The fallout from the departure of Dimitri Soudas continued around the Nation’s Capital yesterday, with Soudas giving this somewhat overdone defence of his “resignation” as doing it for the woman he loves, while other sources from within the party started to paint a picture of Soudas breaking his contract, with a data trail with his fingerprints on it leading to access to the party’s voter database and phone records that shoed hundreds of calls made to the riding where Eve Adams is contesting the nomination. Apparently he didn’t deny the allegations resulting from that investigation, and then he was out. There was also apparently pushback from the rest of the party leading up to the end, so it seems likely that Harper couldn’t ignore any problems with Soudas any longer. This now leaves a hole in Harper’s election organizing planning, as well as more questions about his judgement when it comes to appointments – adding to the long list that includes Senators Duffy, Brazeau and Wallin, and other appointments like Christiane Ouimet, Arthur Porter, and now Justice Nadon./

Pearls continue to be clutched in our national crisis of Justin Trudeau’s use of a bad word, and the Conservative benches were all fanning themselves with the vapours all day. Oh, but Trudeau said that his wife gave him a good scolding, so that counts for something, right? At least PostMedia called out the ridiculousness of the coverage, and our aversion to the word “fucking.”

It sounds like Conservative Senators are gearing up to give the Fair Elections Act a rough ride, as many of them are not all keen on the bill and its provisions, which shouldn’t be a surprise. The Senate Liberals have opted not to begin a pre-study of the bill given the likelihood of amendments at the committee stage in the Commons, and because the government side wouldn’t agree to cross-country hearings.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a new report that portends plenty of challenges like food security and wildfires, but when asked about it, all the Minister will do is list accomplishments that have little to do with actually combating climate change. Not that this is a surprise.

The Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner found Greg Rickford’s investment in an energy-related hedge fund to be above board, with the exception of a small account worth a couple of thousand dollars, which was sold off immediately.

An Access to Information from the Alberta government in the wake of the Redford travel debacle revealed that 25 RCMP officers accompanied Harper and the various other leaders and dignitaries to Nelson Mandela’s funeral.

Surprising absolutely no one, the government is challenging the Federal Court decision that provided an injunction that allows those who grow their own medical marijuana to continue to do so for the time being.

A report by the Macdonald-Laurier institute suggests that police use more civilians to cut costs, but experts warn that it may not actually work, given that specialised civilian staff still cost money, nor does it take into account some geographical differences when it comes to policing in this country.

As you may have heard in Question Period yesterday, a Finance Department report showed that there could be economic benefit to enriching the Canada Pension Plan, though the government has been all “payroll taxes! I can’t hear you!” whenever the topic is raised.

Kady O’Malley looks into opposition Order Paper Questions related to the Prime Minister’s 24/Seven YouTube videos.

What’s that? Some potential candidates are moaning that the nomination process is creating divisions in the party? You don’t say! That’s kind of what nominations are good at doing.

Senator Don Meredith insists that he doesn’t know why he was dropped from the Human Rights committee and that his trip to Washington was “worth every dime” – never mind that the was twice denied, and that his expenses are being scrutinized.

In case you were worried, Alberta Senator Scott Tanas has decided not to run for the provincial Progressive Conservative party leadership.

And Andrew Coyne writes about the PQ essentially coming clean about the fact that their Charter of Values is unconstitutional and that they plan to use the Courts to either force the issue as an excuse for a referendum, or to use the Notwithstanding Clause of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, either way showing that minority rights are still vulnerable, even in this day and age.