Roundup: Eight whole meetings

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With the C-51 now before the Commons public safety committee, various kinds of shenanigans were played there, the NDP essentially launching a filibuster throughout the day in order to get more time to hear from witnesses, and they did get more time – about eight days, instead of three. They had proposed some 25 hearings, which included over a constituency week so that they could still meet the same deadline the government proposed, but they didn’t bite. It was also suggested that this may have been the government’s plan the whole time – give them a few more days and they’ll seem reasonable. Perhaps, but that didn’t seem to be the case if you listened to the Conservatives on the committee, who seemed to think that talk about rights was somehow an unreasonable thing. Online, people claiming to be from Anonymous are hoping an online campaign will force the government to back down on the bill, the way the government responded to backlash over Vic Toews’ lawful access bill, but I’m not sure they’ll have the same success, especially as the government is fairly confident that they can get the public to go along with the bill by holding the threat of terrorism over them – especially as new stories of people heading over to fight with ISIS become almost daily news at this point. The NDP tried to get in on the online campaign game and tried to get #StandWithRosane to trend – meaning their deputy critic Rosane Doré Lefebvre, leading the filibuster effort. Not surprisingly, it didn’t trend, for fairly obvious reasons, which makes one think that the NDP still hasn’t quite cracked the social media campaign that the election will supposedly be about. Perhaps we can call it a “hashtag fail,” as it were.

Good reads:

  • Some Senators regret signing letters from the Auditor waiving privilege, which combined with the RCMP situation, has contributed to eroding privilege on a broader basis.
  • While Senate Liberals are hoping to get the trans rights bill sent back to the Commons quickly in the hopes of salvaging it, Maclean’s has a look at the Senator who gutted it. (And stop blaming the institution for a couple of its members, FFS).
  • It looks like other government departments faced several cyber-security incidents last year before the major NRC hack, but they won’t say how many.
  • First Nations and environmental groups in BC say that the RCMP report that calls them potential threats to pipelines says the report borders on hysteria.
  • The Supreme Court has refused to hear the appeal of that trio challenging the oath to the Queen for citizenship. Constitutional monarchy FTW!
  • As the Liberals come out in favour of moving the site of the Victims of Communism memorial, the designer is tweaking it to make a bit smaller.
  • The Canadian Press’ Baloney Meter™ looks into Leona Aglukkaq’s claims that Parks Canada’s budget has increased, and finds it to be some baloney.

Odds and ends:

Former Liberal leadership hopeful Deborah Coyne is now working for the Green Party…after she lost the Liberal nomination in an Ottawa riding that she didn’t live in (she lives in Toronto).

The Bloc put out a fairly racist ad targeting the NDP over the niqab issue.

Here’s Greg Rickford sticking his tongue out and generally classing up QP.