In an interview with the Vancouver Sun, Justin Trudeau gave a somewhat confusing response to what he would do around the First Nations accountability legislation that has made the salaries of chiefs and band councils public. While on the one hand he said it was a good thing that the questionably high payments to certain chiefs were aired, he nevertheless said the law should be scrapped, but that same information be made available to band members so that they could make their own decisions. I’m not sure that it’s just enough to say that the government is trying to force their opponents to be more open and transparent – being First Nations and unions – while their own top political staff salaries remain secret (which isn’t really true because salary ranges are public). If he really were concerned with open and transparent government, he could have others – like top political staff – disclose their salaries to the same levels as the “opponents” of the government. It just seems like trying to hard to paint the current government as bad guys (I know, I know – politics) when in the same breath he praised the results of the same legislation.

The government has announced $5 million in aid to Iraq, half of it going through “trusted partners” that are already on the ground in the region. On a not unrelated note, Paul Wells looks at how the government is funnelling its democracy promotion funds for Ukraine, in amounts larger than it gave the now-defunct Rights & Democracy organisation here in Canada.

A number of foreign aid charities are meeting to determine their next steps in pushing back against the CRA for what they believe to be politically motivated audits of their operations. The list of those charities being audited is here.

A group of Ontario prisoners is taking the federal government to court over the way that they cut pay rates for prisoners, under the rubric of “making them pay their own way.” The nature of the pay scales and the fact that it will prevent many inmates from contacting their families are part of their arguments in the Charter challenge.

Marc Emery is due to return to Canada on Tuesday, so mark your calendars.

The fine-toothed comb audit of Senate expenses is starting to make some Senators very nervous, especially since it’s been established that the rules during the period being audited were a little fuzzy, and there are concerns that the RCMP being called in on a number of files will really hurt the institution.

Environment Canada is rolling out a new radar system, because wind farms are playing havoc with their current weather radar system.

Stephen Harper named the next Lieutenant Governor of New Brunswick, Jocelyne Roy-Vienneau, who will be the first Acadian woman to hold the position.

In case you missed it, Rob Anders is officially going to contest the nomination in the new Bow River riding in Southern Alberta. It’ll be a curious battle since one of the main attacks against him is that he doesn’t actually live there. That he lost another nomination battle, apparently by a fairly wide margin, might also play out as well.

Glen McGregor goes through the Elections Canada filings to find out which MPs haven’t been donating to their parties, even though some (like the NDP) have rules that insist that their MPs give the maximum every year. The most common excuse seems to be that credit cards have expired and haven’t been updated yet.

Economist Mike Moffatt tries to decode that Fraser Institute labour market report that Jason Kenney is praising, while also looking at the brutal job figures from July.

In case you didn’t know, the Parliamentary Budget Officer, Jean-Denis Fréchette, is also a bee-keeper in his spare time. No doubt it gives him a tougher hide for when his critics come after him.

And Sonya Bell and Jessie Willms provide a handy translation guide to the resignation letters we’ve seen over the past couple of weeks.