Harry Neufeld, former chief electoral officer of BC and author of a report on voter irregularities in the last federal election wants it to be made clear that said report didn’t say there was fraud. Pierre Poilievre, who likes to cite that report, decided to double down and actually say that Neufeld was reading his own report wrong. No, seriously. Neufeld, incidentally, says that many of the incidents of “fraud” that people insist happen are urban myths that have been repeated so often that people start to believe them without actually witnessing it happen. Andrew Coyne shreds the Fair Elections Act and quite correctly points out that while there are a few good points in the bill, the closer one looks at it, the worse it gets and becomes untenable.

Stephen Harper appointed Vic Toews to the Manitoba Court of Queen’s Bench, which everyone pretty knew was going to happen, but probably not so soon. There was talk that he was going to need a cooling-off period of at least six months to a year, but they split the difference and lo and behold, it was nine months, and announced on a Friday before March break. Funnily enough, Toews once condemned Irwin Cotler for appointing his former chief of staff to the bench. And it’s not like any other appointments of cabinet ministers to the bench went wrong, right? Oops. Glen McGregor notes that Toews’ new judge’s salary will be higher than his cabinet minister’s salary, and it’ll help him keep up with his support payments to his ex-wife.

Lisa Raitt has issued emergency orders to try to end the prairie grain bottleneck, but it sounds a lot like the bare minimum as the rail companies would have been able to start moving those minimum volumes within four weeks anyway, but at least there are penalties if they don’t comply.

It seems that Stephen Harper not only met with Thomas Mulcair about the Quebec Election, but also Justin Trudeau, and had calls with premiers across the country. And in turn, there is criticism that only Mulcair has made a private discussion public.

Canada has expelled the handful of Russian soldiers engaged in joint operations or training here. Russian officials call the move “provocative.”

The Special Committee on Violence Against Indigenous Women tabled its report yesterday, and surprising nobody, the government majority on the committee did not include a recommendation for a national inquiry into the issue. Opposition parties’ dissenting reports did include such a call. Apparently the government’s tough-on-crime measures are going a long way to solving the problems, if you believe what Peter MacKay has been saying in the House.

With HMCS Protecteur apparently unlikely to return to service, it sounds like we’ll be stuck without a supply tender for our Pacific fleet, which doesn’t make us a very effective naval force. Add to that, we’re planning on spending $2.6 billion for a pair of replacements (when we really need three or four for adequate coverage), while the UK will be spending $1.1 billion for four larger ships for their own fleet. But this is the price we pay for using procurement to rebuild our shipbuilding industry as a whole and using it as an engine of job creation. It’s not the best value-for-money.

Here’s an interesting look at the blurry lines between government and party business when it comes to the Prime Minister’s social media strategy, and why some of those questions are sticky when it comes to what kinds of taxpayer-funded resources they’re using.

A former RCMP officer and corporate security specialist has been appointed to the Security and Intelligence Review Committee.

The government’s commitment to transparency is again tested, as they refuse to say how many people in the PMO are earning more than $150,000 per year.

Oh noes! Those parliamentarian salary increases are more than the increases public servants made! Everyone freak out! Release the cheap outrage! It’s not like we have a problem attracting talent to politics in this country or anything, right?

In case you were wondering, research has quantifiably proves that there has been an increase in partisanship during Members’ Statements in the House.

Economist Mike Moffatt looks at middle class incomes as broken out by individuals and by gender rather than just by family incomes, and finds that there is a sense of stagnation between 1995-2007, and that where growth came was largely from female employment, but our biggest problem remains sluggish productivity growth.

Susan Delacourt wonders if all of our social media and technology designed to connect us isn’t just recreating the small town existence that some of us grew up with, including that lack of privacy.

Jen Gerson writes about the gamble that Alberta Premier Alison Redford is making when it comes to deficit financing for infrastructure projects rather than raiding the province’s savings.

Stephen Harper hasn’t collected on his beer bets with Barack Obama after the Olympic hockey games (not that Harper drinks beer). Oh, if only we had an ambassador who could do this kind of thing.

And Thomas Mulcair tweeted out that “We are not living in an episode of House of Cards” in reference to the Fair Elections Act. Um, he realises that House of Cards is about intra-party power games and leadership politics, right?