The Chief of Defence Staff offered a Friday afternoon briefing to give a few more details on the mission in Iraq, which he openly acknowledges will likely take longer than six months, and could mean that our special forces advising Iraqi troops on the ground could come under fire from ISIS militants, and that the danger of IEDs is always present. It also sounds like the mission could become something akin to an Afghanistan-style combat training one, which, you guessed it, the NDP would oppose because slippery slope, mission creep, etcetera. Jean Chrétien took to the op-ed pages to back Justin Trudeau’s position that our military role would be marginal and that we should spend more resources on a humanitarian mission instead, conveniently forgetting that it never happened under his own watch.
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Stephen Harper went to Sault Ste Marie to meet with the hunting community, where he gave a paranoid cry that he fears that political and bureaucratic necromancers will try to resurrect the long-gun registry through the back door. Because apparently he doesn’t want to let go of that bogeyman that has been so useful for shaking down donations out of his base.
As a Mississauga woman takes to the Courts to challenge the ban on face veils during citizenship ceremonies, saying it violates her freedom of religion, Jason Kenney takes to the Twitter Machine to drum up support for the ban he implemented. Whatever happened to cabinet ministers refraining from talking about issues that are before the courts?
Michael Sona’s fate will be decided on November 19th, after the judge heard sentencing arguments from both sides. It was noted that Sona has demonstrated no remorse despite the conviction – and indeed still says that he did not do it, which could mean an appeal is in the works – but his lawyer was trying to argue against jail time, or to at least minimize it, considering that he’s not a danger to the community, while the Crown wants lots of jail time as a warning to others.
Those doses of that Ebola vaccine will be shipped to the WHO in Geneva on Monday to begin human trials. Of the $35 million in aid we’ve pledged toward the crisis, $5 million has been spent (the other $30 was just recently announced, to be fair). On a related note, Susan Delacourt writes about Ebola and political leadership.
Canada is also donating $8 million to help Iraqi and Syrian refugee children get an education in the hopes that we don’t wind up creating a “lost generation” in that region.
Federal, provincial and territorial justice and public safety ministers met this past week in Banff, but haven’t come to any agreement about increasing federal funding for legal aid, which is a very big deal given the state of access to justice in this country (something the Chief Justice speaks often about).
Underwater archaeologists are hurrying to learn what they can about HMS Erebus before the season ends.
Part One of the Ottawa Citizen’s series on the coming Big Data Election talks about the ways in which parties are gathering detailed information to fill in their voter identification databases, which is transforming the way that campaigns are being run in this country.
Andrew Coyne writes about having clear-eyed conversations about assisted suicide and the issue of equality of access to ending suffering.
Emma Teitel talks to Carol Toller, the writer of the Trudeau piece in Chatelaine that has everyone up in arms, who finds that Trudeau is an extremely polarizing figure, as well as the balance in writing about politicians in a lifestyle magazine.
Scott Reid writes a very salient column about how people tend to be obnoxious in politics because we, the voting public, reward them for it – and he’s right.
And Paul Wells demolishes Politico’s attempt to stoke fears about the “porous” Canadian border.