Day two of the big Northern Tour, and Stephen Harper announced $2 million to help set up a Northern Farm Training Institute campus, along with 300 acres of farmland and greenhouses, to help make produce more readily available in the North. That done, he gave dire warnings about the Russian presence in the Arctic and his concerns about the militarization of the North. With this in mind, the Canadian Forces are looking to set up a network of supply hubs in the Arctic in order to make it easier to stockpile equipment and deploy in the case of an emergency, and hopefully reduce the cost of operating in the North. Mind you, the plans for an expanded deepwater port and an air base have both been dramatically scaled back for cost, so we’ll see how much of this plan actually comes to fruition. Elsewhere on the tour, it has been noted – somewhat pointedly – that Harper is just passing through some of these Northern locations and is not actually sitting down to consult with the local government or people to know what they need. Try to look surprised. Michael Den Tandt notes that Harper is looking more energised on this trip than he has in probably a year-and-a-half, what with all kinds of other unpleasant things that he’s had to deal with.

A Federal Court ruling clarifies the powers of the Refugee Appeal Division of the IRB, and says that they can look at new facts in appeal cases and not just whether the original judge made errors, as they have a fact-based appeal process and to a judicial review function. This may give hope to a number of refugee claimants whose applications have been denied.

The government has quietly boosted its contribution to the Victims of Communism monument that Conservatives like Jason Kenney are so excited about.

Four laptops were stolen during a break-in at the Department of Finance. They say they don’t have any personal information on them.

The Ottawa Police have released surveillance footage of a person of interest who may have been involved with the break-in at Justin Trudeau’s residence.

The federal and Ontario governments are bickering over who should distribute radiation-blocking potassium iodine pills to residents who live within 10 km of nuclear power stations.

Canadian broadcasters are warning that a pick-and-pay cable channel system could severely hurt their industry, while the loss of simultaneous substitution would be a devastating blow to them. Of course that loss would – it’s been their subsidy for decades, where they could inflate their viewership figures to demand bigger ad revenues, which they would then take to the States and buy up the rights to American programming while doing their best to marginalise their own Canadian content obligations as much as possible, and whinging that the industry was still too hard on them, and that the CBC was getting government money. Here are ten channels that may suffer the most from the pick-and-pay system. The biggest loss would be Showcase, which is producing some of the best shows on Canadian television these days.

Jean Charest is lauding his former chief of staff on her appointment as the new Clerk of the Privy Council.

The mayor of Kawartha Lakes has entered into a compliance agreement with Elections Canada after he illegally expensed a $600 ticket to a fundraiser benefitting Dean Del Mastro. While there are no indications that he’s done anything wrong there, it is one more incidence of wrongdoing that surrounds him.

Another Conservative MP from Alberta, Brian Storseth, has decided he won’t run again in 2015, citing a young family. What is curious is that Storseth said that he would run again, but then became critical of the government’s changes to the Temporary Foreign Workers programme – like any good backbencher should. Whether he was pressured to not run again is an interesting possibility.

With the premiers set to meet, and with James Moore’s proposals for dismantling interprovincial trade barriers on the table, Andrew Coyne notes that the federal government likely has to power to force the premiers to play ball by means of the constitution – but that they likely won’t because of the politics of it all.

Susan Delacourt writes about the unusual move at the Liberal rally in Edmonton where everyone was asked to cold-call three people to gauge interest in the party – an exercise in turning people from passive spectators of democracy into active participants and volunteers. It’s an important lesson that needs to be drilled into our complacent population, who don’t really know the input roles they play in our system rather than the end point of casting a ballot every few years.

Maclean’s takes a closer look at Wikipedia edits done from House of Commons IP addresses.

And Sonya Bell and Jessie Willms catalogue the ten times that Harper almost smiled in the Arctic.