The Russian government has retaliated against sanctions imposed by Canada by instituting sanctions of their own against 13 Canadian officials, including the Clerk of the Privy Council, the deputy secretary to cabinet in the Privy Council, Speaker Scheer, Peter Van Loan, Senator Raynell Andreychuk, and MPs Dean Allison, Paul Dewar, Irwin Cotler, Ted Opitz, Chrystia Freeland and James Bezan, all of whom consider it a “badge of honour.” Notably absent were John Baird and Stephen Harper, which signals that there is still room for negotiation. Irwin Cotler wrote his response about how he was first banned from the Soviet Union in 1979, and that he was poisoned on his last trip to Moscow in 2006. Meanwhile, the G8 is essentially no more, as Russia has expelled after their invasion of Crimea. The G7 is now resurrected in its place.
The first day back in the House was an NDP opposition day, where the subject was the Fair Elections Act. Also yesterday, Pierre Poilievre published an op-ed in the Globe to shamelessly defend the bill, and brought up the spectre of the Commissioner of Elections being unable to investigate Elections Canada employees for misdeeds if he’s in the same office as they are – a bit of a stretch. Laura Payton finds that the bill does nothing for the existing gaps for parties’ obligations to privacy, and could make it worse with the “Bingo card” provisions.
Those NDP “branch office” expenses are causing Senate Liberal Percy Downe to challenge Liberal leader Justin Trudeau to throw the gauntlet down in the House and call for a vote to have the Auditor General examine MPs’ expenses, though there remains great reluctance from most MPs to do this. The NDP’s use of bulk householder mailings to Brandon-Souris and Bourassa just before the recent by-elections was also brought up at the Board of Internal Economy, apparently, and the matter sent to the Commissioner of Elections, who could deem them to be an election expense that might put one of the campaigns over the limit. The NDP tried to hit back when Isabelle Morin rose in the House to accuse Marc Garneau of running an ad targeting people in her riding, so we’ll see if that gets any traction.
Over in the Senate, the financial administrators are looking over the expense claims of Conservative Senator Don Meredith, specifically around some of his travel claims, such as a trip to Washington DC for the prayer breakfast there, which was not Senate business and for which he was twice denied approval but claimed it anyway, as well as other trips that were denied approval. His use of business class flights to Toronto along with his wife are also being looked at, and while they don’t break the rules per se, Senators are encouraged to use their judgement (which this would seem to be a questionable use thereof). It sounds like he’s been taken off of his committee assignments as punishment, so they do appear to be taking this seriously.
Michael Chong looks set to make some amendments to his own bill, the Reform Act, in order to strengthen it and win it more support. Of course, it still has the fatal flaw of not returning power to select the leader to caucus.
The federal government denied a bid by BlackBerry to sell itself to Chinese firm Lenovo, but did get an early tax refund, which apparently saved the company by keeping it solvent.
Glen McGregor finds that newly minted natural resources minister Greg Rickford has hedge fund investments with energy holdings, which his portfolio can now have a major influence over. Rickford is in touch with the Ethics Commissioner to see if he needs to divest of these holdings.
Stephen Harper has apparently endorsed Rob Anders’ nomination race in Calgary Signal Hill, which is raising eyebrows considering that he hasn’t apparently endorsed other incumbents. The endorsement, which appears to be a strange quote taken out of context and stitched into a larger release, then disappeared from Anders’ site before returning. Add to that are accusations that Anders’ campaign was making misleading phone calls to members, saying they’re from the Liepert campaign when calling the number back led to the Anders’ campaign. All very odd indeed.
With those post-Meech Lake Accord documents released, Susan Delacourt recalls covering the events, and the way in which Brian Mulroney said some questionable things.
In the Quebec election, there are stories about young voters being denied the ability to register despite the fact that they meet all of the qualifications, except of course for some mystical pledge that they are really Quebeckers.
Jesse Brown’s Canadaland podcast talks to Globe and Mail reporter Colin Freeze about the activities of the CSE.
And Paul Wells had an epic Twitter rant about the craziness of the allegations being hurtled around in the Quebec election over the weekend, and it was glorious.