Former Prime Ministers Brian Mulroney, Kim Campbell and Jean Chrétien are joining Stephen Harper at Nelson Mandela’s funeral in Johannesburg. Also joining them will be former Governor Generals Adrienne Clarkson and Michaëlle Jean, premiers Stephen McNeil, Alison Redford, Bob McLeod and Darrell Pasloski. Thomas Mulcair will be joining, as will MPs Deepak Obhrai, Irwin Cotler, Peter Braid, Joe Daniel, Roxanne James, and retired Senator Don Oliver, plus AFN National Chief Shawn Atleo. Joe Clark will be leading a delegation from the National Democratic Institute.
Paul Wells puts the news of Dimitri Soudas’ return to the Conservative Party fold into perspective, and ties this in not only with the disastrous roll-out of the C-Vote database, but also the ClusterDuff payment and cover-up. Michael Den Tandt wonders if it means something, unless it doesn’t.
Paul Calandra says he’s always wanted to be Prime Minister. Good to know. He also says he enjoys debate in all its forms, not that I’m sure what’s been going on in QP can necessarily be called debate and not obfuscation.
The government has given the go-ahead to Shell Canada to expand their Jackpine oilsands mine, despite the assessment that it was likely to cause serious environmental impacts. It also signalled that their consultations with local First Nations were fairly shallow as they went ahead before they even began discussions around mitigation measures.
The government’s spending on outside legal assistance has spiked from $106.7 million in 2006 to $462 million last year. There has been a rapid rise in litigation cases as well, which currently sits at some 50,000 cases.
Anne Kingston looks at the 13-year journey that Conservative MP Terrence Young has been on to the tabling of the Protecting Canadians From Unsafe Drugs Act.
Remember the issue of John Baird’s gold-embossed business cards, which became the subject of Scott Brison’s infamous “golden showers” question in QP? As it turns out, Tony Clement and Laurie Hawn also ordered gold-embossed cards, contrary to Treasury Board guidelines. The difference is that they claimed it was an error and reimbursed the added costs, where as Baird has refused to do so.
The RCMP are adding 134 new cameras to the Parliamentary Precinct, taking their surveillance coverage up from 34 percent to 100 percent.
Peter Nowak takes a closer look at Bill C-13, and sees not only the lawful access provisions resurrected from the old C-30, but also sees some anachronisms in the laws preserved, like the ban on “crime comics” that dates back to the 1950s. Because that has what to do with cyberbullying?
Economist Stephen Gordon looks at how much revenue would be generated by raising corporate income taxes, and has the numbers and graphs to show. (Hint: It’s not very much).
The Liberals put out a video from their campaign co-chair, Katie Telford, who talks about their campaign plans for 2014, and gives a glimpse as to how the party is reforming their engagement plans.
The rumour is that NDP-turned-Independent MP Bruce Hyer is going to join a new party on Friday. It’s likely to be the Green Party, if past behaviour is prescient.
And a “heart-warming” photo of a hunting family on the Conservative party website comes from…Minnesota. Make of that what you will.