In a mind-boggling moment of specious logic and dog-whistle politics as its worst, Immigration Minister Chris Alexander asserted that people who defend women wearing the niqab are inherently defending violence against women. No, seriously. I’m not even sure where to begin, from the patriarchal assertions that deny women agency to make their own choices about what they wear, to the completely false moral equivalence between the two, all while trying to score political points on the xenophobic attitudes of a portion of the population that feels uncomfortable by the Other that confronts them (or as in the case of the vast majority of the country, something that doesn’t actually confront them but they’ve seen on television and are weirded out by). More than anything, it’s exceedingly odd that this is a government that likes to get up on any high horse it finds and trumpets the fact that it champions freedom of religion around the globe. Look, we even created a special ambassador for the post, and pretty much overturned the doctrine that there shouldn’t be a hierarchy of rights, and yet here we are privileging religion above other rights in our foreign policy. And yet, the moment these women choose to demonstrate their religious observance by wearing the niqab, this government freaks out and says no, that’s terribly, you can’t do it at these times and places. And yes, I know that the niqab is really more of a cultural observance than a religious one, but many of these women believe it to be religious, so unless we want to go full colonial on them, perhaps the government – and Alexander in particular – needs to rethink the logic of their position before they make any more boneheaded pronouncements.

Good reads:

• Mark Kennedy profiles the three women running each of the national campaigns in the next election – Jenni Byrne, Katie Telford, and Anne McGrath.
• Liberal MP Mauril Bélanger has come up with a potential compromise to the security situation on the Hill, of having Parliament contract out command to the RCMP but still have it report to them and not the government.
• Aaron Wherry looks at how the Conservatives seem to be both endorsing and denouncing carbon pricing.
• The Supreme Court has ruled that FINTRAC’s ability to search law officers without a warrant is unconstitutional.
• The Canadian Press’ Baloney Meter™ tries to test John Baird’s assertion that Canada’s stature in the world is growing.
• Susan Delacourt writes that Facebook’s ability to target and customise its advertising could be a political game changer.

Odds and ends:

As the Government Conference Centre undergoes renovations to become the temporary Senate chamber for when the Centre Block gets shut down for rehabilitation, they have managed to preserve the site of the 1981 “Kitchen Accord” as a museum room.

Questions are being raised about the number of judicial appointments in Nova Scotia who appear to have connections to Peter MacKay.

Stephen Harper is replacing another one of his Wives of Henry VIII communications directors.