The National Energy Board has given a conditional approval to the Northern Gateway Pipeline application – and by conditional, they attached 209 conditions to it. There will be additional hurdles with First Nations, as well as the BC government’s own five conditions. In response to the decision, Joe Oliver seems to have toned down his rhetoric around the pipeline proposal, while Harper praises the “rigorous” work of the NEB in this effort. CBC gives you six things to know about the decision. Energy economist Andrew Leach points out that the review is far from a real green light and that it’s not clear that all 209 conditions will be met. Michael Den Tandt counts the many ways in which the pipeline is likely doomed in spite of the NEB decision.
The government is abandoning its $2.1 billion close combat vehicle procurement plan, which the Chief of Defence Staff insists was a military decision and not a political one. Defence analysts have said that this kind of vehicle was something of a relic anyway that wasn’t going to offer much protection in a theatre like Afghanistan given the way that bombs have evolved, and that this was a dodged bullet for spending – but also shows that there is a lack of coherent planning on the part of the military when it comes to their procurement strategies. It also sounds like overseas defence contractors will be less likely to bid on future procurements out of fear that the Canadian government will simply waste their time.
On the procurement file, the CEOs of the two main shipyards who will be doing naval construction insist that everything will be on budget. Sounds like famous last words to me.
The Auditor General is asking for senators’ personal bank records as his office is tracking money from their expenses.
The Supreme Court has ruled that police officers can’t consult lawyers before preparing their notes, as it is “an anathema to the very transparency” of the justice system.
The CRTC has ruled that cable carriers must offer SunTV, either stand-alone in a better grouping of news channels, or as part of news packages, by spring.
The RCMP met with public safety minister Stephen Blaney about updating some firearms classifications, in order to better restrict certain weapons that should have more controls, but the government sounds reluctant to do as changing any classifications would be “controversial” and might upset their voter base.
It’s end-of-year interview time, and Stephen Harper tells Mark Kennedy that he felt deceived and betrayed by the actions of those in the ClusterDuff affair, and that ultimately he is responsible as Prime Minister, and has taken steps to ensure that he is never left out of the loop again (and no, he doesn’t believe in plausible deniability). He also said that he will be running again in 2015, he won’t convene a constitutional convention on reforming the Senate once the Supreme Court renders its decision, and he plans to plug the “loophole” that has allowed judges to not apply the mandatory victims surcharge.
In his interview with Global, Harper also hinted that the opposition to reforming the CPP is really more about forcing the more affluent to take personal responsibility for their own pensions than it is about the “fragile economy,” a concept that Maclean’s John Geddes explores.
Remember when Stephen Harper brought his own limos for his tour of India? The final price tag is in, and it cost $1.2 million, though for all we know, it could have been perfectly justifiable.
Kady O’Malley crunches the numbers of riding association fundraising data and finds that Jason Kenney and Jim Flaherty lead for Conservative MP fundraising, that Elizabeth May is a strong contender and has far more individual donors than pretty much everyone else (though they’re mostly donations under $20), and Justin Trudeau is making pretty good gains, while Thomas Mulcair’s figures are pretty low.
The Conservatives have put out a new fundraising video, and target Justin Trudeau in the website text.
The coroner’s inquest into the death of Ashley Smith has concluded and the jury made a ruling of homicide (though this is not a criminal or civil liability – more that it wasn’t suicide). There was a list of recommendations for future changes attached to this finding, while the family’s lawyer wants criminal investigations re-opened, focused on senior Corrections officials.
Senator David Tkachuk tries to call out Andrew Coyne for his writing about the whole mess in the Senate around the ClusterDuff investigation, but he may need to remember that when you get into calling people out as partisans, it tends to weaken your argument.
And Brent Rathgeber blogs about Bruce Hyer joining the Green Party, and the misunderstanding about the role of the party perpetuated by the likes of Thomas Mulcair and Rona Ambrose, which he uses as a pitch for recall legislation. Where Rathgeber goes wrong is that he says that in a democracy, the citizens are sovereign. Err, except that this is a constitutional monarchy, and the Sovereign is, well, sovereign.