Minister Rob Ford.