It was a day of procedural shenanigans in the House, with the government trying to tie up the debate around the Brad Butt privilege issue, while in committee, the NDP were continuing their filibuster around the issue of holding cross-country hearings on the elections bill. In the end, closure came down and the Butt issue went to a vote, majority ruling not to send the matter to committee (most Conservatives insisting that his apology was enough and that he really didn’t mean to mislead the House – though nobody had explained how exactly that was the case), and the NDP got concessions on the elections bill at committee – more hearings would be held, but only in Ottawa, while the party decided to hold their own hearings across the country on their own.
On the Ukraine file, as all parties show that they are acting in solidarity with the Ukrainians during the current crisis, it appears that Ukrainian-Canadians could form a significant voting bloc in a future election (though I wonder if there’s not a generation of Ukrainian-Canadians that are less concerned with the affairs of their homeland than they might once have been). PostMedia has a Q&A with John Baird on the situation.
Jason Kenney has reached a deal with Quebec on the Canada Job Grant file, meaning that everyone is now on board, though the individual bilateral agreements still need to be signed. Kenney says it’s proof that federalism can work – just on the eve of a likely election campaign in the province where the PQ are in the lead going into it.
More Conservative voices, including Senator Vern White – a former chief of police – and former police officer David Wilks, an MP, are pushing to have marijuana possession made a ticketable offence to reduce the administrative burden of formal charges and court dates. But remember – it’s not decriminalization, because that would be just awful and think of all the money and political capital they’ve expended on attacking Justin Trudeau over that kind of stance!
Nearly two years after the NDP leadership, and we finally have an answer on the denial-of-service attack on their electronic voting system – the weak link was the party’s website, not the company providing the voting service, but it goes to prove that such systems are only as robust as their weakest link (which is yet one more reason why I have zero romance with the notion of online voting).
Our ambassador in Washington, Gary Doer, says that out officials are working together to “assess” potential cooperation when it comes to regulations emissions, which is part of his contributions to comment on the Keystone XL pipeline.
Access to Information documents show that the Diamond Jubilee medal program ended up costing $8.1 million overall, and was $660,000 over budget. $3.1 million of that was spend on producing the 60,000 medals themselves, other money was spent on salaries and overtime for the staff in the honours office at Rideau Hall.
More ATI documents show that it was Department of Heritage and PCO that put the kybosh on a background briefing being prepared for journalists by Library and Archives around the handling and retention of government emails and documents, which was requested at the height of the ClusterDuff affair and the questions concerning Benjamin Perrin’s missing emails. Because the Harper government really knows how to look like it has nothing to hide.
The family of a dead soldier got a cheque for the government for one cent. No, seriously. And yes, Rob Nicholson through a fit about it QP, and dutifully blamed the bureaucrats.
What’s that? The Conservatives sent out an email blast to all those names they collected from the Aga Khan webstream data mining? You don’t say!
Initial reports are indicating that the fire damage to HMCS Protecteur is significant, and it could mean that the ship will wind up being scrapped, leaving our navy with just a single supply ship.
Another outside audit of the Senate, this one an annual audit by KPMG, also concluded that the spending rules are unclear as written, which by now the Senate has accepted and is working to change.
Here’s a look at one of the Liberal nomination candidates in Ottawa Centre, for whom there is speculation that Trudeau may treat as a “preferred candidate.”
Emmett Macfarlane writes about the problems with constitutionalising environmental rights, most especially that it tries to foist a political problem onto the courts.
Here’s a great examination of the issue of Canada’s response to anti-gay laws in Uganda.
Samara Canada publishes a couple of responses to their study on political party perception, one of which points out that parties have reached out and people ignored it, while another writes that he’s volunteered for a party, but he finds it too much of a “Mean Girls” environment to be satisfying.
And my column this week breaks down the commentary that “government is both sides,” which it explicitly is not, and points out that it’s that kind of attitude that diminishes the vital role of opposition.