While Danielle Smith continues to declare victory as she defends her defection, insisting that the Wildrose had held two premiers to account and that they had managed to shift the PCs to their position under Prentice, there are one or two things worth noting. While I spoke to other day about the problems with calling this defection a “reunification” of conservatives in the province, I think there are a couple of other facts to consider that the pundit classes keep overlooking in their handwringing about the state of democracy in Alberta now that the official opposition has been decimated. The first is that even in a Westminster democracy, there are no guidelines about the strength of the opposition. We’ve even had cases (New Brunswick, I believe) where there were no opposition parties elected, and they had to find a way of including that balance. The other fact is that nowhere in the country is there an opposition so closely aligned ideologically with the government of the day, where you have a nominally right-wing government and an even more right-wing official opposition. That puts a whole lot of context into the unprecedented move of an official opposition leader crossing to join the government ranks, as there is less of a gap to actually cross.

Good reads:

Christina Spencer compares Justin Trudeau, Elizabeth May and Brent Rathgeber’s books.

Marijuana remains the drug of choice in the Canadian Army, but cocaine is gaining ground, so say random (and anonymous) urine samples. Time for Rob Nicholson to announce more zero tolerance measures.

Here’s a look at the adjustment process that the newest Supreme Court justice is going to have to go through.

DND is spending $200 million to join the international consortium to develop the next generation of naval missiles.

The head of the Canadian Grain Commission disputes that wheat quality is down since the demise of the Canadian Wheat Board.

Doctors at the Canadian Medical Association are quietly preparing for a Supreme Court ruling that strikes down assisted suicide.

Odds and ends:

The Canadian Press’ survey of editors around the country shows that slain soldiers (and in particular Nathan Cirillo) were the newsmakers of 2014.

Mark Kennedy has a Q&A with Ruth Ellen Brosseau, who still manages to say very little of substance other than revealing that she really has very little actual idea what an MP’s job actually entails.