Roundup: Who’s a racist?

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In the fading lights of the 41st Parliament, the Liberals have been trying to get back to the process of painting the government like a bunch of intolerant rednecks, first with Judy Sgro’s question on Wednesday tying in the rise in hate crime statistics against Muslims to government rhetoric (for which the Conservatives got right offended), and then again yesterday when John McCallum tied in that issue to statements that Chris Alexander had made about people with their faces covered taking the citizenship oath and talk of terrorists. But when McCallum hammered Alexander on his comments – and clearly they were complete non sequiturs – Alexander responded by reaching into history and invoking Mackenzie King’s more racists immigration policies and called the Liberals the Racist Party. No, seriously. And when asked for clarification in a walking scrum after QP, Alexander insisted his party was blameless for policies before then, and accused said journalists of being partisans. (Remember when Chris Alexander was the talented golden child who was supposed to be so smart? Yeah, not so much). Paul Wells, upon hearing this, took to the blog machine and completely schooled Alexander on how wrong he really is, because it was totally off base. That said, this kind of cheap points-scoring just highlights the way things are starting to go off the rails, and I think it’s fair that the fixed election date is certainly responsible for part of this. Normally I’d be all in favour of MPs sticking around to pass a couple of more bills before they head off for the summer, but by this point the Commons has thoroughly proven itself to be incapable of being grown-ups any longer. Time to send them home.

Good reads:

  • The Duffy Trial got into the Senate privilege question, wherein Duffy’s lawyers don’t seem to get parliamentary supremacy or the ability to keep issues in camera.
  • At his big economic speech in Montreal, Thomas Mulcair promised to reinstate the labour-sponsored venture capital tax credit, which has been proven to be bad policy.
  • The Supreme Court struck down the prohibition against having medical marijuana being in any form other than smoking, and Rona Ambrose lost her mind.
  • Ontario Superior Court ruled against Hamilton’s attempt to block Canada Post changes.
  • The Americans are looking to do their own bulk purchase of F-35s to try and bring down the price and entice us to buy them.
  • Here’s a look at how all parties are using the tax system to screw singletons, who are much more economically vulnerable than families.
  • In order to protest time allocation, the NDP caucus each posed with a pile of papers. Democracy!
  • Paul Wells writes about long-term promises and dithering in the present.

Odds and ends:

While a barred Conservative candidate is taking the party to court, four Liberal candidates have quietly dropped out of the race.

Liberal senator Terry Mercer is also disputing the AG findings of his travel.

Emmett Macfarlane has an epic Twitter rant about the state of Canadian politics, and it’s worth paying attention to.