Roundup: Paying for access to Glover?

A fundraiser was held in Shelly Glover’s riding, benefitting her riding association, and it just happened to be attended by a number of artists, some of who have dealings with the Heritage department, and they all paid to attend. Oops. Glover, however, was on the ball – at least in terms of damage control. First, she insisted that she only “dropped by” the event to see some of the people from the riding association. She also insisted that the riding association not accept any of the donations from the evening, and to return any cheques or not process any credit card information. And she wants her riding association to know that this kind of thing can’t happen again in the future. Her opposition critics have blasted her for just how inappropriate the whole affair was, while CTV tried to attend the event and were ushered out. The invitation did say that the event was largely for members of the Winnipeg arts and culture community – though Glover insists that she wasn’t privy to the organizational details of the event.

Stephen Harper leaves for his Israel and Middle East trip Saturday evening, and he’s taking a delegation of some two hundred business and community leaders with him, thirty of which are travelling at taxpayer expense. (For the record, the media has to pay $8000 to go on the trip). There will also be stops in the West Bank and Jordan. Harper is heading there at a time when peace negotiations are ongoing, and it has been noticed that his government has cautiously avoided commenting on the issue of settlements in occupied territories which are illegal under international law, but which this government won’t actually condemn as such. Brent Rathgeber posts about Canada’s relationship to Israel, and notes that the Harper government’s unwavering support is almost partisan in its alignment with the Likud Party in Israel, and wonders if that would change if another party were to form power there.

The provinces remain united in their opposition to the Canada Job Grant programme, so long as it continues to take money away from their existing training programmes.

The posting for the next Chief Public Health Officer has now gone up, six months after Dr. David Butler-Jones announced that he was retiring for health reasons.

The Privy Council Office refuses to turn over any documents on the Duffy/Wallin/Brazeau/Harb issue under Access to Information under the rubric of solicitor-client privilege. But considering that the only thing that PCO really would be dealing with around Senators might be legal advice – considering that the Senate is not a government department – that makes a lot of sense.

As Thomas Mulcair heads off on his “affordability tour,” he’s promising more face-to-face contact with Canadians, perhaps inspired by the fact that despite his good performance in the House, he’s not resonating in the polls.

Liberal fundraising fortunes are on the rise as they raked in some $4.3 million in the last three months of 2012, including the $2.9 million push in December.

CBC has a lengthy look at the Not Criminally Responsible debate, as the bill to reform the regime around sentencing prepares to be brought back to parliament.

Energy economist Andrew Leach offers a fact-check of the claims that Neil Young has been making of the oil sands.

Economist Mike Moffatt takes on the myth that there’s such a thing as “fair value” for the Loonie, and why trying to argue that such value is “supposed” to be at 81 cents US is more about theory than the real world.

Olivia Chow’s memoirs reveal a childhood filled with abuse. It also apparently reads like a municipal platform, and she doesn’t reveal kind of cancer Jack Layton eventually died from. Given the focus on municipal politics, one does wonder when her caucus will demand that she make a choice and either resign from the House or declare her ambitions don’t include being the mayor – you know, like they did with Denis Coderre.

Francine Lalonde, a former Bloc MP who championed assisted suicide, died of bone cancer.

Susan Delacourt looks at the way in which political leaders are starting to learn how to engage over Twitter and what some of the more effective engagement strategies are – infographics, photos, “backstage access” – when it comes to moving the political conversation there.

And Andrew Coyne takes on the populist nonsense of just how concerned the NDP and Conservatives are about the consumer, when really they’re far more concerned about the producer, whom they protect from actual competition whenever possible, the exercise of which is self-serving and entirely illiberal.