John Baird quietly took a trip to Iraq along with is opposition critics, Paul Dewar and Marc Garneau, to meet with officials there and to pledge aid. James Cudmore looks at what Canada could contribute if we take the fight to ISIS, which could include special forces or aerial reconnaissance and support, but unlikely boots on the ground, as it’s politically unpalatable in an election year. Whatever we do, Harper has stated that it’ll be done on a tight budget because we really want to be cheap about fighting the kinds of grave threats that Harper is making them out to be.
Our NATO ally, Hungary, has been so cash-strapped that Canada stepped in to pay for the $9 million they needed in fighter pilot training last year, and Hungary wants us to keep up the aid until 2021.
First Bernard Valcourt, and now Peter MacKay, have signalled that they would be willing to join a roundtable on missing and murdered Aboriginal women – so long as it’s the provinces that take the lead. Meanwhile, those 40 studies into the phenomenon already conducted contradict the Prime Minister’s narrative – that it is a sociological phenomenon, and that Canada needs to address its root causes.
Emails filed as part of that utterly insane court case, where some First Nations chiefs were trying to get the Federal Court to overturn the government’s decision to table the First Nations Education Bill (newsflash: there’s a thing called parliamentary privilege, and the Courts have no jurisdiction there), show that then-National Chief Shawn Atleo was keeping some key chiefs in the dark about the state of negotiations with the government over the bill.
The government continues to refuse to say how many people are on its no-fly list, and how many of those people on the list are Canadian citizens. The Information Commissioner is trying to challenge that decision in court.
Embassy tries to look closer at the revealed existence of the ad-hoc cabinet committee on national security, and what it means given that a permanent cabinet committee was broken up.
Former Victims of Crime Ombudsman Steve Sullivan writes about how things went horribly wrong with the parliamentary vote on a private member’s bill about changing parole rules (the same bill that had the wrong version wind up in the Senate) and how a bad bill got passed because MPs didn’t know what they were voting on, because it wasn’t adequately studied. It’s an object lesson in the way that the PMB system is being misused by backbenchers sucking up to the government, and opposition parties not doing their due diligence, yet again.
The government refuses to say when it will respond to the recommendations from the inquiry into the death of Ashley Smith in prison.
In case you missed it, Stephen Harper spoke out against Scottish independence while in London.
Margo McDiarmid writes about Stephen Harper’s obsession with the Franklin Expedition, and by extension, the North.
Thomas Mulcair is currently on tour in Nunavut.
Months after he got a letter from the Senate spanking him for his continually spouting mistruths about them, Charlie Angus responded with a sarcastic offer to get them to help fix the Commons’ ethical loopholes. Because he’s witty and clever like that.
Not unexpectedly, former Hill journo Colin Horgan’s move to becoming a Liberal speechwriter has become another Conservative fundraising plea, never mind all of those former journalists who joined the Conservative ranks.
Horgan, however, is not the only one. When asked a question on the Gaza situation by a surreptitious member of Rob Anders’ staff, retired General Andrew Leslie gave a reasoned and nuanced response that included the fact that Israel killed civilians. Certain media outlets *cough* went hysterical about it, and now the Conservatives are trying to fundraise off of it. Because gods forbid that there be nuance or reason in this conversation.
https://twitter.com/davidakin/status/507360698091839488
Andrew Coyne tears a strip off of the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, which is seeing huge compensation levels for little return, and the apparent failure of their new “active management” system. (Complete with charts!)
And it’s the 30th anniversary of Brian Mulroney’s massive, record-breaking majority election win in 1984. He looks back fondly on the whole thing.