In a bit of drama, late Sunday evening saw the departure of Dimitri Soudas from the post of executive director of the Conservative Party, following the nomination drama in the Oakville–North Burlington with Soudas’ fiancée, MP Eve Adams. Soudas had pledged to stay out of the nomination fight, but word has it that a doorknocking campaign for Adams was being run out of Soudas’ office, and that simply couldn’t do, especially with the allegations that he was being seen to interfere in the race already. Soudas had only been in the post four months, and already people are making the Helena Guergis comparisons with Adams. Apparently there was already some discontent in the party with Soudas when he was appointed to the position, as other members of the national council had other preferred candidates. Paul Wells looks back on those four short months, and how Soudas was supposed to be the adult supervision in the post-Nigel Wright era, only to become one more person through the revolving door of the PMO.
Laura Payton looks at the kinds of acceptable ID to cast a ballot listed in the elections bill, and how it’s not as easy for someone who doesn’t have a driver’s licence, as many of those listed forms of ID don’t include an address.
Two large public sector unions, the Canadian Postal Workers Union and the Public Service Alliance of Canada, are starting campaigns designed to replace the current government, which raises questions about the appropriateness of such actions.
Despite our military being in desperate need of new fixed-wing search and rescue aircraft, the Conservative government threw out years of procurement preparation when they overhauled their process and had to start all over from scratch in December of 2012. Glad to see that getting the equipment that our Forces need is this government’s top priority.
Peter MacKay wonders if our soldiers couldn’t have been better trained and better equipped earlier in the Afghan mission. I mean sure, if money were no object, and we all had the gift of foresight, then sure, wonder away.
It seems that CRA is responsible for some 80 percent of government data breaches, which is a nice bit of reassurance, don’t you think. The government has tried to say that these are all errors of the fault of people not upgraded their addresses, but one really has to wonder if there isn’t anything more to it than that.
Documents show that it eventually took two years of planning for Chris Hadfield to unveil the new polymer $5 notes in orbit, and that Mark Carney pushed for the event to be a live uplink to the station rather than pre-recorded (though they did have contingency plans in place).
The Residential Schools Commission has finished hearing testimony from around the country, and will now begin to write up its report, though we’ll have to see if they’ll actually get all of the documents that they’ve been waiting for in time for their deadlines
Oh, look – more numbers about Senators’ spending without any context! Anyone have their cheap outrage at the ready?
Justin Trudeau dropped an f-bomb at a charity boxing match. OH NOES! Let’s all act like six year olds tutting because someone said a bad word! And on cue, there’s the PMO telling us that it shows that he has bad judgement.
John Geddes looks at Lisa Raitt’s political rehabilitation, and her return to prominence in cabinet after tackling tough files.
And Brian Mulroney is coming to town to speak at the Canada 2020 conference next week. Does that mean his political rehabilitation is also completed?
This week: It sounds like the Conservatives are finally going to table their Victims of Crime Bill of Rights, because they haven’t tinkered with the justice system nearly enough.