Thomas Mulcair spent the noon hour yesterday laying out three of his party’s economic planks for the coming election. (A reminder: it’s still nine months away). To that end, Mulcair promised a cut to small business taxes, an extension of the capital gains cost allowances for companies buying new equipment, and an innovation tax credit for businesses. The first of those is not new – the NDP have been going in this direction since the previous election, and the second is current government policy that is set to expire, but one wonders how much it has been taken up as the government already extended it, and we still hear that Canadian companies didn’t spend the high dollar years investing in this equipment to boost productivity at a time when it was advantageous for them to do so, and now the dollar is much lower and it’s more costly for these businesses to buy this new equipment. The third, geared toward research and development, again sounds suspiciously like what the current government has been trying to do as they retooled the National Research Council to help with commercialisation of technologies. There is, of course, debate on some of the utility of these points as well, with certain experts saying that those small businesses that would benefit from this kind of tax cut are already well off. (Also, small businesses are not the biggest job creators in the country – sorry, but that doesn’t make any mathematical sense). The final point is geared toward revitalising the manufacturing sector, but it’s pocket change in terms of dollars, and the sector has much more entrenched structural problems. Of course, there is no mention of how this is costed, on top of promises for their childcare spaces, restoring the much higher healthcare transfer escalator, and returning OAS eligibility to 65 – and no, raising corporate income taxes won’t get you that much, nor will going after offshore tax havens. Mulcair also added that the NDP would move to protect pensions from bankruptcy proceedings, which again is not new policy, for what it’s worth.

Good reads:

• The Senate is looking at reforming their privilege rules to make it easier for them to testify at trials, while the Commons is getting a new law clerk.
• A couple of Conservative senators are taking their jobs seriously and giving some serious side-eye to a terrible Conservative private member’s bill.
• Ten months in, there are still a number of roadblocks and stumbles for companies getting in on the medical marijuana business.
• Well, it sounds like whole rail grain shipment issue is progressing well. Oh, wait…
• PMO not sharing the details of the 2012 Royal Visit by Charles and Camilla sent the military scrambling to get an event at Fort York arranged. Yay communication!
• Aaron Wherry recounts Justin Trudeau’s travels through southwestern Ontario.
• Dean Del Mastro’s sentencing was delayed once again while his new lawyer tried to get the conviction overturned before going to appeal.
• The Canadian Press breaks down who benefits what from the government’s family tax measures. A third of those benefitting are those earning over $120,000/year.
• The government’s life-sentence-without-parole bill, targeting some three percent of those convicted to life sentences, will be tabled by June. One would think they’d want to table it sooner if they want it to pass before the election.

Odds and ends:

Apparently absentee MP Sana Hassainia is also absent in her riding, which reminds us yet again of the problems with accidentally electing paper candidates.

The government has spent $180,000 to keep the Corporate Social Responsibility Counsellor’s office open while they’ve spent the past year looking for a replacement.

The PBO says that falling oil prices are likely to only create a tiny deficit next year, which the government could easily overcome.

The government spent $7 million on their totally-not-political anti-pot ads, while Crown corporations have spent $200 million over the past two years spending staff and clients to professional sports games.