The provincial and territorial finance minsters met with Jim Flaherty at Meech Lake yesterday, only for Flaherty to turn down the proposal that they were had a fair degree of consensus on. Flaherty insisted that that the global economy was still too fragile to implement this plan (though he did sound like maybe one day in the future he’d be more amenable), which left Ontario talking about going it alone. Ontario was also upset that in the transfer payment listings released that they were the one province destined to take a hit, which seems unprecedented as usually provinces are protected. Oh, but don’t worry, Flaherty says – their economy is growing. Um, okay. Manitoba also says that they may be out some $500 million because the last census took lace during major floods and up to 18,000 residents may have been missed, though StatsCan says that they double-checked their numbers. Going into the discussions were three different models on CPP expansion that were being discussed in the media, for the record.

Bloc Québécois leader Daniel Paillé has announced that he is stepping down because he has developed problems with epilepsy. Because he didn’t have a seat in the House, there won’t be a by-election because of it, but it puts the Bloc back into another leadership process, with André Bellavance taking the parliamentary leadership while the party president puts the next contest together. But really – isn’t this more proof about why the caucus should choose the leader, especially given how ridiculous it is to have a leader who doesn’t even sit in the caucus? This being said, one does wonder how Maria Mourani feels about this, as she didn’t win and was subsequently booted from caucus and now questions her place in the sovereignty movement.

Industry minister James Moore made an apology for his insensitive comments about child poverty, and to his credit, it was an unequivocal apology without the kinds of qualifiers that most politicians attach to their apologies.

The Commons transport committee will meet on Wednesday to determine if they’ll meet further on the Canada Post changes. Given the Conservative majority on committees, I’m not sure I’d bet that they will hold hearings. Speaking of those changes, it seems that superboxes were an issues as far back as the eighties. The more things change…

As more judges are pushing back against mandatory victims’ surcharges because they have difficulty with people who are already in poverty and desperate circumstances being even further burdened. Peter MacKay asserts that judges will “see the wisdom” of the surcharge. MacKay also asserts that the money is used for things like counselling services for the victims – except that in Ontario at least, it just goes into general revenue and isn’t earmarked. Seems like a rather big flaw in the plan, no? Canadian Dissensus looks at the problem of one of those judges going public in the media about his opposition, and how that is a major break against the independence of the judiciary, as the concept works both ways.

John Baird says any notion that Canadian foreign policy is abandoning human rights in favour of the almighty dollar is ridiculous. He also touches on the situations in Ukraine, Syria and Sochi.

NDP MP Don Davies writes about floor crossings, and fills it with some utter bilge about what he thinks democracy means. It’s great that you think that MPs are largely elected on the strength of their parties, but that’s not actually how the system works, and incidentally, you can’t just make up meanings for “democracy” every time you think it’ll suit your needs. It only undermines your credibility in the end.

The Liberals have raised $1 million over the past twelve days and are actively trying to out-fundraise the Conservatives over this quarter rather than simply surpass them in terms of numbers.

After all of those mediocre proposed Canada 150 logos the government was focus-testing, here comes a group of graphic designers from around the country that have each come up with something that surpasses what the government designers were able to.

Colin Horgan sees the lack of shame in the House of Commons as a by-product of the culture of point scoring, which is rewarded over meaningful dialogue or discussion of the issues at hand.

Over in the UK, two Lords are being suspended for six months apiece after they were caught in an undercover journalism operation to be offering to use Parliamentary resources to lobby for a fake energy company.

CBC’s London Editor Ann MacMillan, who retires this week, writes about the changing attitudes toward Canada in the UK.

And Andrew Coyne sees the Rob Ford phenomenon as emblematic of the larger Conservative movement, predicated not on conservatism but rather on populism and opportunism, and how both his supporters and opponents engage in broad stereotyping that winds up being self-fulfilling, leading our political discourse into a very dark place.