The Commons had their “emergency debate” on the situation in Iraq last night, using debate loosely, of course. After all, “debate” these days tends to largely mean reading monotonous speeches into the record that were all pre-written and don’t actually debate what has already been said. The NDP hammered away at demanding a vote on deployment, never mind that military deployment is a Crown prerogative and thus not subject to a vote, and in fact, shouldn’t be because it launders the prerogative and the accountability. But if Mulcair wants to give Harper political cover so that he can, in the future, say that the Commons decided on the matter and that they are culpable when things go wrong because there was a vote, well, it makes it kind of awkward for the opposition, no? It’s part of Responsible Government – the Commons has given the government the authority to govern, and if they don’t like it, then they can withdraw confidence. Voting to “make decisions” is not actually their role – accountability is. The NDP were also childishly mocking the Liberals for largely not being there for the debate – except that they only got two speaking slots the whole night, which they used near the beginning, and as we’ve established that it’s not a real debate, it does seem fairly pointless to have a bunch of people there to simply endure repetitive prepared speeches – and make no mistake, they are repetitive – with no real ability to respond or add to what’s been said. But this is the state of our parliament these days.

Suspended Senator Mike Duffy’s lawyer was in court yesterday to start the preliminaries of scheduling the trial. They’ll have another meeting next week, but his lawyer noted that Duffy wants a speedy trial, in large part because of his health issues. They also won’t rule out calling the Prime Minister as a witness. The trial itself could last six to eight weeks when it does get started.

The Ethics Commissioner has said that there is no reason to investigate Mark Adler for soliciting donations from lobbyists appearing before the finance committee, which he is a member of. It shouldn’t be a surprise, considering how finely Mary Dawson reads her mandate, and often she feels she can’t investigate things (though to be fair, her governing legislation is badly in need of updating, and MPs simply won’t do that either).

Ruh-roh! It seems that Peter MacKay’s own department says that the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court has every right to weigh in on future Supreme Court nominations, and flies in the face of what MacKay and Harper were trying to mutter during the dark days of their spat with her. Funny that. The same documents tabled also state that Harper skipped the whole “parliamentary vetting” process because he was concerned about leaks after the Justice Nadon process – never mind the statements that he was making that sounded an awful lot like the Conservatives on the closed-door panels were reporting back to the PMO.

Rob Nicholson’s office says that functional equipment should have been removed from that old Hercules that they scavenged parts from before it was sent to the Air Force Museum. Erm, except that goes against the Museum’s own policy of only having classified equipment removed and keeping the planes in as close to working order as possible. Nicholson’s damage control attempts are fairly transparent at this point.

In case you were wondering, Jason Kenney says that applications for Temporary Foreign Workers have dropped by 75 percent since the changes to the programme were introduced at the end of June.

The CRA has set up an internal tip line, seeing as they are themselves not immune to internal fraud.

Here’s an update on the CRTC hearings into the future of TV in Canada, in case you were wondering.

The United Nations Children’s Fund wants Harper to use his address at the General Assembly to talk about maternal and child health. Erm, because he doesn’t already talk about that to foreign audiences constantly already (whilst patting himself on the back)? It’s kind of his Thing already.

The Basic Income Canada Network is forgoing charitable status, so as not to worry about any “politically-motivated” CRA audits in the future.

Kady O’Malley looks at the current crop of private members’ bills, which may be the last batch that has a chance to make it through the process before the next election.

Stephen Fletcher is musing openly about having his bills on assisted suicide being championed in the Senate and passed there before heading to the Commons where they would go to the top of the pile, rather than never seeing the light of day as is the case now.

Some Conservative senators are making straw man arguments about Senate “reform” through early retirement. I’m not sure exactly what they’re trying to get at because they seem to completely ignore the part about why it’s an appointment to age 75 – so that you’re not busy currying favour with the government to get a post-Senate appointment, and thus preserving your independence.

Here’s a Q&A with new Liberal MP Adam Vaughan, and his adjustment in going from Toronto City Council to the House of Commons.

Economist Kevin Milligan has some words of caution for the parties as to how they’re communicating the maths for their particular plans to use tax credits or cuts to stimulate job creation.

And the Ottawa Citizen put together a fun little “dress up Harper” animation in order to explore his persona options in the next campaign.

Up today: No QP – indeed, no sitting in the Commons at all – because the Ukrainian president is in town, and will be giving a speech to Parliament instead.