Today is the big day, as Thomas Mulcair goes before committee to defend his party’s use of “satellite” offices and staff doing supposedly “parliamentary” work in provinces where they don’t have MPs. And it could get really testy, given that Mulcair went off on reporters yesterday and was pretty much mansplaining to CTV’s Laurie Graham during caucus outs yesterday. CBC’s leak/counter-leak story is updated with more counter-leaks from House of Commons finance who did have a problem with people being in Montreal, but were still trying to figure out how to deal with it when everything blew up. But there was no problem and this is just the Board of Internal Economy being partisan! Oh, and in case you were wondering, he still plans on hiring someone to work out in Saskatchewan – just not co-locate them with party staffers. Okay then! The NDP also appear to be gearing up for a legal challenge if the committee decides to delve into the matter further, and have sought a legal opinion by the former Commons law clerk to back them up.
Tonda MacCharles looks at the way in which Harper has been revising his characterisation of the dispute with the Chief Justice, so that the current version is that Harper foresaw the court challenge that previously he said surprised him. Brent Rathgeber figures that they have been trying to revise history because they realised the epic miscalculation of trying to pick that fight and are back-pedalling.
The NDP have appeared to come to their senses around reopening the abortion debate and will debate CBC funding instead. Meanwhile, Liberal MPs want the health minister to invoke a dispute resolution mechanism to deal with the closure of abortion services in New Brunswick, which they say may contravene the Canada Health Act. Elsewhere, the Archbishop of Toronto wrote to Justin Trudeau to urge him to reconsider his enforcing the party’s pro-choice stance, but considering that the Bishop of Calgary used to regularly call for the likes of Joe Clark to be excommunicated for his pro-choice and pro-gay positions, this letter is not really a big deal.
Jason Kenney gave an impromptu defence of the Temporary Foreign Workers programme at a business audience and made some good points about the misnomers within the programme – and he’s right. It’s an umbrella term for a lot of smaller programmes and encompasses visiting subject matter experts and so on, but given that the debate around the subject lacks pretty much any semblance of nuance, we’re now sounding increasingly xenophobic as MPs concern troll about Canadian jobs.
Not unsurprisingly, the Privacy Commissioner has concerns about the US tax information law, FATCA, which will get the Canadian government to do some of its dirty work for them. She’s highlighting the very real potential for abuse, which is just one more reason why the whole issue is so alarming.
The government is planning to bring in legislation that will make federally regulated pipelines liable for the first billion dollars of cleanup costs even if they’re not at fault. The bill will also expand the powers of the National Energy Board. These changes, along with the new tanker safety rules announced earlier in the week, could be part of the government looking to meet the five conditions that BC placed on their agreeing to the Northern Gateway pipeline.
Stephen Fletcher is finding support in the Senate for his bills on assisted suicide, not that they’ll come up for debate in the current parliament.
Rosemary Barton looks at the “success” that Ruth Ellen Brosseau has become – err, except that the only thing she appears to be successful at is dutifully reading scripts in French if you pay much attention to her.
Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall are coming “home” to Canada in a few days, and they have indeed been making great inroads into Canadian popular opinion of late, Camilla becoming increasingly comfortable with the duties she has taken on. (And did you know that one of her ancestors was a pre-Confederation Canadian premier?) Meanwhile, don’t expect that we’ve seen the last of the Queen here in Canada.
Part two of Martha Hall Findlay’s look at the problems with Supply Management debunks the various arguments made in favour of keeping the system the way it is.
Martin Patriquin talks mob rule versus slactivism in this look at Change.org.
Andrew Coyne goes full turnout nerd in talking about mandatory voting, which I still fail to see how it actually solves any problems.
And apparently our Access to Information laws have become so broken that it ensured that UK Prime Minister David Cameron’s name was redacted from documents related to his visit to Canada – for reasons of his privacy concerns. No, seriously. You know you have a problem when [redacted].