Those questions of the government position on income splitting dominated the headlines again today, with some new added dimensions as Jason Kenney popped into the controversy. As Harper conspicuously avoided assuring reporters that the proposal was still on the table, Jason Kenney insisted that they keep their campaign promises – something that may be a signal and a warning. If it’s not an official government policy, then disagreement is certainly interesting, but if it is, then a split in cabinet means that cabinet solidarity is being ruptured, and someone is going to have to resign (unless we’re really keen to throw out the rules around Responsible Government). Michael Den Tandt believes that the government should step away from the policy, and the sooner the better.

The NDP have begun a filibuster at the Procedure and House Affairs committee until they can get their national hearings on the elections bill, and insist that they’ve even included timelines in the motion for when it would go to clause-by-clause consideration. The government, however, is concerned that those hearings would turn into a circus, organised by the NDP and their union allies. The government is also criticising Marc Mayrand’s closed-door speech to Elections Canada staff, calling it a campaign-style speech designed to get the staff angry at the government.

The Supplementary Estimates have been tabled, and the government is seeking an additional $8.5 million for its ad spending – both for Economic Action Plan™ ads, as well as their new “Stop hating online” anti-cyberbullying ads. CRA is also seeking new money for its audit of charities for political activities.

Some Senators are objecting to the Auditor General’s demand that they waive solicitor-client privilege as part of the audit process. The Senate ethics officer is also getting an increase in her budget as she continues investigating alleged wrongdoing on the parts of some Senators like Irving Gerstein in the ClusterDuff affair.

As the government outlined its new Building Canada Fund infrastructure programme, heavy on smaller communities and steering projects toward public-private partnerships, municipalities are complaining that they weren’t consulted on the rules, which should come as a surprise to absolutely nobody considering this government’s record of consultations.

What’s that? Internal documents show that staff at Veterans Affairs were concerned about how they would cope with fewer staff and resources and still maintain services? You don’t say! Not only that, but they spent two years rolling out a communications strategy around those cuts – which sounds about right for this government.

The plan to have retired public servants pay more for their supplemental health benefits may also affect retired RCMP officers and veterans, but Tony Clement insists they’ll protect low-income retirees.

The Canadian Forces are going to extend the lifespan of their Aurora patrol planes yet again, to 2030, because the procurement plan for their replacements continues to be troubled.

Jason Kenney is promising new changes to the Temporary Foreign Workers programme, due to come down sometime in April.

The CSE Commissioner assures us that the experiment in tracking airport WiFi signals was cleared and didn’t track Canadians, and that no, it wasn’t about the mass surveillance of metadata. Okay then. There remain questions of CSE’s legal limits, and what they can do to sift content that includes Canadian content, and just how the Commissioner came to that conclusion.

A study shows that the natural gas network in the US is “leaky,” and that they’re putting out a lot of GHGs that are more potent when it comes to trapping heat than carbon dioxide is. And yes, it’s probably just as bad in Canada.

That former Canadian general remains in an Afghan jail despite the fact that his release was supposed to be “imminent.”

And Glen McGregor has a look at which MPs didn’t donate to their own parties last year.