The Fair Elections Act was back front and centre in the House yesterday, with the NDP’s opposition day motion to hold cross-country hearings on the bill. Aaron Wherry heard back from Pierre Poilievre on the problems with vouching, and from the former BC Chief Electoral Officer who wrote a report on said issue, who doesn’t think it should be eliminated by simply streamlined. There are concerns that the changes in the Act could prevent the Chief Electoral Officer from reporting to Parliament on the investigation into the fraudulent robocalls (Poilievre insists it won’t be the case). The provision that both chambers of Parliament would need to sign off on future online voting experiments is bringing out the paranoia that the Conservative-dominated Senate will kill all future attempts, out of spite or something (because the Senate has never been dominated by an opposition party before apparently – and seriously, grow up). And then, to top it all off, Conservative MP Brad Butt decided that no, he didn’t actually witness voter fraud by people taking discarded voter identification cards and then using them illicitly – he just “misspoke.” Multiple times. In the House and in committee. Oh, but now he considers the matter to be “closed,” so stop asking. Yes, apparently he is that shameless.

Yesterday’s dose of cheap outrage was courtesy of Justin Trudeau, who was on the Quebec TV programme Tout le monde en parle, where he made a quip about the Russians being mad about losing at hockey so we need to make sure they don’t interfere with Ukraine – before getting serious and talking about what is happening there and how the Conservative government is doing almost nothing. But the Conservatives decided to cry foul and say that he was making light of the deaths of protesters, and howled to the media for an apology. And the media focused on the politics of Trudeau’s remark rather than, say, the situation in Ukraine, or maybe even the bloodshed in Venezuela. Because you know, cheap outrage gets ratings, or something.

Want more cheap outrage? Here’s a bunch of topline expense numbers without any context. Oh noes! These numbers look big! (Are you outraged yet?)

Because everyone is once again talking about middle class incomes, John Geddes looks at the after-tax, adjusted for inflation income data over the past 15 years, and notes that it has increased steadily, not only for two-income families but also single-income families as well – thus complicating Trudeau’s narrative. Stephen Gordon looks at the median incomes in Canada – and Quebec separately – and going back to 1976 finds a large climb since about 1997. Jason Kirby adds another dimension – geography, where the rate of increase depends on where in the country you live. But apparently the middle class “hasn’t had a raise” and is falling behind.

John Baird put out a statement to “strongly condemn” the anti-homosexuality bill being signed into law in Uganda. How long before he escalates this to the Commonwealth?

The Governor General is currently on a state visit to India, one of many trips he’s made to help boost Canadian trade around the globe.

A Senate Liberal wants to debate a motion to have the Auditor General audit MPs’ expenses – because this kind of tit-for-tat between the two chambers is exactly what we need.

Here is the list of policy resolutions that passed at the Liberal convention last weekend.

Anonymous staffers gripe that they need better standardisation of their work terms, because of lots of overtime and not a lot of pay – though they make up for that in experience and opportunities. The NDP have their staffers unionised and talk about how great it is, but neglect to mention the high degree of central control that comes with that, and it further removes the autonomy of MPs to manage their own affairs.

Economist Stephen Gordon looks at the assumptions in the budget about surpluses going forward, and notes the “starve the beast” strategy the Conservatives have put into place, meaning that there really won’t be much in the way of a surplus that other parties could spend if they wanted to, without changing the current fiscal framework that the government has put into place.

And the Aga Khan, spiritual leader of the world’s 15 million Ismaili Muslims, addresses Parliament on Thursday.