Roundup: NATO spending commitments

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As that NATO summit gets set to get underway in Wales, it looks like the face-saving final communiqué will state that the 2 percent of GDP on defence spending that they hope members will achieve will simply be “aspirational,” since it’s not going to happen with some members like Canada (which would essentially doubling our current defence budget). Stephen Saideman explores why it’s wrong for NATO to focus solely on the spending levels of member countries than it is on capabilities. It also sounds like NATO members are going to discuss making cyberwarfare as much of a threat to member nations as bombs, which is quite true of the modern era. It also sounds like the attention will be split between the threats posed by Russia and ISIS. Michael Den Tandt notes that while Harper keeps sounding tough, there is no escaping that the Canadian Forces are badly under-resourced – possibly as bad as the “Decade of Darkness” – and we can’t have it both ways of doing good work on the cheap. Katie Englehart has more on the broader context of the situation here.

The NDP are trying to ask the Director of Public Prosecutions to review the decision not to lay any charges against Nigel Wright in the whole ClusterDuff affair, but I’m not sure that’s really his job. It sounds a lot like another case of the opposition trying to get yet another non-partisan official to do their heavy lifting for them.

With an assisted suicide case coming before the Supreme Court this fall, government lawyers are prepared to argue for an absolute prohibition against the practice. You know, so that we can outsource it to jurisdictions that allow it rather than making any tough decisions on their own.

One company is looking for buy-in from the government in a bid to lay fibre optic cable along the Northwest Passage, to connect Japan to the UK’s networks, and along the way connect about half of the population of Canada’s Arctic, who currently rely on costly and unreliable satellite Internet connections. The government, however, doesn’t appear to be convinced.

Heath Canada has so far received some 1009 applications for companies looking to produce medical marijuana, and only two have been approved. Most were incomplete, withdrawn or rejected, but there are still some 300 other applications being evaluated.

Remember that Statistics Canada labour reporting problem last month? And how Tamsin McMahon at Maclean’s wrote up about the problems? Well, Statistics Canada bizarrely rewrote her post, and asked her to publish their version instead. So McMahon posted it as in track changes, so that you can see what they wanted her to post instead. It’s kind of crazy that they think a media outlet would go for such a tactic.

The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives says that they’re being audited by the CRA because of their left-wing bias and the “educational materials” they produce are one-sided. It is curious all around, but so long as they’re not endorsing candidates, we’ll see if CRA gives them a pass. (That said, they should start auditing churches too, as many of them have been known to endorse candidates).

The Canadian Rangers will finally be getting new bolt-action rifles by next summer to start replacing their WWII-era rifles that they currently use. We’ll see if these new ones are as rugged and able to handle the harsh northern climates without freezing up or jamming – the main reason they’re still using such classic rifles in the first place.

Speaking of the Arctic, we are getting hints of what the Americans would be interested in from Canada in terms of participation in ballistic missile defence, which would largely consist of multi-purpose sensors in the Arctic.

We all knew it was going to happen, and it has – Omar Khadr is launching a $20 million lawsuit against the government for the way they mishandled his file, and conspired with the Americans that resulted in his mistreatment. And given how arbitrarily this government has handled his file, it stands to reason that he’ll likely be in for a sizeable enough payday.

Economist Stephen Gordon tries to figure out just how the government is slaying the deficit, but because the government keeps changing the accounting rules every year, he can’t cross-compare any numbers, and it should be very concerning because it means that it makes it hard to hold the government to account for what they’re doing.

Gordon also has this to say of the alarming state of affairs at Statistics Canada:

The Dean Del Mastro trial finally resumed and got started on closing arguments, during which Del Mastro’s lawyer called the key Crown witness a liar. Apparently the issue of the backdated cheque was “largely irrelevant,” even though it would be a sign that he was trying to skirt election financing laws. Irrelevant indeed.

The Conservatives are trying to fundraise on the backs of the media once again, claiming that the “Ottawa media elite” are trying to build a grand narrative around Justin Trudeau. You’ll pardon me for asking, but “media elite”? It makes it sound like we’re fancy or rich and powerful, which last I checked, we’re not. But hey, apparently we make a good straw man…

Parliament Hill got its first green roof that was not of the oxidized cooper variety this week – a living green roof on the top of the new annex to the renamed Sir John A Macdonald building, which will house the new Parliamentary ballroom.

And CBC’s The National has a twenty-minute documentary on Chantal Hébert and Jean Lapierre’s new book on the day after the 1995 referendum, and it’s fascinating viewing.