As you probably saw earlier, the President of Ukraine was in Ottawa, and beyond just giving a speech to Parliament, he’s also looking to expand on the $200 million loan arrangement, and wants more military assistance – not combat troops, but reconnaissance, as well as signals intelligence and satellites, and moving toward a free-trade agreement between our two countries.
Thomas Mulcair is turning increasingly negative on the issue of the deployment of special forces to Iraq, insisting that there aren’t enough details to satisfy him (never mind that operational security is a factor with any special forces, and the fact that they’re still assessing what role they could play). Justin Trudeau, meanwhile, says the role is appropriate for our expertise, that we should be doing more given the Responsibility to Protect, and he shrugged off Mulcair’s attacks that he should have been in the Chamber for the emergency debate, saying that he had faith enough in his team that were there. Stephen Saideman gives his thoughts about the emergency debate on the Iraq deployment in the Commons.
Despite the Supreme Court ruling that police can’t ask telecom companies for subscriber data without a warrant, an investigation shows that it’s still taking place, with police continually trying to get that information on a voluntary basis. The RCMP say that they’ll keep asking in emergency situations, but won’t say if they will in other cases and why.
The Senate legal and constitutional affairs committee heard even more testimony on the prostitution bill yesterday, where one of the lawyers for dominatrix Terri-Jean Bedford dismissed the bill as an incoherent mess that will likely not survive a constitutional challenge (but getting to that stage isn’t as easy as it sounds), while the police association said that they like it – no surprise there – and that they’ll totally be cool with using their discretion on the parts of the bill that would still wind up criminalising sex workers but that you can trust them – really!
When it comes to dealing with Canadians who return home after fighting with foreign radicals abroad, experts are talking about the need for a case-by-case approach rather than simply locking them all up, as many could be reintegrated successfully into society with proper counselling. The Liberals are asking for an urgent study of the issue at the Commons public safety committee.
The government spent more than a million dollars last year running ads during the Stanley Cup playoffs. They’ve also spent hundred of thousands of dollars over the past several years running ads on the Xbox game system in order to reach an audience of largely young men with messages about joining the Canadian Forces.
The interim national chief of the AFN says that the government hasn’t consulted with First Nations enough on their new Action Plan™ for dealing with Missing and Murdered Aboriginal Women, while other critics feel like the plan blames First Nations themselves rather than dealing with “stranger violence” (err, except that the vast majority of these homicides are domestic-related, which has a lot to do with poverty and lack of opportunity on reserves).
It sounds like the Conservative cabinet has decided to support the as-amended (or as several people say, watered down so as to be meaningless) version of Michael Chong’s Reform Act, for all the good it will do. It was, after all, a fairly meaningless bill and MPs already had the powers described therein but simply choose not to exercise them, for what it’s worth.
While in Washington, industry minister James Moore said that he may be amenable to legislation that would comply with European practices relating to the “right to be forgotten” on the Internet. Moore also touted the takeover of Tim Horton’s as it means that Burger King is moving to Canada, which he sees as a net positive for us.
Economist Stephen Gordon debunks a number of the myths that have begun circulating about the Canada-China FIPA.
Another Conservative MP has resigned – Rob Merrifield has opted to take up Jim Prentice’s offer to make him Alberta’s special representative in Washington DC. Merrifield had already won the nomination in his redrawn riding for the next general election.
And here’s an interesting piece about style and politics, as best shown by an exhibiti featuring Pierre and Margaret Trudeau’s choices, including how she scandalized the White House during a visit by *gasp!* not wearing a floor-length dress!