Roundup: Budget date set

Jim Flaherty has announced that the budget will be delivered on February 11th, in the midst of the Olympics. Because remember that Canadians would be too distracted by the last Olympic games to even have Parliament sitting? Apparently that’s no longer a concern, and Flaherty is confident that Canadians can pay attention to both the games and the budget at the same time. Well, that and he apparently has a few measures that are important to pass sooner than later. John Geddes notes that Flaherty’s tone has changed lately to one of striking informality of late, where he seems to be freelancing some opinions and hinting that others may be to blame if there is added spending in the upcoming budget.

Information sharing between Canada and the US at the borders regarding entries and exits will start happening on June 30th, but they still haven’t told the Privacy Commissioner just who that information is going to be shared with and for what purposes.

Citizenship lawyers are concerned that the government is going to perpetuate the inaccurate notion that would-be immigrants need to be physically in the country for three of the previous years before being eligible, given that the very class of immigrants that they’re trying to attract – economic migrants – travel regularly for business. But hey, what’s confusion when you’re trying to look tough in cracking down on alleged fraudsters?

The explosion of a natural gas pipeline in Manitoba over the weekend has Thomas Mulcair decrying that the government is “soft on energy mishaps.”

A veteran from our time in Croatia, where he was shot seven times, is looking for retroactive pension benefits after suffering for PTSD for a decade.

There is talk that a lack of concrete action on the part of the Conservatives over the crisis in the Ukraine right now could cost them in the next election with the Ukrainian-Canadian voting bloc.

A study shows that income splitting will disproportionately benefit the wealthy, and really only benefit single-income families. Which is actually the point – it’s a policy social conservatives are pushing so that there are incentives for women to stay home and take care of children rather than there being dual income families and outside childcare.

Bruce Hyer has been named the deputy leader of the Green Party, not that it’s a surprise as he’s their only other caucus member and the previous two deputy leaders have recently stood down.

Apparently temporary freedom from caucus is going to Dean Del Mastro’s head, as he took the opportunity to criticise the government over the low dollar.

While Mark Adler may be the MP behind the bill to ensure that officers of parliament have never been engaged in partisan activity, it has been noted that he was once a Liberal staffer and donor.

Senator Enverga has visited his typhoon-ravaged homeland of the Philippines, who said that everyone there is appreciative of Canada and the efforts of the DART team.

In case you missed it, Harper defended Chuck Strahl’s honour during QP yesterday.

Kady O’Malley looks at the current batch of Order Paper Questions.

Aaron Wherry pens a lengthy but interesting essay about the constant move for parliamentary reform in this country, and what all the tinkering has wrought – the moves to make Parliament “more efficient” have led to centralised power and denuded MPs of many of their powers, and now we seek to reverse some of those trends through means like the Reform Act (which I will remind you is a mere half-measure). Wherry also rounds up who is proposing what other reforms to the system. Maurice Vellacott is trying to add himself to the list, but his claims that the committee that oversees private members’ business is “capricious” and “muzzling” is ridiculous, considering that their job is to ensure that the bills are voteable and within the bounds of the rules.

Maclean’s has an interesting piece on student debt burdens, which are not rising but are in fact getting smaller for a variety of reasons. Mind you, the charts also show that when I did my undergrad it was some of the worst times for the confluence of factors.

The House had an emergency debate on the situation in Ukraine last night.

This interview with Susan Delacourt on Jesse Brown’s Canadaland podcast is pretty great.

And Andrew Coyne looks at Ontario’s proposals to raise the minimum wage and points out that it’s really a terrible way to fight poverty, and if that’s really the goal, then income support through the tax and transfer system is a better way to go.

Up today: It’s the first opposition day of the New Year, and the NDP are going to bring up the Canada Post changes, which they want a vote on.