Pierre Poilievre’s narrative around his single-handed defence of the Fair Elections Act took another bizarre turn yesterday as he accused the Chief Electoral Officer of trying to gain more money and more power with no accountability to show for it. Um, really? Where exactly did that come from? And since when has it been cool to attack officers of parliament with impunity? Former Auditor General Sheila Fraser noted this particularly troubling development, but one has to admit that there has been mission creep among many of those Officers, entirely encouraged by the actual opposition parties who have been perpetually fobbing off their homework and responsibilities onto those Officers, effectively turning them into the real opposition to the government. So there’s that. Over on the Senate side, pre-study hearings began yesterday, and already there was much displeasure on the Senate Liberal side of the table, where Senator Serge Joyal said that there are provisions in the bill which are likely unconstitutional – opening it up to an immediate court challenge (and yes, Joyal is a constitutional expert, and he helped to draft the 1982 constitution).

Not only has the Board of Internal Economy ruled that the NDP have broken the rules by funding those “branch offices” using parliamentary resources, but they have put new rules into place so that any parliamentary staffer found working in party-funded offices will be fired. After the investigation concludes, NDP may be required to repay those funds as well, which they say they’re going to try to seek legal redress to overturn such a ruling. The NDP continue to grumble that this was a partisan decision designed to hurt them, and that they want an arm’s length replacement to the BoIE. Because apparently we can trust parliamentarians to make the laws of this country but not set rules for themselves and we instead need to create yet another bureaucracy to do the accountability work that MPs should be doing for themselves. Is there not responsibility they won’t absolve themselves of?

Justin Trudeau hopes that the takeaway lesson from the Quebec election is that people vote for people promising to unite them, not divide them.

It only took nine months, but we finally have a new American ambassador in town an installed in the embassy here. It sounds like he’s going to be pretty focused on climate change, which could make for some frosty relations with the current government, who are quick to reassure you that they are doing quite well on that file, thank you very much. Here’s a look at the other files on his desk that he’ll have to contend with.

It looks like the total tab to put cameras in the Senate could be in the $2 million range, which some Conservative senators are rumoured to be balking at.

Public sector unions are launching pre-emptive “myth-busting” websites to try and protect their sick day accumulations, as opposed to the government’s planned short-term disability programme.

Here is more about the fraud and theft charges facing the former co-manager of Attawapiskat.

The Senate’s official languages committee has released a report on CBC/Radio-Canada and its bilingualism obligations, which it is falling short on because of continued budget cuts. While CBC doesn’t believe the Official Languages Act applies to its activities, the Senate committee feels otherwise.

Despite having already used up his private members’ business slot, Conservative MP Stephen Woodworth is trying to pass another motion about recognizing the equal rights and worth of all human beings, which is just another backdoor attempt at getting an abortion debate started, and I doubt the House is going to fall for it.

At a speech in Ottawa last night, former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney called for the creation of a national natural resources strategy which would include some robust and meaningful plans for GHG reductions. And no, this isn’t novel considering that Mulroney already has been considered the “greenest PM,” and it won’t serve to shame the current Conservative government because they’ve excommunicated Mulroney from their confidences so many times that once more won’t make a difference.

Press Gallery president Laura Payton writes about why having the Gallery on the Hill still matters.

And my column this week looks at the places where Michael Chong went right and wrong with his reformed Reform Act, though he still misses the biggest point of all in the question of how to reign in a leader’s power.