Government House Leader Bardish Chagger talked to the Huffington Post, and the headline had all of my media colleagues grasping for their pearls as she declared that the House of Commons was not the place to discuss Liberal fundraisers. And if I’m going to go full pedant on this, she’s right – to an extent. On its face, fundraising is party business and really nothing to do with the administrative responsibility of the government. Why this current round of eye-rolling nonsense around so-called “cash for access” fundraising (which isn’t actually cash for access in the sense that we got used to talking about with Ontario) is because the opposition is trying to link those fundraisers with conflicts of interest from the government, all based on insinuation with no actual proof of quid pro quo. But because there is this tenuous connection, the questions are being allowed, and they get to make all manner of accusations that would otherwise be considered libellous before the cameras under the protection of parliamentary privilege. Indeed, when Ambrose accused the government of acting illegally with those fundraisers, Chagger invited her to step outside of the Chamber to repeat those accusations. Ambrose wouldn’t, for the record.

Where this might resonate are with memories of the previous parliament, with endless questions about the ClusterDuff affair, and the operations of the Senate, and those various and sundry questions that came up time and again, and which were rarely actually about things that were the administrative responsibility of the government. And every now and again, Speaker Andrew Scheer would say so. But contrary to the opinions of some, this wasn’t something that Scheer made up out of thin air.

https://twitter.com/MichaelSona/status/811242072288141316

https://twitter.com/MichaelSona/status/811242862373388288

In fact, Scheer was too lenient for many of these questions, and there are sometimes that I think that Regan is even more so. Most of the NDP questions asked during the height of the ClusterDuff affair were blatantly out of order, asked for the sake of grandstanding. That the questions with the current fundraising contretemps have made this tenuous link to government operations and decisions is the only thing that makes them marginally relevant to QP. That said, the hope that this will somehow tarnish the government or grind down their ethical sheen generally depends on there being actual rules broken or actual impropriety, which there hasn’t been. Meanwhile, a bunch of issues that the opposition should be holding the government to account for are languishing because they need to put up six MPs a day on this. But hey, at least they’re providing clips to the media as opposed to doing their jobs, right?

Good reads:

• Former Conservative MP Lee Richardson is contemplating running for the Liberal nomination in Stephen Harper’s old riding.
• Justin Trudeau has promised a debate on a peacekeeping mission but won’t commit to a vote, and says he’ll defend “Canadian values” and interests to Trump.
• The Canadian and US governments have agreed to an offshore oil ban in the Arctic
• Ruh-roh! The government admits that those LAVs going to Saudi Arabia could be used in the Yemen civil war.
• Stéphane Dion is calling out Russia for not doing enough to fight terrorism.
• Kathleen Wynne is calling for a First Ministers’ meeting on healthcare funding.
• Telecom companies Rogers and TekSavvy are pushing back against attempts to give security agencies more powers over their operations.
• Here’s a longer read about the government’s balancing act between pipelines and the environment, as well as overhauling the NEB.
• The Bank of Canada is trying to warn Canadians about their debt levels.
• Two conservation groups have launched a court challenge around the approval of the Kinder Morgan pipeline.
• Here’s a look at how the coming marijuana legalisation could affect our relationship with the US, while Health Canada consultants warn against fearmongering ads.
• Kevin O’Leary insists that he’s serious about a leadership bid, and has put together a team to show how serious he is.
• Conservative leadership also-ran Pierre Lemieux is trying to fundraise off of the Ontario PC party silencing its social conservatives.
• Kady O’Malley considers the use of short-titles on bills to help make the case to pass some of them faster thanks to public pressure.
• My Loonie Politics column looks at what progress has been made in Question Period in both the Commons and Senate, and what still needs to be done.

Odds and ends:

Tristin Hopper has a great explainer on climate change and the things people blame on it.

For TVO, I looked at where a “Never Kellie” movement is at in the Conservative leadership race.