While I often cringe about the media’s reluctance to refer to Stephen Harper as prime minister during the writ period (as he remains prime minister and will until he offers the Governor General his resignation) out of an exaggerated sense of fairness, there was an incident yesterday where Harper himself blurred that line between being prime minister, and being the Conservative leader campaigning for his own ends. For the first time that I can recall, we got a press release that mentioned that the Prime Minister called up the Governor of the Bank of Canada. While the text was pretty banal, talking about “ongoing developments” in the global economy and the recent declines in the markets, it was still unusual because we never get these kinds of releases. Ever. There is a very clear separation between government fiscal policy and the monetary policy set by the Bank of Canada, and the two should never meet – in fact, there is an issue in Canadian history where the Prime Minister tried to interfere with the Bank of Canada, and the Governor of the day ended up resigning in protest as a result. While the purpose of Harper’s call to Governor Poloz is not mentioned, the fact that it came on the day where Harper’s campaign message was all about how only his party could be trusted to weather this global economic turbulence, well, it’s pretty icky. Harper subtly politicizes Poloz by using him as a campaign prop – look at my economic credentials! I’m talking to the Bank of Canada Governor, like an economic boss! For all we know, Harper and Poloz have a weekly call where they talk trends and forecasts, and so on, but if that’s the case, we never hear about it. This time, Harper made sure that we knew about it. I’m having a hard time trying to see how this is acceptable in any way.

On the campaign:

• Stephen Harper recapped his low-tax agenda as a pitch for being seen as the kinds of economic manages needed during market turbulence.
• Thomas Mulcair promised an increase in income supplements for low-income seniors (but nothing about how to pay for it).
• Justin Trudeau promised a suite of new veterans’ benefits (but not where the money is coming from).
• The organizers of a planned debate on women’s issues cancelled it after Mulcair opted to pull out.

Good reads:

• In the Duffy trial, PMO Issues Manager Chris Woodcock claimed not to have read any emails about the payment. (Reevely and O’Malley liveblog recap here).
• To that end, Andrew Coyne writes about the culture of secrecy and lies that has embedded itself in the PMO, while Christie Blatchford paints a picture of Duffy playing all ends against each other.
• The Conservatives has instituted a de facto policy of having media pay for the privilege of asking questions on Harper’s tour.
• Police chiefs say that the federal government is pondering a new administrative regime for warrantless Internet subscriber access, in response to their demands.
• Rosemary Barton interviews Bob Rae about his new book on politics (video).
• Colby Cosh writes about boutique tax cuts and the Harper brand of conservatism.
• Stephen Gordon writes about GHG reductions, and the tendency to target single sectors when all of them will be affected.

Odds and ends:

Former Liberal MP Paul Szabo is bringing the drama with a nomination fight in Mississauga South, where the chosen Liberal candidate had expense issues.

Conservative incumbent Parm Gill is waging a pretty unsavoury campaign by tarring Liberal candidate Ruby Sahota with the record for former MP Ruby Dhalla.

The Energy East pipeline has cleared another hurdle on the road to approval.