Despite his less than stellar polling figures – which he assured us that he does read – Thomas Mulcair says that he’s confident and that he’s got the experience to be the next PM, unlike a certain Liberal leader, whom he characterised as “he’s highly scripted and then he goes off-script.” Erm, he’s not really that highly scripted. Far less scripted than Mulcair himself tends to be, unless he’s banished the years of mini-lectern-on-the-desk QPs down the memory hole already. Also, it’s funny that Mulcair talks of Trudeau’s gaffes when he’s had a few of is own as well *cough*Osama bin Laden*cough*.

Peter Julian wants Commons security to check their cyber-security after media reports that the private company that provides its encryption software took money from the NSA in order to build a backdoor for access.

Federal deficit numbers are now hitting the $13.2 billion mark. This has been affected by the payments for the Calgary flood and government’s sale of its GM share.

The Coast Guard is re-evaluating the fees it charges for services like icebreaking and providing navigational data, in part because of the looming budget crunch as well as the increase in the services being asked of them..

Oil and pipeline companies got some $400 million from the government to help them green their operations – even though these companies are already profitable. Much of it went to biofuels, which have a marginally smaller environmental impact and haven’t really been properly researched into adverse affects – not to mention that the current ethanol and biodiesel technologies tend to use huge amounts of corn, which in turn affects food security. As for the international components of the funding, the government wanted it to be known that they were really funding technology partners rather than the companies themselves.

Tobi Cohen catches up with Canada’s youngest MP, Pierre-Luc Dusseault, who now chairs the Commons government operations and estimates committee.

Tom Flanagan looks at the Referendum Act and finds that many of the plans for a Senate referendum being floated by various people would be against the rules laid out in the Act. Too bad they’ll have to play by the established rules than what they think would give them the outcome they’re after.

Laura Payton has four more facts you many not know about life on Parliament Hill.

Here’s a look at how the monarchy is maturing, with Prince Charles assuming more duties on the Queen’s behalf, and the birth of Prince George in an era of social media and constant online attention.

And Andrew Coyne imagines a year-end conversation with the Prime Minister – seeing as he wasn’t invited to have one himself – and it goes about as well as you’d expect.