Roundup: Referring the file to Elections Canada

It probably wasn’t unexpected, but the Board of Internal Economy has ruled that the NDP has broken the rules with their “satellite offices,” and wants Commons administration to figure out how much they need to repay for those staffers, most of whom are either working from home or out of Thomas Mulcair’s constituency office. Not only that, but the Board has also mentioned turning over the file to Elections Canada, because of concerns that those staff were not on “leave of absence” when it came to the by-election in Bourassa, where they already spent right up to the limit and this could put them over it. The excuse was that they were using banked overtime and whatnot, but again the rules around in-kind donations would also be triggered here. The NDP, predictably, tried to douse distraction sauce all over it by shouting “kangaroo court!” over and over, and demanding that the Auditor General be brought in to look at everyone’s expenses (um, he’s not your babysitter, guys), so that they can try to spread blame all around. They also kept insisting that the salaries were approved by Commons administration, though the Speaker’s office disputes this with the timeline they published (and it’s fascinating reading). We’ll see if they try to contest this in court as well, but it’s not looking good for them at this point.

A group of disgruntled veterans are organizing a network to run an “Anything But Conservative” campaign during the next election, after the treatment they have received by the government (and the incident with Julian Fantino in particular). Considering that they largely represent a demographic that votes more, we’ll see if this has an impact.

Statistics Canada is retracting their July job numbers because of an “error,” and won’t be re-releasing them until Friday to double check their maths. Oops.

Joe Oliver met with a group of business leaders to talk about the next budget, and said that reducing taxes would be a priority once the budget was balanced. As opposed to, say, paying down the debt that they ran up?

Some Canada-US dual citizens are launching a court challenge against FATCA, which exposes the problems with the American insistence of a citizenship-based taxation scheme rather than a residence-based one. There are a few Charter arguments being used in this case, and it will be very interesting to see how it turns out.

The RCMP’s new Civilian Review and Complaints Commission, which is designed to help restore public confidence in the Force, will have all of its members take oaths of secrecy. It’s not hard to understand why, given the sensitivity of the material they’ll be reviewing, but I guess we’ll have to see what kinds of reports they produce. This is the kind of standard operating procedure for most oversight bodies of security establishments, so I’m really not sure why Global dubbed it a “transparency office” to be honest.

Stephen Harper and Barack Obama spoke over the phone about the crisis in Iraq, and then helpfully released photos of them on the phone to the media.

First it was musicians, then the Canadian film and TV industry, and now the fashion industry is complaining about temporary foreign workers programme changes, as the new costs and processing delays are making it difficult to bring in models for shoots. Apparently our own industry’s talent pool is too small, and whether that’s true or not, it seems to fit the pattern that is developing around the changes to the programme.

Marc Emery returned to Canada – at 4:20 PM, as it happens. The Conservatives immediately made a number of juvenile attempts to use his return to decry Justin Trudeau and the Liberals’ policy on marijuana legalisation.

Michael Sona’s verdict is expected on Thursday, in the case of the fraudulent robocalls in Guelph during the last election.

MP Jean-François Fortin has quit the Bloc and will sit as an independent, saying that their new leader is radicalizing the party and that the party he joined no longer exists. He’ll join Maria Mourani as another fellow Bloc outcast, but unlike Mourani, he hasn’t yet renounced separatism. Regardless, it goes to show that this is just one more example of why we need to return to a system where the caucus chooses their leaders. That the membership rallied around an outsider with untenable plans and expects those who are actually doing the work of MPs to follow it to their detriment is not a good thing, and as with certain other leaders who have recently been turfed for their own egregious behaviour *cough*Redford*cough* it’s a reminder of why we need a system where the leader is beholden to caucus and not a nebulous membership.

And my column this week takes apart an amateur pundit’s “one simple and cheap idea” that he supposes would fix democracy, except that it is antithetical to our entire system of governance and accountability.