Roundup: Income splitting – sort of

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As expected, Stephen Harper announced a scaled back version of his income splitting proposal, but structured as a tax credit and not actual income splitting, paired it with a number of other measures like increasing the universal child benefit payments, and childcare tax credits so as to try to blunt the criticisms that income splitting mostly benefits the most wealthy of families and doesn’t benefit those who need it most – single parent families and those of lower incomes. Jennifer Robson takes the proposal apart, and notes the real winners are lawyers and tax professionals. Economist Stephen Gordon adds a few notes, which need to be said.

Today will see the verdict in the trial of Dean Del Mastro for violating spending restrictions in the 2008 election, and he could lose his seat – and possibly face jail time – if found guilty.

Speaking of MPs in trouble with the courts, Pat Martin continues to pay out the settlement after a suit was launched for his comments about RackNine in relation to the robocalls scandal. Martin nevertheless has sympathy for Michael Sona, who he believes is the wrong person being punished for what happened.

As our jets begin flying over Iraq, ready to drop bombs by this weekend, our most highly decorated combat general says that the real deciding factor in defeating ISIS will be Iraqi forces, and well, we’re helping to train them too.

DND, incidentally, has lapsed spending yet again, which should be unprecedented, and it leads to more accusations that the government is trying to balance the budget on the backs of the military.

It has been revealed that Prince Charles made a “substantial” donation to the fund for the families of Corporal Nathan Cirillo and Warrant Officer Patrice Vincent.

Joyce Murray’s bill on creating a parliamentary committee to oversee national security saw first hour of debate last night, and while it’s gained the support of gun ownership groups, it looks like the government figures it would be “duplicative” (never mind that there is no independent oversight committee for CSEC) while the NDP object to such a committee having senators as members (never mind continuity and institutional memory or the fact that Parliament includes the Senate). Apparently blind ideology trumps common sense.

On the subject of committees, the NDP continue to refuse to grant concurrence to a motion to recompose the committees, as would normally happen at the beginning of each sitting. Some committees have not yet met since Parliament resumed in September as a result, but the NDP say it’s to protest the government’s way of doing business, imposing time allocations, and so on. They’ve already blocked committee travel and continue to do so, which makes it harder for those committees that are still meeting – such as Finance committee, using old membership lists – from doing work that they normally would be like pre-budget consultations in the regions. It’s hard to see how the don’t think this will come to bite them in the ass, especially with an election coming up and their reliance on the line about people showing up to work in the previous election…

Liberal Senator George Baker intends to introduce 15 amendments to the prostitution bill to remove the elements that would criminalise sex workers, based on testimony that they heard in committee.

TransCanada has officially filed to the National Energy Board for approval of the Energy East pipeline, two-thirds of which is largely in place already but would be converted from carrying natural gas to diluted bitumen. Environmental groups, particularly from Quebec, are opposing the pipeline and are putting a great deal of pressure on the NDP and the Liberals as a result.

The Public Accounts show that the Senate is still waiting to recoup some $45,000 from suspended Senator Patrick Brazeau, but given that he’s not making a paycheque at the moment, they can’t exactly garnish his wages.

Over in BC, premier Christy Clark has named former AFN national chief Shawn Atleo to lead a new round of talks with BC First Nations.

And that Commons security guard who protected the door of the NDP caucus room during last week’s attack has received hundreds of bottles of beer from grateful MPs and supporters. For his willingness to take a bullet for that caucus, it has been suggested that he never have to pay for another beer for the rest of his life.