Roundup: A surprise visit

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Stephen Harper took everyone (and most especially assignment editors across the country) off-guard by taking a surprise trip to Iraq while headed to V-E commemoration ceremonies in the Netherlands. While in Iraq, he met with that country’s prime minister and announced $167 million in aid and security equipment promises ($139 million of which is actually for the region, including Lebanon and Jordan). Politically, he also gained the advantage of being in theatre, getting photos and video of him being near the front lines, and talking tough about terrorism and national security, which he sees as vote-getters and poll-movers after weeks where his messaging has been thrown off track by both the distraction that is the Duffy trial, and the pushback to the budget, which was only balanced by raiding the contingency reserve and EI fund. In other words, he needs to remind people why they should vote for him, and looking prominent in a place where we’ve sent troops is one way to do it. While there, it was also said that the investigation into the friendly fire death of Sgt. Doiron is complete, and was likely due to fatigue among Peshmerga fighters. That report is supposed to be released publicly back in Canada within a month.

Good reads:

  • CBC tries to find where all of the money Duffy paid to his friend’s “clearing house” went, and finds more than $30,000 still unaccounted for.
  • The government is seeking an emergency stay of bail for Omar Khadr, and claim they need to keep him behind bars to appease the Americans, which isn’t the case.
  • Fact-checking shows that President Obama’s claim that the Keystone XL pipeline is just about Canadian oil is untrue.
  • With Harper in the Netherlands for V-E Day celebrations, here’s a look at the bond Canada shares with the Dutch.

Odds and ends:

By-election dates have been called for the three vacant seats in the Commons – set for the fixed election date. There are, however, spending implications.

An analysis shows that Conservative MPs would personally benefit more from income splitting than MPs of other parties.

The Canadian Army will get new trucks in about 2017 – only a decade after they were promised by this government.