Experts in online voting have questions about the way that the NDP vote and cyber-attacks were handled, and raise some real doubts about online voting in general, because it means we outsource our most basic democratic rights to small contractors with almost no oversight, and no way of checking the veracity of the votes cast. (Possible paywall). Not to mention, all of the work we’ve done to ensure secret ballots are for naught anyone can set up their own “internet polling station” and watch as people cast ballots, and reward them accordingly. Hello, rum bottle politicking.
Remember how they took Rob Anders off of Veterans Affairs committee for falling asleep and snapping at those veterans making the presentation? Well, they stuck him over on the joint Senate-House committee on the scrutiny of regulations, where he’s decided to start going after regulations concerning gun control.
As previously mentioned, at the Summit of the Americas this weekend the topic of legalising drugs was on the agenda, although funnily enough, many Central American countries are saying they have no choice because America can’t control its consumption of narcotics. And so, both Canada and the US were singled out over the issue, as well as the insistence on keeping Cuba out of the summit. Harper did admit that the current issue wasn’t working, but didn’t offer up any solutions other than that drugs are bad. Okay, then.
Also while in Colombia, Harper continued to insist that the different F-35 figures were just differences in accounting, and that they’ve known the full costs for some time. So he’s admitting that they low-balled the public figure and just told the public the more palatable version? Really? Nothing to see here, move along?
Stephen Harper’s Labour Day trip to New York to attend a baseball game and Broadway show with his daughter cost the public purse $45,000. Oh, but don’t worry – he reimbursed us for the “equivalent commercial cost,” but wouldn’t say what exactly that was, which leads me to believe it was his usual tokenism of paying the economy fare (unlike say, when Paul Martin made it a policy to take the highest rate and then double that). And normally I don’t care that a PM has to take his jet to do stuff that most other people could do because of security – so long as you treat it as a matter of fact, and don’t give insulting reimbursements like economy fares. But also, did he really need to take his staff photographer, press secretary, and executive assistant with him? Really?
There are new explosive allegations of political corruption with the construction industry in Quebec. I’m sure that Thomas Mulcair will be “profoundly saddened” by the reporting of these events.
And here is a reminder that the patriation of the Constitution, which we’re celebrating the 30th anniversary of on Tuesday, is about more than just the adoption of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, while Philippe Lagassé looks at the way Crown Prerogatives interact with the Charter in light of the 30th anniversary of its inception, plus a tale about the document itself, and attempts to preserve it from the ravages of time.