Out of the blue, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty announced his resignation from cabinet yesterday, but not his seat (just yet). This after Flaherty promised that he was going to run again, while simultaneously dropping hints that he was ready to wind down his political career. And it looks like Joe Oliver will be tapped to replace him as Finance minister, but no word on who would then take over the Natural Resources file. Here are some facts about Flaherty and his career, and a look back at his best ties, which were pretty much all green, which was kind of his shtick. Here’s Paul Wells’ profile of Flaherty from a couple of months ago.

The Parliamentary Budget Officer’s look at the Main Estimates shows that direct programme spending is expected to drop about $9.7 billion over the 2014-15 fiscal year, most of which is supposed to be in “back office” cuts. As well, the government plans to cut back on its use of consultants and outside legal services, but considering the growth in that sector under the current government, we’ll see how it compares to previous spending levels.

As it turns out, the NDP not only has a Parliament Hill “branch office” in Montreal, but another one in Quebec City as well. And oh look – a number of the staffers located there have job titles listed as “outreach.” And it sounds like the NDP are getting pretty testy about answering questions about these offices.

The Governor General and Prime Minister greeted the returning troops from Afghanistan in Ottawa, and declared that May 9 will be named a day of honour to commemorate those who served in Afghanistan.

In response to a class action lawsuit related to the New Veterans Charter, the government will be arguing that they don’t have a social contract with veterans. No, seriously.

Dassault Aviation, makers of the Rafale B fighter, seem to have cottoned onto what makes Canadian procurement tick, and are offering to not only assemble the fighters here in Canada if we choose it instead of the F-35s to replace our aging CF-18 fleet, but are also offering the intellectual property and technology that would allow us to properly Canadianize the fighters and have those high-value aviation jobs in this country, unlike what Lockheed Martin is offering for the F-35 contract.

A Statistics Canada report is casting some serious doubt on the government’s claims about skills shortages in the labour market, and even worse, economists are having a hard time trying to replicate the Department of Finance numbers that make these skills shortage claims. In other words, it doesn’t look like there is a really big problem out there that needs solving.

The Prime Minister’s personal security costs have doubled since he took office, but of course security concerns mean that we don’t really know how or why.

What’s that? Focus groups pointed out that the government’s telecom outrage commercials were unfocused and didn’t offer policy solutions? You don’t say!

A number of environmental groups put out a report that says that the Energy East pipeline won’t have the great benefits that everyone claims, especially when it comes to the number of jobs created.

The Russian ambassador held a press availability yesterday, and basically shrugged off suggestions that Russia could be isolated, and said that targeted sanctions would essentially be a useless gestures. So there’s that.

Former senator Mac Harb’s lawyers were in court yesterday, and his case will also be put over to the end of April, and like Patrick Brazeau, Harb’s defence looks like it will largely rest on the fuzziness of Senate rules around housing claims. Meanwhile, it looks like ATIPed copies of the Auditor General’s speaking notes show that he was originally hoping the audit would be done early this year, but that line got removed, as it will apparently be taking a while longer.

At an appearance in Kingston yesterday, Justin Trudeau announced that in the coming days the party will bring out clear rules for behaviour of candidates and their teams, in the wake of the drama with Christine Innes having her nomination blocked in Trinity Spadina over alleged bullying tactics from her campaign team (including Innes’ husband). Aaron Wherry tries to reconcile these recent allegations of shenanigans with what Michael Chong’s Reform Act might accomplish.

John Geddes talks to Marc Mayrand and looks at his clash with Pierre Poilievre about the larger mission of Elections Canada as the debate on the elections bill goes forward.

Economist Mike Moffatt looks at other politicians who’ve talked about growing the economy to balance the budget, as Justin Trudeau suggested, and finds that some conservative darlings like Ronald Reagan, and younger versions of Stephen Harper and Jim Flaherty have even uttered such sentiments. Oh, but when Trudeau says it, it’s wrong all of a sudden.

Brent Rathgeber writes about his visit to the Alberta legislature, and finds that not only has decorum there deteriorated since he was a member, it’s not quite as infantile as things in Ottawa, but feels that the problem is the office of the Speaker. I’m not sure that making the Speaker an Officer of Parliament is the answer, however, and we really need to get over this crutch of demanding more officers of parliament just because parliamentarians don’t want to do their jobs. This proliferation needs to stop.

And my column this week looks at Alison Redford’s current difficulties within her caucus, and how the ways in which we choose leaders creates these kinds of problems, especially as there is little connection between the caucus and the choice of that leader.