Peter MacKay apparently misspoke during Question Period yesterday. Whether it was a Freudian slip, or an inability to read the script he’d been provided, it certainly raised eyebrows as he stated that Justice Robert Mainville would be a great pick for the Supreme Court, when Mainville was being moved from the Federal Court of Appeal to the Quebec Court of Appeal. The move had given rise to speculation that it was an attempt to put him in place to move to the Supreme Court when Justice LeBel retires in November, and MacKay all-but confirmed that was the intention, before he back-pedalled and said that he was simply referring to the fact that the Quebec Court of Appeal is the province’s supreme court – a fairly lame back track, and fodder for the court challenge being launched by the same Toronto lawyer that successfully challenged the Nadon appointment.

It turns out that you can put a price tag on transparency for MPs – in this case $3.8 million this year and $3.1 million every year after that, as Commons Administration hires new staff and trains them up to deal with the onslaught of paperwork from offices, while also training MPs staffers on how to submit forms and such. Aren’t we glad they’ve been going through these cost-cutting exercises in order to add this expense, apparently. Meanwhile, the Board of Internal Economy is going to conduct a review of MPs’ housing expenses, much as the Senate has been engaged in for a year now.

The Procedure and House Affairs committee is calling for a meeting with the Commons law clerk to see if there’s a way to recover that $1.17 million from the NDP for their improper mailings.

A Defence Acquisition Guide was published yesterday, listing some 200 separate procurement projects that the Canadian Forces plan to undertake over the next twenty years. Part of that may mean that a decision on the CF-18 replacements may not come until 2017 or so, but the minister still insists that no decision has been made, and that they reserved the right to change their minds.

Despite some international concern about the Canadian urban housing market, Joe Oliver met with some private sector economists and declared that no, the housing market doesn’t need any interventions, so carry on.

A project by privacy experts around the country aims to help Canadians ask companies and governments about what kinds of information on them that is being requested, and hope that once more people start paying attention to this issue that we might start seeing some reforms by the government into the way they handle privacy issues.

John Baird has said that Canada will continue to send aid to the Palestinian authority despite the new unity agreement with Hamas. Apparently the government is more technocratic than political, or something, and that makes a difference.

Paul Wells writes about how much Stephen Harper’s policy on Iraq is starting to look more like Jean Chrétien’s.

At her book tour stop in Toronto, Hillary Clinton spoke about the Keystone XL pipeline and its being treated as a proxy for the relationship between our countries. She also expressed admiration for Kathleen Wynne, and the kind of campaign that she ran in Ontario.

In advance of the Senate defence and security committee’s report on ballistic missile defence, here’s an interview with the chair, Daniel Lang, who follows on after the reigns of more controversial senators like Colin Kenny and Pamela Wallin. Lang, Senator for the Yukon, comes from a family of politicians, and takes his duties seriously, wanting to get his committee back in the news for the right reasons.

J. Patrick Boyer has an excerpt from his book in the National Post, all about Senator Mike Duffy and his rise and fall, a journey largely of ego and broken rules not taken seriously by others thanks to a mean streak and lawyers on call, and an appointment to the Senate he had long been waiting for in exchange for a certain political knee-capping.

Martin Patriquin looks at the Bloc’s new unelectable leader, Mario Beaulieu, who is the least of the party’s problems as they face a giant fundraising crunch now that their per-vote subsidy is nearly gone and they haven’t been able to raise nearly enough money from party donors to compensate.

Up today: Cabinet will make a decision on the Northern Gateway pipeline, likely once the markets close. The options are to reject it, allow it with the NEB’s conditions, or to delay the decision and send it back to the NEB for further review. I guess we’ll see around 4 PM what they decide.