The government continued to back away from the Northern Gateway conditional approval yesterday, having their spokespeople insist that it wasn’t a complete approval, but a “maybe” if the proponent can meet all of the 209 conditions that the National Energy Board placed on it. A lot of their BC MPs were also saying things like “we’ll wait and see” and “it’s a lot of years out,” given the difficulty of some of those conditions. In BC, court challenges by First Nations could overturn the whole environmental review process, and force it to restart, further delaying the project. The Ottawa Citizen’s editorial board calls out the government for their inability to at least defend the environmental process that they put into place, rather than this distancing act that they are going through. Economist Andrew Leach notes the return of the “value added” voices to the pipeline debate, and points out that the economics of refining bitumen here doesn’t actually add up the way most people think it does, which is why we’re talking about export pipelines in the way we are (not to mention that Alberta doesn’t actually need to create more jobs since that’s part of the problem in the province right now where there are labour shortages that are distorting the market).

Regarding the other pipeline under scrutiny, former Canadian ambassador to the US Raymond Chrétien says that he still doubts that the Keystone XL pipeline will get American approval.

Over in Scarborough–Agincourt, the Conservatives have started putting out flyers that one the one side show former MP Jim Karygiannis saying that “The Liberal Party we knew has changed” (which most Liberals I’ve spoken to say is actually a good thing), and on the other side say that Trudeau wants to make pot available in local stores just like alcohol and cigarettes, showing a kid sparking up a joint. Not only is Karygiannis furious, because it looks like he endorsed the ad (which he did not, and he is throwing his full support behind the Liberal candidate in the riding), but it’s also moronic because it implies that local stores are selling booze and smokes to kids, which has me amazed at the fact that the association for convenience stores or any other small business association isn’t immediately calling for the Conservatives’ heads for maligning them in that way. Whoever thought the ad was a good idea needs to give their head a shake.

The RCAF says that the Cyclone helicopters will begin operations in 2016, replacing the aging Sea Kings. The problem? That the full tactical software for these choppers to play a combat role won’t be rolling out until 2018 (if not later). Kind of a big deal considering the roles that these aircraft are being asked to fill.

Julian Fantino recently cited a figure of injured veterans receiving $10,000 per month, as a demonstration of the government’s generosity. The problem is that his own department’s figures contradict him, and that the scenario for someone to receive that $10,000 per month payout would be limited to about four individuals. Oops.

The Transportation Safety Board has completed their 3-D modelling of the Lac-Mégantic disaster, and have come to some conclusions about the state of many of the tanker cars prior to the disaster.

In the wake of the Moncton shootings, the RCMP are denying that their officers aren’t properly equipped or armed.

I’m going to be contrarian and not give effusive praise to Ruth-Ellen Brosseau after her private member’s motion got unanimous support in the Commons. Woo. A feel-good non-binding motion about supporting dairy famers in the Canada-EU Free Trade deal – who wouldn’t vote against that? After all, the current parliament has nothing but good things to say about Supply Management, and this kind of useless motion simply reinforces that in the eyes of the dairy lobby. Meanwhile, Brosseau almost certainly didn’t draft the motion, and likely not the script for the speech she would have delivered for it either. But hey, this bit of parliamentary bumf is proof that she has risen and shone after her accidental election in 2011? Okay, then. If you say so.

What’s that? It looks like Peter MacKay didn’t even read the prostitution bill before he went to champion it in a press conference? You don’t say! No wonder he was saying contradictory things and sowing confusing among the journalists trying to cover it (without any kind of technical briefing, it should be said).

Ruh-roh! Conservative MP Mark Adler invited a bunch of lobbyists to a political fundraiser last year. The problem is that a lot of those lobbyists were lobbying him on the Commons finance committee, which goes against the conflict of interest and ethics code. Oops. And in case you had any doubts, there is still no word from the Ethics Commissioner if there will be any consequences for this breach.

Justin Trudeau clarified his abortion stance yet again, for the eleventy-ninth time, after one of his “grandfathered” pro-life MPs said some wrong things to his hometown paper, only to correct himself over the Twitter Machine later in the day. (Can we please stop talking about this?)

Senator Romeo Dallaire gave his farewell speech in the Senate, and urged Canada to get involved in the Central African Republic.

And the Huffington Post thinks that Rick Mercer should be the next premier of Newfoundland and Labrador. I’m not really sure that he’s all that interested.