Nelson Mandela passed away yesterday at the age of 95. Here is the text of his address to the Canadian parliament in 1990 and again in 1998. Maclean’s also has collected the tributes by Canadian MPs over the Twitter Machine.

Today in Reform Act news, Aaron Wherry talks to Michael Chong about the aspect of local nominations and the possibility of rogue operations. I agree that a system like that in several UK parties should be adopted, and I think that Chong is being a bit naïve when he feels that the media will let a leader get away with any nominations that “go rogue,” if the Wildrose party’s reaction is anything to go by in the last Alberta election. Andrew Coyne adds his voice to the call that party leadership selection needs to remain in caucus as well as the ability to remove said leader.

Over in the Senate, Liberal leader James Cowan has moved a motion of privilege because he feels the avenues for getting to the bottom of the issue of Senator Gerstein/Michael Runia in the Duffy audit have all been blocked, and he wants the matter referred to the Rules and Privileges committee. Not surprisingly, government leader Senator Claude Carignan is unconvinced, as is independent Senator Anne Cools, who says that she can’t see a breach of privilege in the accusations either. The Senate Speaker now gets to mull it over. The Liberals on the House side will try to call both to their own committee, though I’m not sure that it’s within their bailiwick, not to mention that MPs can’t compel a senator to testify, thanks to parliamentary privilege. Not that it’s really the goal, other than to embarrass the Conservatives into voting no on it.

Kady O’Malley looks at how Benjamin Perrin broke the rules by not retaining his emails from being deleted (even though they did end up being spared). NDP MP Pat Martin is accusing the Privy Council Office of dishonesty in their letter to the RCMP about the emails.

While the government is maintaining artificially high EI premium rates, arranging asset sales and imposing spending restraint, all in the name of eliminating the deficit before the next election, the Parliamentary Budget Officer estimates that the 2015 surplus will be bigger than anticipated, though growth may still be weaker than the government is counting on.

Stephen Harper admitted that some rules were broken in the lead up to the Lac Mégantic tragedy, but rejected any suggestion by the opposition that the government ignored warning signs – or that the actual causes have been determined yet.

Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne met with Stephen Harper this afternoon, and left the meeting feeling more confident about the possibility of greater cooperation with the development of the Ring of Fire region in Northern Ontario, especially around a development corporation to build infrastructure to the region. It will also require greater engagement with First Nations communities in the region, which was also the subject of a report on West Coast energy issues by Doug Eyford commissioned by the government. Eyford says that it is never too late to engage with Aboriginal groups, and that regular meetings are critical.

RCMP Commissioner Bob Paulson says that being able to collect DNA upon arrest would help solve more crimes. Privacy issues? What privacy issues? And I’m sure the logic will be exactly the same for why the police also supposedly need “lawful access” to Canadians’ Internet records.

The Interim Privacy Commissioner has concerns about CBSA labelling some people as “war criminals” in their “Wanted” list, not to mention the fact that they’re keeping information up on the site six months after the person has been caught.

Canada doesn’t have any statistics on former military personnel who are incarcerated or caught up in the justice system and who may be suffering from PTSD or some other kinds of psychological injury.

The Pembina Institute wants to give Shell Canada props for calling on the government to release their greenhouse gas regulations already so that they can get on with their planning as soon as possible.

Here’s a cool look at the old cemetery found under Queen and Elgin here in Ottawa, which was uncovered during work replacing the water main. It provides a look at the earliest days of the city in the 1820s onward, with a rash of malaria deaths during the construction of the Rideau Canal, followed by a later cholera outbreak.

And two Conservative MPs got into a bit of a scrap in the Commons after votes a couple of nights ago, apparently after someone was trying to be clever and was playing communist anthems on his laptop to try and tweak Justin Trudeau, but only ended up annoying already frayed nerves on their own benches. Well done, guys, in acting like grown-ups.