The admission by new Liberal MP Seamus O’Regan that he’s seeking treatment for an “alcohol-free lifestyle” is one that has brought plaudits and expressions of support from across the political spectrum. This is, after all, the age where people are being more open about issues like addiction and mental health, in order to shake the stigma that still surrounds it. But as Laura Payton writes in Maclean’s, this does present a problem with the way that Ottawa works currently, where much of the socialising here revolves around cocktails. Social functions put on by lobby and industry groups are in that 5-7 hour, when MPs come out of votes or committee meetings and head to them for drinks, hors d’oeuvres and schmoozing. It’s pretty much the only bonding experiences that MPs have left, given that the shared experiences of dining together three nights a week before late sitting debates happened were killed off in the early nineties in an attempt to make the institution more “family friendly.” But really, what this misses is the fact that it’s a far less booze-intensive place than it used to be, and I’m not talking about the post-Confederation days when there used to be a pub in the basement of the original Centre Block. No, up until the early nineties, there was far more access to alcohol around the Parliamentary precinct, where there used to be beer machines everywhere (one of the last was in the Press Gallery’s Hot Room), where there used to be the Press Club where reporters and sometimes politicians would drink together at the end of the day, and when martini lunches were a Thing. And those late night debates were often lubricated by drinks with dinner, during an age where you couldn’t order by the glass in the Parliamentary Restaurant, but rather had to buy the whole bottle (which they would put your name on and keep behind the bar for you). So really, if anything, it’s probably the easiest it’s ever been for people who are abstaining to be around the environment. On the other hand, there has been a direct loss in the collegiality between MPs since the booze largely stopped flowing. Make of it what you will, but the relationship between politics and alcohol is an interesting and fairly interconnected one, which makes a story like O’Regan’s a particularly interesting one to consider in the broader context.

Good reads:

• The government is dropping their appeal of the Federal Court ruling said it was unconstitutional to bar appeals from refugees coming from “safe” countries.
• There are questions as to the Liberals’ family reunification targets for 2016, but that may simply be a question of not having enough time to put the changes through.
• The Citizen has a look at who’s on the Commons finance committee, where it’s expected that Wayne Easter will take the chair.
• Ralph Goodale has agreed to look into why a six-year-old wound up on the No Fly List.
• The Canadian Press got a look at Trudeau’s briefing materials on digital communications.
• Here’s a look at the problem of unexploded munitions on sites that the military “borrowed” from First Nations.
• The former assistant deputy minister of materiel at DND shows how the shipbuilding process went so spectacularly wrong.
• Andrew Coyne weighs in on electoral reform and thinks Nathan Cullen’s “seek forgiveness, not permission” approach is a good compromise, and I can’t even.

Odds and ends:

The first private member’s bill of the new parliament will be one that died in the Senate for good reason – not that this article will tell you why.

Justin Trudeau is off to the World Economic Forum in Davos later this month, and the speculation is that he’ll be making the opening address.

Dean Del Mastro appears in appeal court today.