We’ve heard a lot of Conservative backbenchers whinging about the courts lately, and this weekend was no different as MP Dan Albas took to CBC radio to whinge some more that “well-financed interest groups” are doing an end-run around democracy with the courts. Um, no. You see, the Courts are simply pointing out that the legislation passed was not Charter compliant, and if MPs like Albas had been doing their jobs properly instead of just taking PMO orders and ramming through bills, they might realise this. But they’re not, so it’s up to the courts to do their jobs for them. Also, it’s not an end run around democracy – democracy has limits that are circumscribed by the Charter, which is the whole point of having one. He should know this, and if not, then he’s really not doing his job properly.

An independent report on Canada’s electoral monitoring mission to Ukraine raises the red flags that the domestic self-promotion that goes along with the mission – things like observers wearing “Mission Canada” prominently on their persons during the mission – is actually contrary to Election Observation Missions best practices, and raises questions about the longer-term goals of such missions as opposed to the short-term political gain in diaspora communities. In other words, great to promote democracy, but if you’re doing it to win votes in Canada, you may be causing more problems in the long term.

The Citizen gives us a reminder about the life and times of Mike Duffy, and in particular that he was a man with extravagant tastes that he would bill to his employer – then CTV – as well as his tax court conviction of trying to illegally write off expenses. And yet this apparently wasn’t caught during the PMO’s vetting process when he was being appointed, nor was the consideration that someone who was making well over twice as much as a senator’s salary would somehow be able to continue the lifestyle to which he had become accustomed? If anything, this shows just how poor the vetting process was during the panic appointments in the wake of the 2008 prorogation crisis. Maclean’s collates the ten best thoughts on Duffy from the past week.

Here’s a look at the issue of the RCMP being less well-armed than their municipal counterparts, which seems largely to be a function of concerns over the costs to equip them with a certain modified type of carbine and the associated training, and how the Moncton shootings has brought this issue back to the Fore within the Force.

Senate Liberal Céline Hervieux-Payette talks about her bill to put more women onto corporate boards, as voluntary measures haven’t succeeded in places where they’ve been encouraged, and only in places where it’s mandated has there been success.

John Baird wants an “unimpeded” investigation into the crash of MH17. Well if John Baird says so, I’m sure everyone will fall into line…

Michael Den Tandt wonders if the “new” Conservative foreign policy of shouting a lot from the sidelines isn’t really borrowing more than a few pages of the Lloyd Axworthy playbook.

And because you needed to see it, here’s the Queen’s Guards at Buckingham Palace playing the theme song to Game of Thrones. You’re welcome.