The announcement came down yesterday making it all official – Rosemary Barton has now passed the gauntlet of the competition process and has officially been named the permanent host of CBC’s Power & Politics. It’s not as though she didn’t more than prove herself in spades over the course of the election, with six-days-a-week broadcasts, and sharp coverage, but that Chris Alexander interview, where she shut down one of his tantrums and put him in his place – that has become legendary in political circles already. A senior journalist in this town described her as an “accountability interviewer,” and that’s something that’s been desperately needed in this city, where there has been a certain amount of timidity in the kinds of interviews we’ve seen. Not having a Jeremy Paxman of our own, we’d seen many a political show host in this country tiptoe around members of the Harper government for close to a decade because they often threatened (or instituted) boycotts after one hissy fit or another (John Baird being particularly famous for them), but Barton was having none of that – and it went for opposition MPs as well, like her interview with Thomas Mulcair pretty much on the day she was given the interim job when Evan Soloman’s sudden firing happened, and she didn’t put up with Mulcair’s too-cute-by-half routine. In their release, CBC pointed out her history as a reporter, going back to her starting out as a researcher for the French-language RDI while in Winnipeg, and covering politics in Quebec City – the kinds of chops that her predecessor never had, who relied instead on personality than on hard-won experience in covering the beat. And with Barton’s permanent appointment comes the acknowledgement of the changing face of politics in Canada – the fact that she’s not a middle-aged white male is important in an age of younger MPs, and of gender-equal cabinets, that a younger woman is tougher and more competent in the role than her middle-aged male contemporaries. It’s just too bad that this announcement didn’t happen in June on the heels of Solomon’s departure. (And as for Evan Solomon, it was announced that he’s taking over the afternoon broadcast for Ottawa’s CFRA radio station, because all is apparently forgiven for his ethical lapses).

Good reads:

• It looks like Trudeau and cabinet will start making a push for free trade with China, starting at the Davos World Economic Forum.
• Dean Del Mastro’s appeal was heard yesterday, with closing arguments to be heard this morning.
• A study shows that veterans who wind up homeless tend to be older, subject to episodic homelessness, and are more likely to be female.
• Legalizing marijuana in this country will also have to deal with international treaties around illicit substances.
• Expect plain packaging on cigarettes to be coming to Canada soon.
• The not-muzzled Ambassador for Religious Freedoms says that our diplomats need better training in how religion affects politics in places like the Middle East.
• The Citizen has an interview with new MP Steve MacKinnon.
• Emmett Macfarlane makes the case why the Supreme Court shouldn’t grant the government an extension when it comes to a law on assisted dying.
• Aniz Alani, the man behind the senate vacancies lawsuit explains where it’s at, and why it’s still important.
• Stephen Gordon looks at the relationship between economists and macroeconomic forecasts.
• My Loonie Politics column this week looks at the return of private members’ business, and how some of it is problematic.

Odds and ends:

Apparently Justin Trudeau is on vacation in St. Kitts-Nevis, in the Caribbean.

DND tried to rewrite shipbuilding history in a press release about a frigate deployment, citing human error when caught.

The new Parliamentary Poet Laureate was named yesterday.