This is the week that Parliament returns, and we’re already getting a hint of what it’s going to look like, with clues from Government House Leader Dominic LeBlanc as to the agenda. According to The Canadian Press, LeBlanc’s plans are for the Commons to sit for one week in order to move a motion on the tax changes the government plans to make (I’m guessing it’s a Ways and Means motion), and there will be a move to reconstitute the Procedure and House Affairs Committee, as well as Finance Committee, in order to get the ball rolling on procedural changes in the former, and pre-budget consultations in the latter, but leaving other committees to start up in the new year, and likely with more resources and staff in order to help make them more independent – all good things. While I remain sceptical about the proposed changes to make the Prime Minister only show up once a week in Question Period (as I outlined here), at least they are providing the framework for the discussions to happen before Parliament really gets into the thick of it. Thus far, there have been no decisions made about what’s happening with the Senate, which is starting to get a bit bothersome, particularly as it relates to either choosing a Speaker or a Leader of the Government in the Senate, and word has it that the Senate is likely to end up cancelling its Question Period altogether (which would be a tremendous shame considering that it’s a far better debate than what happens in the Commons). As for other items on the government’s democratic reform agenda, Léonid Sirota isn’t sure that some of them – like mandatory voting or limiting third-party spending outside of a writ period – will pass the constitutional muster.

Good reads:

• In Paris, Trudeau and other Canadian leaders laid flowers at the Bataclan, before having a bilateral meeting with President Hollande in advance of COP21.
• Three cabinet ministers journeyed to Jordan over the weekend to open a refugee processing centre.
• Here’s a look at a Syrian refugee family soon to head to Canada.
• It looks like the Conservatives won’t be choosing their new leader until early 2017.
• The government is proposing to overhaul the patronage appointment process, and will make gender parity a goal there.
• The military thinks that satellites should be considered critical infrastructure, and is looking at ways to protect them from catastrophic failure.
• People are concerned the TPP will allow more temporary foreign workers into Canada (which, depending on region and industry, may not be a bad thing).
• Here’s a lengthy profile of Trudeau’s first “star candidate,” Chrystia Freeland, now international trade minister.
• Shannon Gormley writes about how damaging and infantilizing vague travel advisories really are.

Odds and ends:

Justin Trudeau has traded in Harper’s desk for one used by his father, as well as Laurier, Chrétien and Martin.

Robert-Falcon Ouellette is withdrawing his candidacy as Speaker after some rather unsound remarks on what he believed the Speaker could do.

A former Attorney General of the UK was chosen as the Commonwealth’s first female secretary-general.