Roundup: Leave it to Peter

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Oh Peter MacKay. You never fail to disappoint any longer, do you? In amidst the storm over the lack of diverse judicial appointments, MacKay’s tone deaf explanation (and then whinging post on Facebook), we find out that he sent out memos to his department on Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, each with very different message. The Mother’s Day message was about making meals and changing diapers, while the Father’s Day message was about shaping the minds of future leaders. So yeah – very separate roles and fairly outmoded notions about gender-specified parental behaviours. MacKay really has been the gift that keeps on giving lately.

While the accusation is that the timing of the upcoming by-elections was chosen to deliberately drive down the vote, iPolitics looks at the general trend of by-elections having lower voter turnouts than general elections, and wonders if Harper really needed to try to drive it down. The advance polling numbers have been released, and they are generally down from the advanced polling numbers of the last general election, although Trinity–Spadina is fairly close, indicating it’s a tighter race.

Day two of the Dean Del Mastro trial reveals the need for a voter ID/get-out-the-vote campaign once it was realised that the party wasn’t going to be getting help from the party in 2008 as part of their “Blue Plan.” And thus gave rise to the contract under question.

Lawyer’s Weekly profiles Justice Gascon now that he is on the Supreme Court. He’s known to be a very meticulous and exacting legal mind, almost to a fault, and has a deep knowledge of Quebec commercial law. (The biggest need the Court has right now is for criminal law, which you’d think this government would be all over, but apparently not). The warning inherent in the profile is

CBC’s Neil Macdonald rips the government over their “spineless” response to the Mohamed Fahmy case in Egypt. Baird says that “bullhorn diplomacy” won’t do Fahmy any good. Here is a reminder of what the government has done to date.

Senate Liberals’ travel expense disclosures don’t currently show their spouses’ travel claims. They say they are still deciding on the issue, but will likely begin reporting it. Despite that, the cheap outrage mongers are already out in force, decrying that these senators have things to hide. Also not reported are “friendship group” trips by MPs or Senators, which could represent a significant travel cost that may not be born by the taxpayers, but it should be disclosed who is paying and how much.

Newly revealed memos show how the Security and Intelligence Review Committee nearly ground to a complete halt after Chuck Strahl’s sudden resignation, leaving the organization without quorum or without a chair once again.

After those frankly torqued stories about a leased helicopter for Prince William’s birthday, and the renovations to Kensington Palace, royal historian Carolyn Harris explains the Sovereign Grant being used to pay for these things, which aren’t coming out of taxpayer funds.

There are mysterious websites launched to “draft” John Baird and Lisa Raitt to run for the Ontario PC leadership – not that Baird has leadership ambitions, or that Raitt is too much of a Cape Bretoner to comfortably be Ontario leader. Jim Flaherty’s widow, Christine Elliott, however, will be launching her bid for the party leadership today.

In case you thought that the Trudeau family were the only political dynasty in Canada, former NDP MP Bill Blaikie’s son has won the federal nomination in Elmwood–Transcona. Blaikie’s daughter is the party’s president currently.

Michael Ignatieff is headed back to Harvard full-time, which meant that all of the trolls and partisan bots were tweeting “I guess he really was just visiting” all day. Paul Wells offers some thoughts here.

Aaron Wherry explores the ways in which time allocation has been used increasingly in the current parliament.

My column this week pushes back against the notion that we should cede even more power to unelected officers of parliament or “experts” rather than letting ministers make decisions, because w can hold ministers to account.

And because it really is adorable, the Queen went to see the set of Game of Thrones in Belfast, and saw the Iron Throne up close – but declined to sit in it. Clever people with photoshop, however, made it happen.