The politics of the niqab have slowly starting taking up a lot of oxygen on the election campaign, on a number of fronts. While people over the Twitter Machine tried to skew Harper’s “old stock Canadians” remark as some kind of racist or dog whistle politics (I’m not sure that interpretation makes sense given the context of what he was saying), the government has decided to crank their petulance around the attempted niqab ban up to eleven by declaring that they will ask the courts for a stay of the Federal Court of Appeal ruling on the niqab-at-citizenship-ceremonies case, essentially to deny the woman in question the right to vote. It’s going to be tough for them to convince the courts that there is some imminent danger if they allow her to take the oath before October 19^th, much less convince the Supreme Court of Canada to hear the case (and they almost certainly won’t, seeing as this is a fairly open-and-shut case of administrative law, where the minister overreached is authority to implement the ban). But while this pettiness digs in, the panic over the niqab has already begun to spread, with the Bloc launching an attack ad to warn that the NDP will mean pipelines and niqabs in Quebec, while an NDP candidate has stated that while Thomas Mulcair reopens the constitution to try and abolish the Senate (never going to happen), that he deal with the menace of niqabs at the same time. No, seriously. He added that he’s sure the party supports him on that, and as of posting time, the party has not repudiated the statement (much as they did not really repudiate it when Alexandre Boulerice made similar statements about banning niqabs earlier). Justin Trudeau, for his part, said he wouldn’t try to appeal the ban to the Supreme Court. So there’s that. Meanwhile, Tabatha Southey takes on the government’s attempted niqab ban, with her usual acid wit.

On the campaign:

• Stephen Harper touted tough-on-crime policies to help protect children, then later got an endorsement from Wayne Gretzky, even though he can’t vote in the election.
• Thomas Mulcair promised a $2.6 billion pharmacare plan.
• Justin Trudeau held a rally in Montreal, but didn’t make any announcements.
• Here’s the Friday campaign roundup.

Good reads:

• CBC distils the shambolic Globe and Mail debate to five storylines. Andrew Coyne heroically recaps it, and pretty much wins it.
• There is talk that we may contribute new sensors in the Arctic for the American missile defence system.
• A Canadian representative of French expats abroad is none too happy with Thomas Mulcair’s pledge to give up his dual French citizenship if made PM.
• Here’s a look at the discord between the simultaneous monetary policy of stimulus and fiscal policy of austerity and balanced budgets.
• Stephen Tapp writes about the difficulty of comparing parties’ “costed” platforms, as they are all built on different assumptions.
• The Canadian Press’ Baloney Meter™ looks at whether small business tax cuts create jobs (spoiler: it’s some baloney).
• A judge has agreed to ease Omar Khadr’s bail conditions, and will let him visit his grandparents in Toronto, so long as his lawyer accompanies him.
• Susan Delacourt wonders if leaders’ tours and debates are becoming a thing of the past.

Odds and ends:

Here’s a look at who Jack Mintz is, as his name comes up often in the election.

A Conservative candidate from 2011 has admitted to wilfully breaking spending rules.

Mark Critch advises all candidates to delete their social media, lest they be the next one to be dumped from the running.