Oh, Mike Duffy. As soon as RCMP investigators started digging through his financial records, something else caught their eye – some $65,000 paid out to one of Duffy’s friends as a consultant for which the friend admits to doing little or no work. (Insert all of the wise-asses of the world joking about how that’s all a Senator does – and those wise-asses would be wrong, but I digress). But more curious is that the money that was paid out seems to also have vanished, because that friend is also on disability and couldn’t take the money without losing his benefits, and his wife and son, listed as president and director of his company, aren’t talking. Add to all of this is the look into Patrick Brazeau’s housing claims, for which his Gatineau neighbours thought he worked from home because he was there so often. They’re also investigating his tax filings, as he listed his address on his former father-in-law’s reserve even though he didn’t live there. Kady O’Malley’s search through the court affidavits and comparing them to the timeline turns up what she thinks may be references to those emails being turned over to the RCMP along with some redacted diaries.
A Toronto lawyer is launching a court challenge against Justice Marc Nadon’s appointment to the Supreme Court, saying that it shouldn’t qualify as one of the three Quebec seats. Justice Nadon has agreed not to sit on the bench until the matter can be dealt with.
It seems that John Baird’s diplomatic spat with the Maldives began after he posed for photos with protesters who were demanding that the run-off elections be held soon, and the restoration of the ousted president. When the Maldives’ foreign minister accused Baird of being biased against them, he apparently said that he was biased in favour of freedom and democracy, and so on, and from there the complaints about his escalated. That deposed president chastised the current president over escalating the issue.
The new EU ambassador to Canada is saying that a side deal on security, human rights and sustainable development may be holding up the Canada-EU Free Trade agreement. John Baird, however, says that’s not the case. Who to believe?
Jesse Brown looks at the allegations of CSE spying on Brazil, and wonders about the mutual back-scratching agreements between the “Five Eyes” countries and their respective intelligence services. For what it’s worth, Harper says that they are “reaching out” to the Brazilians about it. Meanwhile, the Privacy Commissioner is concerned about CSE’s data holdings and their disposition, and offered to work with them. CSE hasn’t followed up because Stoddart and her staff don’t have the requisite security clearances, and her mandate is domestic privacy while their mandate is strictly foreign signals intelligence. The CBC gets a bit of a look at the CSE’s new headquarters, but then Greg Weston goes into cheap outrage mode over its price tag, despite the need for security and a powerful data centre that are driving up the costs.
It looks like Lockheed Martin wanted to fly an F-35 up to Canada last year in order to demonstrate that it’s not just a developmental aircraft anymore, and to put on a big dog and pony show around it – but that those plans never went anywhere.
The Hudson’s Bay lowlands, which up to this point had been sheltered from the effects of climate change, are now showing the signs of those effects.
There was an election in Nova Scotia last night, and the governing NDP lost 26 seats, reducing them to third place, while the Liberals took a majority. The outgoing premier, Darrel Dexter, even lost his own seat. It’s the first time in 131 years that a governing party in that province wasn’t given a second term in office, and the first time in 14 years that the Liberals have formed a government in the province.
And here are some of the metrics tracking the NDP’s “virtual question period,” attention to which has – quite predictably – tapered off since its inception. But they’re raising questions and showing that the government is on the run! Right?