Public Safety minister Stephen Blaney talked about how exit controls at Canada’s borders can help to prevent homegrown terrorists from leaving the country, or at last tracking them as they go. And great – except that this is just the latest in a series of justifications for exit controls. Previously it was for immigrants who were spending too much time out of the country to qualify for their permanent status, or refugee claimants who returned to their home countries for one reason or another, and before that it was for people on EI who end up going on holiday which means they must be frauds and this is how we crack down on them. It does seem to be reminiscent of the way that the government suddenly started using the need to combat cyberbullying as a way of justifying lawful access laws to get access to Canadians’ IP addresses and metadata.

As it happens, a Russian-owned vessel played a key role in finding one of those Franklin ships in the North, which kind of puts an awkward slant on Harper using the discovery as a mark against encroaching Russian aggression in the quest of Arctic sovereignty and whatnot.

Stephen Harper added a stop on the visit by the European delegation who was in town last week to release the text of the Canada-EU trade agreement, by arranging an event in Toronto four days before the planned visit, then offering to fly them back to Brussels aboard a Canadian Forces Airbus, since they would have missed their commercial flights from Ottawa. Not only that, but they bumped up their diplomatic status to put on a bigger show when they arrived in Ottawa then they normally would be afforded given their rank in the rules of protocol. Because someone needed to make a production number out of the whole thing.

Jason Kenney defended his changes to the Temporary Foreign Workers programme in PEI, where the seafood processing industry in particular says they need more time to transition, lest it have a major impact on them next year.

The head of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission tried to meet with Harper several times and has been continually rebuffed, though he said he had great meetings with the Minster for Aboriginal Affairs, Bernard Valcourt.

The BC Civil Liberties Association is challenging the fact that a member of the Security and Intelligence Review Committee once sat on the board of TransCanada – the company behind the Keystone XL pipeline – because of the fact that CSIS has investigated environmentalists opposed to said pipeline. They feel that Yves Forties should recuse himself from any investigation into CSIS activities related to said environmentalists.

Stephen Harper appointed a new Deputy Clerk of the Privy Council, as a new Clerk is already on her way in.

Conservative MP Patrick Brown has declared that he will indeed run for the leadership of the Ontario Progressive Conservatives. When he vacates his seat (and the current rumour is that he’s going to hang onto it for the time being though I’m not sure how long Harper will stand for it), it will be four by-elections that Harper needs to call.

A Canadian Forces veteran whom Rob Anders once denounced as an “NDP hack” is contesting the Liberal nomination in Peter MacKay’s riding.

Over in Alberta, the provincial Liberals voted in their policy convention to oppose Supply Management – possibly the first party to do so in Canada. I await the dairy cartel turning its attention to them and turning the screws as soon as possible.

Aaron Wherry writes about private members’ bills, and how the Conservative ones – most of them law-and-order related – are getting through more than opposition ones are. That said, many opposition bills are related to things like national strategies, in order to get around the strictures about spending money or provincial jurisdiction, which can make them more difficult to support. Others, like Randall Garrison’s trans rights bill, may be great in theory but have some issues in their wording, which is part of part of why it’s being held up in the Senate.

Gary Levy offers some interesting commentary on our history of weak speakers here in Canada, and how once again attempts to empower them have only ended up backfiring – like so many other “reform” attempts we’ve made here.

Here’s an interesting look at how tabloid culture in America gave rise to the scrutiny of politicians’ private lives, which never did develop in Canada.

And Scott Feschuk offers some fairly astute observations about the three main parties’ pre-election slogans, which you really should read.