The fate of Thomas Mulcair and whether he will continue to stay on as interim leader of his party are suddenly the topic of discussion, as whisperings from the party seems to be that his virtual absence over the summer – particularly from events like St. Jean Baptiste, Canada Day and Pride – is not conducive to staying on as interim leader, and that there is some sort of ultimatum that if he doesn’t start showing up, he’s out. It’s a bit funny that they’re talking that way because there’s not much that they can do to him at this point – he’s already on the way out, slowly but surely, but one has to wonder what they hope to accomplish – except to maybe jumpstart their moribund leadership campaign process. Peter Julian denies there are rumblings (as is expected), and Mulcair insists there’s no problem, but he’s just taking some time off for the first time in nine years, and while I would normally buy that excuse, the fact that he’s missed so many of the big things that MPs are expected to attend (particularly if they’re things, like Pride, that their party purports to stand for), it does make one wonder a little about how seriously they plan to take the job, especially after convincing the party to let him stay in an interim capacity for that long. (In case you’re wondering, the correct answer to all of this is that party caucuses should be doing the selecting, and we would avoid these drawn-out contests and lame-duck interim leadership intervals).

Where are Naomi Klein, Avi and Stephen Lewis in this hour of discontent? How did they spend their summer holiday? Asking for a friend.

— Michael Den Tandt (@mdentandt) September 7, 2016

In the midst of this is a “bring back Mulcair” campaign organised by some party members online, who think that the way he was treated in the Edmonton convention was “unfair and unethical.” Erm, really? That’s novel. He ran a disastrous, largely tone-deaf campaign, and was just as tone-deaf when it came to how to convince the membership that he should stay on the job as leader. He failed to do that, and he is paying the consequences. That’s politics. There is nothing “unfair” or “unethical” about that – he was defeated in a membership vote. How that’s unethical boggles the mind.

Good reads:

• The CMA says that if we’re going to legalize marijuana, that the minimum age should be 21 to avoid damaging the brains of youth.
• The chair of the government’s economic advisory panel has suggestions about ways to boost trade with countries like China, and part of it is our port infrastructure.
• What’s that? The Coast Guard fleet is so old and poorly maintained that its book value is almost worthless? Who would have thought?
• What’s that? Getting our Arctic Offshore Patrol Ships to roll out of drydock on-time and on-budget is proving to be a challenge? You don’t say!
• If we want our submarine fleet to keep up, we’re going to have to start investing in upgrades or start retiring them by 2022.
• Hunter Tootoo had yet another interview about what went wrong, spoke about past abuse and his lying to cabinet vetters, but the headline is that Trudeau hugged him.
• Kellie Leitch and her campaign are still trying to goad other leadership candidates into a “Canadian values” debate.
• Jennifer Ditchburn notes the “Canadian values” debate assumes that they are a static rather than evolving set.
• Andrew Coyne suspects Leitch is trading on the “values” debate in a calculating manner, to try and find some advantage in it.
• Paul Wells notes that despite the big research cheques the government was handing out this week, the state of basic science in this country remains abysmal.

Odds and ends:

The cost of fixing the Phoenix pay system is almost as much as it was supposed to save this year, which should be an object lesson in how not to book savings.