Roundup: A funeral felt by the nation

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In Hamilton, the three party leaders attended the funeral of Corporal Nathan Cirillo, the Prime Minister speaking and addressing Cirillo’s son. The city and large numbers of first responders turned out for the funeral, and lined the streets of the procession. The Queen also sent her condolences as the regiment’s Colonel-in-Chief.

US Secretary of State John Kerry was in town yesterday, where he paid tribute to Corporal Cirillo, before he and Baird spoke about last week’s shootings as terrorism, and he and Harper met to discuss topics such as Russia, Ukraine, and the Keystone XL Pipeline. Michael Petrou breaks down the meaning of the visit here.

Speaking of fuzzy definitions of terrorism, Moncton RCMP shooter Justin Bourque was in sentencing hearings yesterday where he apologised for his shootings, and because of recent changes to sentencing laws, his sentences will be consecutive and not concurrent, meaning that he won’t see parole for 50-75 years.

More aftermath of last week’s shooting finds tales of MPs locked out of the East Block after they were ushered out of Centre Block, but couldn’t communicate with Senate security to get shelter. Elsewhere, tracing the last days of the shooter has witnesses at the Service Canada centre where he was trying to register the car he bought recalling him talking about soldiers dropping bombs, civilian casualties, and possible talk about the situation in Libya.

In light of the new CSIS bill that would extend their operations into foreign territories, Brian Stewart makes the case for creating a separate foreign intelligence service apart from CSIS, as that kind of work requires separate skill sets and separate oversight skills. Meanwhile, there are concerns that SIRC is overstretched because it isn’t operating with a full contingent, with two of the five seats still vacant.

In an amazing tale, a trio of Mexican nationals who helped to foil a plot by Iranian, Venezuelan and Cuban operatives to launch cyberattacks against the US were granted asylum in Canada after their lives were in danger at home – including the lead whistleblower being deliberately infected with a rare virus grown in a lab. Almost unbelievable, except for the part where Chris Alexander thought that they should be able to get state protection in Mexico when it clearly was not the case.

The Parliamentary Budget Officer says that the government likely won’t be able to afford half of the Arctic offshore patrol ships that were initially promised, and there’s a good chance that we’ll wind up with a mere three as inflation continues to eat at their procurement budgets. The government says he’s wrong, but won’t give him the numbers or specifications to prove it. The premier of Nova Scotia is anxious about these ships, given what they mean to his province’s economy.

It looks like our CF-18s may be flying sorties into Iraq as of Saturday, though it remains to be seen just how many ISIS targets will be remaining this late in the game.

With another omnibudget bill tabled, the NDP have come out to oppose it, which is nothing new.

The government’s final sale of the remnants of the Canadian Wheat Board is hitting snags that are mystifying some observers.

Liberal MP Kevin Lamoureux has a bill that would see candidates and party leaders endorse any political ads, much as American ads do now – a proposal that would be hard for the Conservatives to oppose (though some are on freedom of expression grounds).

Omar Khadr wrote an op-ed for the Ottawa Citizen, talking about human rights casualties and the injustices he faced, as the government starts contemplating yet more security legislation, never mind that the courts have repeatedly ruled against them in previous cases, including his own.

Trying to shoehorn in on the Jian Ghomeshi conversation about sexual assault and harassment, Dean Del Mastro tried to libel a press gallery journalist by repeating lies about an incident that frankly did not happen, alleging blackmail for sexual favours of a female staffer. Del Mastro later gave an “I didn’t accuse anyone” shrug in a scrum, which is all the more unnerving.

And Jim Prentice won his seat, as did the three other Progressive Conservative challengers in the four Alberta by-elections on Monday night. It looks like the brand is damaged but not out, leading Wildrose leader Danielle Smith to pre-emptively announce that there will be a leaderhip review at the party’s next policy conference.