Stephen Harper went to Vancouver yesterday in order to meet the Board of Trade there and have a cozy little sit-down that wouldn’t be full of tough questions, and where he could repeat some talking points about how awesome the European Free Trade Agreement is going to be, and how he won’t approve pipelines unless they meet rigorous environmental standards. Of course, this message was interrupted by a couple of climate activists who got past security by coming dressed as wait staff, a stunt organised by a certain vapid narcissist whom I won’t be naming because I won’t give her the attention. Also noted in this conversation by Harper was his smacking of Barack Obama by saying that he “punted” the Keystone XL decision, which doesn’t seem to be the language of building bridges.

While alarmist stories are showing up in everyone’s Facebook walls about how the government is apparently burning the Fisheries and Oceans libraries, here’s a bit of damage control from the government and a bit of a reality check – the libraries were pretty much a shambles to begin with (something I absolutely believe from my time spent at Health Canada), their own publications are already online, and they’re mostly removing duplicate publications as well as some of those which no longer fit within the department’s mandate. Not that these answers will satisfy the government’s ardent critics.

Conservative MP Peter Braid said publicly on television that the recent extreme weather is connected to climate change. That this is newsworthy is a little depressing.

Nearly ten years after the deadly fire aboard during her voyage across the ocean, the submarine HMCS Chicoutimi is fully repaired and upgraded, and ready to rejoin the fleet. This will make three of our four submarines in the water (though two of them have a little more working up to complete before they’re fully operation).

Thanks to yet more botched military procurements, this time for new search and rescue aircraft, the military is scrounging around the world for replacement parts for our current aging fleet in order to keep it in the air until new planes can be procured.

In case you were worried about it, Auditor General Michael Ferguson is well on the way to being bilingual, and takes eight hours of French classes per week. I noted during his last report that he was able to more or less hold his own when asked questions in French, but his accent is still a work in progress, and he’s still working on a few vocabulary terms.

Natural Resources Canada is looking to help the country break into the rare earth elements mining industry. While there are such elements in abundance here, they are usually expensive to mine, and are generally accompanied by uranium and thorium.

The federal government shelved a national injury prevention strategy in 2011 because it was too challenging to implement. Way to go. Slow clap.

An “immigration think-tank” (read: crypto-xenophobes) thinks that 250,000 newcomers per year is too many and just leads to ghettoisation and costs our social programmes too much. Too bad that the facts don’t really support their case, such as the parents and grandparents’ stream draining our resources as they tend to require that sponsors have adequate private insurance.

There is a movement underway in Calgary to oust Conservative MP Rob Anders in the next round of open nominations in advance of the next election. Did you know that in a previous nomination race that Alison Redford ran against him only to be stymied by alleged shenanigans by party headquarters? She’s now the premier of the province, so she landed on her feet okay, but in other attempts to replace him in a nomination battle the riding executives quit in protest because of party interference. We’ll see if the promise of open nominations holds up this time.

There are questions about whether Conservative MP Patrick Brown went to the New York Marathon at taxpayer’s expense, or if his trip to the UN was the real purpose and the timing of the marathon was just convenient. Then again, they can’t say who he spoke with at the UN, so maybe it was the UN trip that was convenient cover?

The rumour mill was salivating for a couple of hours yesterday morning as Steve Paikin alluded to a potential offer from Stephen Harper to make Olivia Chow the new Lieutenant Governor of Ontario – thus eliminating her as a potential from the Toronto mayoral race. Both Chow and the PMO denied it shortly thereafter.

Anne Kingston writes about how Trudeau’s approachability is making for a great sales pitch when it comes to fundraising, especially with events like “win a dinner with Justin” that the party has been holding and making some nicely lit promotional videos out of. It is building up an “unpolitician” brand that they hope to capitalise on by the next election.

Economist Stephen Gordon writes about why Jim Flaherty needs to butt out of talking about monetary policy, as it’s not his job and the Bank of Canada is independent.

My column this week looks at the double standard that Charlie Angus applies to Elections Canada rules, apparently feeling that he should be exempt from them, and why we need to take those rules seriously.

And Stratford held a one-performance-only in October called The Appeal of Shylock, a kind of sequel to Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice. CBC’s Sunday Edition looked at the legal questions posed in the Appeal, which was overseen by Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Beverley McLachlin.