In the event that you’ve tuned out of the Bill Morneau/Bill C-27 conspiracy theory – and if you have, I don’t blame you – there was a big fuss a few days ago made of the fact that the postal employees’ union made a big deal about trying to get the Ethics Commissioner to investigate this weeks ago, and now that Nathan Cullen managed to get Mary Dawson to turn her attention to it, they’re crowing with a bit of victory, and still demanding that the bill be withdrawn. Given how ludicrous the whole story remains – remember that government bills are tabled on behalf of the cabinet as a whole, and that ministers don’t sponsor bills because they have a personal interest in them, but rather because they need to answer on behalf of their departments – I’ve largely just rolled my eyes at ongoing coverage, but it was flagged to me a couple of times yesterday that Terence Corcoran wrote a piece about how this little episode proves some of the underlying dynamics behind this ongoing campaign against Morneau and his integrity – that it’s less about any actual ethical issues than it has been about trying to get him to withdraw Bill C-27, because it’s antithetical to the interests of unions and their desires to ensure that everyone has a defined benefit pension plan (even though the economics of that demand aren’t there, and that the actuarial tables will show that they haven’t been sustainable because people stopped smoking two packs a day and are now living longer).

The problem with Corcoran’s piece is that it really only applies to the NDP’s interests. After all, the Conservatives were talking about targeted benefit pensions for years, and were making moves in that direction, which is why Morneau, in his previous life, was talking about their virtues – a cardinal sin in NDP eyes. But for the Conservatives, this is simply a matter of opportunism – they think that they can wound him, and if they have to play along with the NDP to do it, so be it they will. And thus, we are enduring day after day of attacks in QP that are showcased with mendacious framing devices and disingenuous questions, unrelated facts arranged in ways to look damning, never mind that they don’t line up with reality or with our parliamentary norms (such as this absurd demand that the Ethics Commissioner should have somehow vetted this before the bill was tabled. That’s now how our system works, and it would have been a violation of cabinet secrecy and parliamentary privilege). But even as opportunistic as this is, one has to wonder how much longer this will last.

One of the most veteran reporters sat with me in QP yesterday, and asked me this very question – how long can they hope to stretch this story? There’s little basis to it, and yet day after day, they carry on with these absurd demands for information that are already publicly disclosed, and outrage that is running on fumes. Meanwhile, actual, verifiable problems that should be addressed are going unsaid, day after day. It’s a little mystifying when you actually stop to think about it.

Good reads:

• The government unveiled their national housing strategy in Toronto and Vancouver yesterday, with talk about individual benefits.
• Small business groups still say the amended incorporation tax changes aren’t good enough for their members, and doctors in Nova Scotia are threatening to walk away.
• As cities grumble for a share of excise taxes on cannabis, here’s a look at the work they are doing to get ready from a bylaw perspective.
• Rachel Notley worries that legal cannabis enforcement costs will break her province’s budget, and wants a greater share of the excise tax as a result.
• Carla Qualtrough says that maybe it’s a good idea to cull the number of pay rules clogging the Phoenix pay system – but negotiations will likely take years.
• The government is considering scrapping rules that bar sick or disabled immigration applicants from getting citizenship.
• Only about ten percent of Haitian asylum seekers who’ve crossed the border in Canada are having their claims accepted.
• Here’s a deeper look into the $25 billion that the CRA says they’ve identified in offshore tax revenues.
• Here’s a look at the panel and process to find a new RCMP Commissioner (months after the Bob Paulson retired).
• Maclean’s has a long-read into the issue of paid blood plasma collection.
• Here’s a dive into the fuss that Quebec is putting up when it comes to the Netflix deal, and how Netflix is getting a taste of identity politics in Canada.
• The Hill Times looks at women in senior political staffer positions, and how they represent about 40 percent of positions despite a gender parity cabinet.
• Here are more details around the costs associated with the temporary hockey rink on Parliament Hill, with a further breakdown of them here.
• Two pro-life candidates were disqualified from running for the Conservatives in the Scarborough by-election, prompting cries of a rigged nomination.
• Former Conservative MP Rob Clarke, running to lead the Saskatchewan Party, says that Indigenous people are anti-abortion.
• Emmett Macfarlane takes on the academic freedom issue raging at Laurier University (which Andrew Scheer is trying to hitch his wagon to).
• Paul Wells dissects the promises by some Quebec political leaders to get the province off of equalization.

Odds and ends:

The PMO insists they had nothing to do with the dead-eyed Trudeau wax figure at the Monteral museum.

CBC digs into the SS7 vulnerabilities in Canadian mobile phones.