There was some amount of Twitter outrage yesterday after James Moore was asked about child poverty in a radio scrum, and he responded that he didn’t want to usurp the jurisdiction of the provinces, that Canada was at its wealthiest, and that as the government, it wasn’t his job “to feed his neighbour’s child.” And he’s more or less right about the aspect of jurisdiction, for better or worse, though one could argue about transfer payments and so on. But when Moore stated it was all taken out of context and the headline was wrong, the reporter posted the raw audio and what do you know, it’s all in there. Oops?

As the finance ministers get set to meet about the pension issue later today, Jim Flaherty sounds like he may be bringing his own proposal to the table, which is all about being “more targeted” and not “a bazooka.”

Meanwhile, the Flaherty/Jason Kenney spat over Rob Ford comments takes a decided more boggling turn when Flaherty asserts that he’s the minister for the GTA and he doesn’t go around making comments about the mayor of Calgary. Erm, because the may of Calgary has been involved in what sort of illegality? And Toronto is your personal cabinet fiefdom? Really?

Bernard Valcourt is reaching out to the Assembly of First Nations to rework the First Nations Education Act before it gets introduced.

This The West Block interview with Senator Hugh Segal is well worth watching, as he insists that things aren’t really worse in politics than ever, despite what people tend to think, as well as the illusion – and delusion – of control.

Former Chief of Defence Staff, retired General Rick Hillier, wants a board of inquiry or a Royal Commission on soldier suicides. I’m unclear as to what that would accomplish beyond what we already know – that there aren’t enough mental health professionals in the Forces because they have consistently missed hiring targets, and there aren’t enough peer supports while financial supports under the New Veterans Charter is failing the current generation.

Bob Fife had an…interesting interview with Commons Speaker Andrew Scheer in which he kept asserting that “you’re boss” as he went on about the role of backbenchers and Parliamentary spending estimates. Um, seriously? How many years has Fife been on the Hill and he doesn’t actually grasp what the role of the Speaker is? And he’s a bureau chief of a major network? Sigh. This is why people have so much trouble with basic civic literacy in this country.

It seems that Stephen Harper won’t be giving a year-end interview to CTV this year as he had on many others, nor will he say who is getting one. But his comms director insists that it has nothing to do with Robert Fife’s reporting on the Senate spending issues.

Justin Trudeau spoke to local media in Sudbury while on tour there last week.

Scott Reid writes about the ever-increasing amount of utter shamelessness in Canadian politics, as typified by Rob Ford, Mike Duffy, and even Stephen Harper, but it seems to keep winning votes.

Economist Stephen Gordon looks at the real earnings numbers from the past number of years, and finds that they tended to have increased over the course of the past recession, which does make it hard to use the “your paycheque has stagnated” line that certain parties are trying out.

And from the This Hour Has 22 Minutes holiday special, comes this hilarious video about the fact that Justin Trudeau was born on Christmas Day.