It’s the final stretch, as there are four scheduled weeks left for MPs to sit before we send them back to their riding for the summer. And they want to put on a good show of being productive, so they’ll be doing evening sittings the whole way through. Here’s a look at what’s on the agenda for those four weeks. It’s likely the Senate will sit for another week or so after the Commons rises, but it will all depend on how many bills the Commons passes at the last minute, and how much certain Senators want to push back at the government over things like the Fair Elections bill (for which I know there are Conservative senators who are still not happy with it).
The premier of Turks and Caicos, Rufus Ewing, is visiting Ottawa today, so the long-held fantasy of bringing the islands into Confederation can live on and fly free – for today at least. It’s been a discussion we’ve been having since the days of Robert Borden, and Nova Scotia even went so far as to put enabling legislation into place that would have the islands become part of that province, so as to not require the constitution be opened up to admit an 11th province (though really, which province would object to that change?) Granted, the islands’ political culture has been a mess, and they were recently put back under direct British control, and some of their Caribbean cultural values around things like same-sex marriage would also be a stumbling block, but the dream of Canada’s own Hawaii remains alive to this day.
Here’s an interesting look at the Assembly of First Nations and the Confederacy of Nations that was revived after decades of dormancy, and how it was designed to be a method of “sober second thought” in the event that a National Chief went rogue, which clearly they felt Shawn Atleo had. It is hard to see which side has the better argument, though – the “rogue” chiefs who revived the Confederacy to fight the First Nations Education bill, or Atleo and the AFN chiefs committee on education who were trying to get something out of the bill, including the $2 billion in funds attached to it – a first step that was better than the status quo in some estimations.
The many staffing changes in Harper’s inner circle are leaving it increasingly vulnerable, as knowledgeable veterans are being slowly replaced with young loyalists who may be smart but who have no experience outside of politics, which gives rise to questions about some of the strategic advice that is being followed – at least according to the likes of Tom Flanagan. (But it’s hard to see where he’s wrong on that front).
In case you were worried, Justin Trudeau said that the era of Liberal ‘navel-gazing,’ when they were concerned more with the fate of the party than with the lives of Canadians, is over. If you say so… Meanwhile, Liberals in Quebec gripe that the party is becoming too centralised in Ontario and is excluding them.
Here are a pair of stories in both Maclean’s and the Ottawa Citizen about Tweed, the new medical marijuana operation that has taken over the Hershey’s plant in Smith Falls, Ontario, and which hopes to be one of the premier suppliers in the country under the new Health Canada regulations.
Researchers in BC are looking at the issue of hitchhiking along the province’s “Highway of Tears,” which is a significant contributing factor to the province’s high number of missing and murdered Aboriginal women. Part of the problem is a lack of transportation options, which has been pointed out to the government a number of times but for which no action has been taken.
The Federal Court has ordered Treasury Board to revisit the case of a soldier who wasn’t given adequate compensation when he was forced to sell a home in an economically depressed region, costing him thousands of dollars.
The Canadian mission to Ukraine to observe the election there apparently went smoothly, but going into it, there were warnings that Canada’s decision to send a Canada-only bilateral observation mission rather than join a multilateral effort was more expensive and possibly less credible. Ukraine is the only country that Canada does its own standalone missions as well, which is an interesting observation to make – almost like the government is trying to score political points with a domestic audience or something.
Independent MP Brent Rathgeber spoke to Mark Kennedy about his sense of emancipation after leaving caucus, his idea for making the Speaker an independent Officer of Parliament (which I panned here), and his prediction for the next election.
And Michael Den Tandt writes that a victory by the Ontario Liberals could mean good news for the Harper Conservatives, given traditional Ontario voting patterns.