With the House back today, the Liberals are looking to hit back at the government on its fiscal record – seeing as Jim Flaherty decided to use the Tuesday of a break week to deliver a fiscal update that announced the biggest deficit in history, which was swallowed up by the news of loss of the UN Security Council seat. To accomplish this, they will be presenting three simultaneous speeches – Ralph Goodale to the Economic Club in Ottawa, Scott Brison to the Empire Club in Toronto and Marc Garneau to the Montreal Chamber of Commerce, each similar, and with the idea of delivering the fiscal update “that Flaherty should have.” So here’s hoping they don’t go into base partisan-bashing and deliver clear, sound policy ideas. You know, the kind of thing that is becoming a rarity in this era of obsessive spin.
The allegations of corruption around Parliament Hill construction contracts got even more interesting on Friday when the masons working on the West Block walked off the job and over to the RCMP, citing non-payment and hinting at other things. They were supposed to have been paid by a bond company who took over for the company that went bankrupt, which is the company that allegedly paid money to the Conservatives and got the contract in the first place. Suffice to say, it got all the more interesting, and I think we can advance the Christian Paradis doomsday clock another minute or so closer to midnight. (Bonus video here.)
In a nice bit of ace reporting from Joanna Smith at the Toronto Star, she’s obtained documents that show that Vic Toews knows a lot more than he claims about the allegations made by CSIS about politicians in Canada suspected of being under foreign influence.
His Excellency David Johnston laments our country’s poor performance when it comes to productivity, innovation and the fact that we’re only setting the bar at 90 percent high school completion.
Susan Delacourt gives us the top 10 reasons we didn’t get the United Nations Security Council seat.
Olivia Chow hopes that if the Iraq war resisters can outlast the Harper government, they may finally be able to stay in Canada.
The RCMP was apparently under budget for the Olympics. Which I doubt makes up for the massive overspending on the G8/G20 summits.
And it looks like the convocation ceremony at the University of Winnipeg where Vic Toews was awarded an honorary degree was not a dignified affair, as the valedictorian slammed him in her speech, and several graduates donated to human rights causes rather than the university’s alumni fund.
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