Justin Trudeau delivered his big speech on Saturday, and it was fairly well received, if still light on policy specifics. (Video here, with keynotes from Harper and Mulcair for comparison). He promised no new taxes, which immediately raises doubts about the affordability of his plans, and he landed a few blows against Harper in there, about the person who appointed Mike Duffy and Pamela Wallin campaigning on the strength of his judgement, and how his wasn’t the party of Sir John A Macdonald, which was a calculated means of trying to undermine Harper’s base. Part of the speech included a fictional “Nathalie” as Trudeau’s example of an everywoman to showcase his commitment to the middle class, which is a technique apparently used successfully by the Obama camp. The Maclean’s team dissected the speech and what the key points meant, while Paul Wells offers a stand-alone analysis on how Trudeau is the first leader since Chrétien to be automatically accepted by the party without labouring to, and how he’s now knocking at Harper’s door, changing the political dynamics in this country.

While there is some grumbling amongst the party faithful, Trudeau’s team doesn’t see any contradiction between trying to recruit star candidates and the commitment to open nominations. (One supposes that it depends how much help the leader’s team gives to those star candidates when it comes to the actual nomination battle). The seven Senate Liberals who showed up said they didn’t feel unwelcome, as they’ve been party activists most of their lives. One of the speakers who denounced the Conservatives was the chair of the small-c conservative think tank C.D. Howe Institute, though he later had to clarify that he was speaking for himself, and he may be considering a run for the Liberals in the next election. Of the three Obama-related speakers who came up from the US for the convention, one of them was Teddy Goff, Obama’s “digital guru.” Economist Stephen Gordon, who was at the convention, notes the kinds of rookie mistakes being made in the economic policy discussions by delegates, and also gives a primer on what the infrastructure debate is really about (which not everyone might understand). Among the resolutions passed was one endorsing physician-assisted death for terminally-ill patients, but Trudeau didn’t give a press conference at the end of the convention to discuss the resolutions passed. While We The Media grumble about this and snipe about how this is Trudeau’s commitment to openness and transparency, he’ll likely have media scrums after QP either tomorrow or Tuesday and have caucus outs on Wednesday – unlike Harper, for what it’s worth. Michael Den Tandt writes that most of the economic policy remains wanting, while Andrew Coyne notes how very much Trudeau is becoming the party (though it does bear reminding that his name isn’t on the backdrops, unlike the NDP).

Here’s a longer version of Aaron Wherry’s conversation with retired General Andrew Leslie about the $72,000 benefit and the partisan response to date.

Chris Alexander says that Canada will put sanctions on Russia if they interfere with the situation in Ukraine.

Canada is sending a delegation to Greenland to be part of discussions over putting into place a moratorium on Arctic fishing as sea ice melts and makes opens up the region. Because there isn’t enough information on the fish stocks, the ecosystem or any kind of baseline, they want to ensure that nobody rushes in to start catching Arctic cod and destroying the potential fishery before it even gets off the ground.

A report prepared for Employment and Social Development Canada shows that the middle class isn’t doing as rosily as the government would have otherwise indicated in the budget, and that those with middle incomes aren’t getting a good return out of the market.

CBC looks at the letters that Canadians sent to the government in protest over Russia’s anti-gay laws.

Jason Kenney went up to Nunavut and did some snowmobiling in the traditional Inuit garb.

Liberal MP Scott Brison and his husband, Maxime St-Pierre, are now fathers to twin baby girls.

Here’s an interesting look at the attempt to get a Christian law school up and running in Canada, and how it differs from the American schools that explicitly try to use these schools to create the next generation of socially conservative political operatives.

And Scott Feschuk imagines Stephen Harper penning the Dear ABBY advice column. Enjoy.