Surprising pretty much nobody, President Barack Obama has delayed the Keystone XL decision until after the November midterm elections. Cue the wailing and gnashing of teeth in the PMO and in the premiers’ offices in Alberta and Saskatchewan.
Laureen Harper was interrupted during her speech at a cat video festival by activists who demanded action on missing and murdered Aboriginal women. And I get that it’s important, but there’s a time and place, people and Laureen Harper is not her husband. Protesting her only makes you look worse, not her.
John Geddes notes the ways where the Harper government has been forced to bend and deal with stakeholders, particularly with the Canada Job Grant and the First Nations on education reform, but how those successes are being overshadowed by their intransigence on things like the Fair Elections Act and other omnibus budget bills.
Library and Archives Canada has a new head, at a time when the institution is facing a lot of questions about how it will handle its mandate given funding pressures and the government’s insistence on digitizing the collection above other priorities.
A bunch of MPs go swimming together in downtown Ottawa to promote national fitness. Not that I’m sure I want to see MPs in their bathing suits. (Kudos on the camera work for the video in the piece, however).
John Baird met with the family of detained Egyptian-Canadian journalist Mohamed Fahmy, and assured them that they are doing everything possible for his release even though his case is not in the same headlines as previous detention cases were. Apparently Fahmy’s dual citizenship is the main obstacle, for what it’s worth.
While Stephen Harper’s tough criticism of Russia and Vladimir Putin may win him praise at home, it sounds like it’s getting pretty much no traction on the international stage.
Aaron Wherry considers the eulogies for Jim Flaherty in the House, with many references to Theodore Roosevelt, and the conception of what our ideal MPs and public figures should be like.
Colby Cosh looks to Australia as a cautionary tale where their electoral reforms and proportional voting systems are being gamed by small players to try and have outsized impacts as relative to their actual support or policy goals.
Stephen Maher writes that it’s up to the Conservatives to say how Nigel Wright’s secret $90,000 payment to Senator Mike Duffy can be legal (and no, just because they decided not to charge him it doesn’t mean that it was).
And Scott Feschuk imagines what kinds of things Stephen Harper might have planned for a very Conservative celebration of Canada’s 150th birthday.