In preparation for the House coming back, the Liberals are preparing a new motion that would compel the government to turn over those Afghan detainee documents –and it appears that MP Derek Lee, who is an expert on Parliamentary procedure, is authoring it. This could get heated pretty fast if the government again refuses. The CBC’s Kady O’Malley also posts the whole exchange of letters between Lee, the Department of Justice, the Commons Law Clerk, and even Her Excellency, in the event that she needs to get involved. This is getting serious, my friends.
Not to be outdone, Jack Layton has written to the Speaker, asking for an emergency debate on prorogation. Except that I do believe that issues of privilege take precedence, if the prorogation debate happens, it’ll likely happen after these motions of Lee’s are dealt with – while the whole budget debates/Speech from the Throne votes take place. (In other words, don’t expect any legislation to be debated for a few weeks).
Speaking of Jack Layton, apparently one shouldn’t get between him and a camera – just like a mama bear and her cub – lest he take you down for blocking his shot.
The Finance Ministerial pre-budget shoe prediction? Comfortable dress shoes, bought new. A sign that the recession is over? But why comfortable shoes? What message is that supposed to send exactly? Shoe symbolists – I turn it over to you.
The NDP’s budget suggestion from Friday was once again about increasing the GIS for seniors. So, increase the GIS and don’t cut corporate taxes? Am I getting this right? Because I’d hate to miss something in all those substantive, detailed press releases.
And finally, in the wake of all these new body scanners and airport security measures, Canada is forbidding opposite-sex screenings. No word on how they’ll deal with trans travellers yet, however.
Up today – the Liberals are back at work, holding more roundtables – one in the morning on accountability, and one in the afternoon on Canada-China relations. I’ll say that they’ve certainly been taking these seriously, which beats the list of photo ops the Conservatives compiled for their “hard at work” MPs during prorogation.
PS – This has almost nothing to do with politics, but it looks like the original Canadarm is set to come home, which fills me with a certain amount of patriotic glee. More than any hockey game, anyway.
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