Roundup: Politics played with political documents

The partisan frothing at the mouth over Justin Trudeau’s hope and fear comments continues to roll along, with the NDP lashing out for its use – never mind that Jack Layton’s final letter was itself a political document and that the NDP have used it to make political hay. They also point to “Angry Mulcair” flyers that were sent out in Toronto Centre, though I’m not exactly sure that those quite added up to some of the same attacks that the NDP were using in both Toronto Centre and Bourassa – that Chrystia Freeland was not from there and shouldn’t be allowed to run (despite a caucus full of Quebec MPs who had never set foot in their ridings before being elected), or that Dubourg collected a severance allowance that Mulcair himself collected when he resigned as an MNA, not to mention the flyers with Dubourg, who is black, surrounded by bling, which one American expat commenter said would be considered a racist slur in the States. Make of this what you will. Pundit’s Guide considers the remarks a strategic over-reach that damages any prospect of cooperation between the two parties anytime soon.

On the subject of the by-elections, the Winnipeg Free Press details what they deem to be mistakes that cost the Liberals the victory in Brandon-Souris. There are questions as to whether or not the NDP have hit a wall after their by-election losses. Those new MPs-to-be arrived on the Hill yesterday to attend their respective caucus meetings, as they won’t be sworn in for a couple of weeks yet. Andrew Coyne writes that anyone who thinks that nothing changed in these by-elections is kidding themselves.

In ClusterDuff revelations today, we see that Nigel Wright needed to get funds transferred to his chequing account to cover the $90,000 he was sending to Duffy. As well, the Senate sole-sourced the Deloitte contract for the audit – but that was a decision of Senate administration, and not the Internal Economy Committee.

Trade Minister Ed Fast officially announced that “economic diplomacy” will be at the heart of the country’s foreign policy, that we’re tying all of our other interests more in the line of what we can get from these countries in terms of trade or investment. Of course, there are no plans for how this transformation will unfold, so that shouldn’t surprise anyone. It also seems to neglect that sometimes doing unglamorous work in a country can lead to future economic prosperity, like helping a country deal with its rebel groups or development can open up future markets that we could then join.

Jim Flaherty has been pre-redacting his hotel receipts before submitting them for reimbursement, and saying that the blacked-out items were “personal.” And so thoroughly blacked out that the costs are also blacked out, as are the taxed amounts and totals. This kind of redaction appears to be against Access to Information laws. And since he’s not redacting things like dry cleaning or Caesars, I’m going to guess that these “personal” items are hotel porn, because what else would he black out so diligently? Minibar charges?

Speaking of Flaherty, he says that he was unaware of Royal Canadian Mint chairman Jim Love’s previous tax haven dealings. The two have been friends since university and they have many other family business connections since. Quite predictably, Thomas Mulcair has called on Love to be fired immediately.

The federal government has asked an expert panel to catalogue and chart a way forward for technologies to help reduce the environmental impact of oil sands production. Meanwhile, they cancelled a call for tender on a study of the environmental impact of lead shot and bullets, because apparently it was a backdoor way of further regulating firearms. No, seriously.

Omar Khadr’s lawyers are headed back to court to make amendments to his lawsuit against the government for his treatment and breach of his Charter rights. Currently, they’re looking at $60 million in damages.

And more Edward Snowden documents show that the NSA was spying on foreign leaders during the G20 meeting in Toronto, with the possible assistance of CSE. Though considering that we know that the Americans also spy on world leaders at the UN, why this would really be shocking.

Up today: The Information Commissioner comes out with her report, looking at accessing government SMS text messages, including BlackBerry PIN-to-PIN messages.