Cheap partisan point scoring ruled the day on the issue of Ukraine here in the Nation’s Capital as the government decided not to include any opposition MPs in their delegation to meet the country’s interim government. Most galling was the response sent out to media by the PMO – that the NDP “could pick a side” during the protests, and that Justin Trudeau’s comments about Russia “were not helpful” and thus his party had no role on the delegation. Not only that, but James Bezan, one of the two MPs accompanying Baird and Senator Andreychuk as part of the delegation, went on TV to proclaim that it was a “government delegation” – err, except that he and Ted Opitz are backbenchers, and thus not actually part of the government, so that excuse doesn’t fly either. All of which leads to conclude that this is little more than an excuse to play domestic politics with a serious international issue. Well done, guys. Well done.

The Senate Liberals announced yesterday that they would make changes that are unprecedented in Canadian politics, from holding caucus meetings that are open to the media on occasion (seeing as political strategy is less of a concern these days), eliminating whipped votes, creating new means of proactive disclosure for expenses, and commencing studies on equalisation and missing and murdered Aboriginal women. The Conservative senators, meanwhile, got new talking points about how it was really all a big sham and that they were still going to try to get Justin Trudeau elected, so nothing has really changed. One hopes that the changes will soon start to become visible enough to the public. Meanwhile, We The Media are going to amuse ourselves for the next while chasing down instances of when Senate Liberals appear at Liberal Party fundraisers, despite the fact that some of these events were booked long before they were kicked out of caucus. (Oh, and if We could also get over this “former Liberal senators”/”Independent Liberal Senators”/”We don’t know what to call them” nonsense, that would be great, since they’ve decided to call themselves Senate Liberals on day one of this change).

There are new allegations of sexual harassment against former Liberal Senator Colin Kenny, from five more women.

Rob Ford was among the big city mayors in town meeting over their infrastructure issues. Predictably, Ford’s presence turned into a media circus, especially when he cut out on several meetings in order to head to a pub for lunch. As for the rest of those mayors who were there working and meeting with ministers, they got nothing in terms of funds for housing or infrastructure given the way the funds rolling out are going to impact them in the short term.

The Correctional Investigator has so far rapped Corrections Canada three times over Omar Khadr and how he’s been unfairly classified as a maximum security risk without any evidence to warrant it, and that this was a likely human rights violation. Khadr was recently downgraded to medium security.

Independent MP Brent Rathgeber’s bill was back in the House, and he was able to move amendments at report stage – as he is now independent – after the government gutted the bill in committee. While he proposed to change the accountability threshold to those making the same base salary as an MP, but unfortunately couldn’t muster enough support from the Conservative ranks to get them passed (though he did get a few supporters).

Because the topic of coalition governments and post-electoral cooperation are suddenly and inexplicably being discussed again, and because Thomas Mulcair has suddenly started to sound amenable to it again where he hasn’t in the past, Paul Wells writes about a possible post-election scenario where it may become difficult for the opposition parties to refuse to cooperate.

Tamsin McMahon tries to find an agreed-upon measure of just who constitutes the middle class, but comes up empty given how problematic previous definitions have been in the modern context.

It’s that time of year when the Manning Networking Conference happens in Ottawa, and former Reform Party leader Preston Manning is being lauded as an elder statesman for conservative ideas, though one wonders if one should really call them conservative ideas or merely populist ones. (And could we stop asking him about Senate reform issues, because he has zero credibility on the issue, and his thinking on it has all the merit of raising unicorns).

Purveyors of cheap outrage peddle said cheap outrage in an embarrassingly low-budget sideshow.

And Andrew Coyne parses what was said over the weekend at the Liberal convention and starts to see a picture of how the Liberals would run the economy, and that picture looks a lot like the status quo, with a potential warning light around their vision of infrastructure spending.