And now for some renewed chest-thumping

Parliament resumes today after six weeks of MPs being back in their ridings, and given the way things have been heating up the last couple of weeks, it could make for a very raucous session. In the days leading up to the budget, I’m sure we’ll hear plenty more about corporate tax cuts, accusations about who does and doesn’t want to Make Parliament Work™, plenty of bluster and people trying to call one another’s various bluffs. And with people saying that if the “election issue” is the economy, now may be the time to go, well, this could help set the conditions.

And besides, according to at least one source, the Conservatives are planning on a March 29 election – which they officially deny. To engineer such a feat, the writs would have to be dropped sometime before Feb 22, for a minimum 36-day campaign. Should we be marking our calendars?

Those egregious Conservative attack ads were pulled after being online for only a day. The Conservatives claim they weren’t intended to be part of the ad buy, and they were a one-day-only internet special. But of course they’d say that, wouldn’t they? Elizabeth May, meanwhile, laments that attack ads have sunk to this new depth. She’ll hold a press conference to that effect later today.

Liberal MP Mark Holland talks about being enemy number one of the Conservative party.

The CBC looks at Peter Kent’s last few speeches on the environment and finds them to be devoid of substance. I know. Stop the presses.

Stephen Harper named four new parliamentary secretaries yesterday, including Shelly Glover (Canada’s Most Intellectually Bankrupt MP), who moves from being official languages to finance.

The government is chartering evacuation flights for people in Egypt – to London, Paris or Frankfurt, and they’ll have to pay the government for the privilege. Because I’m sure that’ll be overly helpful.

And here is a look at some of the issues around getting an open data policy for our government, with some interesting thought into it from Senator Elaine McCoy (who is made of awesome).

Up today – as mentioned, Elizabeth May is holding a press conference, and yay, question period is back!