Prince Charles and Camilla have landed in Halifax for the start of a four-day Royal Tour visiting Nova Scotia, PEI and Manitoba. Charles was sworn into Her Majesty’s Privy Council of Canada – which he will one day lead upon ascending to the throne – which is also a rare national honour to be bestowed upon him. Also on this visit will be the launch of Charles’ Campaign for Wool in Canada, which seeks to reacquaint people with the properties of the natural fibre for all sorts of purposes.
The numbers in the RCMP report on missing and murdered Aboriginal women surprised Commissioner Bob Paulson, but he has no authority to call a national public inquiry. He also rejected the notion that it was systemic bias by the RMCP against Aboriginals as to why it took so long to undertake the study.
Meanwhile, an internal study at the RCMP found 322 incidents of corruption over the past 11 years, dozens of which involved organised crime. About 204 of those cases were “relatively moderate,” mostly involving improperly sharing information from police databanks. The study was completed in 2007 but only came to light because of an Access to Information request.
With the Fair Elections bill off to the Senate, former BC Elections chief and author of the eponymous report Richard Neufeld remains concerned about the voter disenfranchisement that the bill will wreak.
Sloppy record-keeping in the public service (shocking, I know) has Shared Services Canada robo-calling thousands of government phone numbers in the hopes of finding orphaned phone lines no longer in use, be it from moves or job departures or layoffs. So far, they’ve found 8000. It’s part of a means of trying to find more savings and reducing the government’s overall phone expenditures, but it’s been slow-going work, and they haven’t yet met their targets for those savings.
Here’s a look at the political brand that is Naheed Nenshi, and ways in which it was constructed, and its similarities and differences between his brand and those of other politicians like Harper and Rob Ford.
There is word that the new Department of Finance building will be renamed after Jim Flaherty, instead of its current namesake, the Marquess of Lorne, Canada’s third Governor General, who along with his wife Princess Louise, set into motion some of the foundations for the Canadianization of the Crown. But hey, it’s not like that’s important or anything, right?
One court reporting service is accusing the Courts Administration Service of launching a smear campaign, possibly in the hopes of winning a tribunal complaint where it is alleged that the government agency wrongfully awarded a contract to a rival reporting company.
Colin Horgan laments the circus that was Thomas Mulcair’s appearance at committee last week, and declares political parties dead in favour of fundraising machines that we, the voting public, have come to demand.
And it looks like Michael Chong’s Reform Act will be debated around May 27th, if the Commons schedule holds. Chong says that so far the response has been overwhelming.