All eyes will be on the Supreme Court this week as the Senate reference goes ahead. The fact that there will only be two sitting Quebec justices is a major bone of contention, and highlights the mess that the government made of the whole appointment process. A mess, it needs to be said again, they didn’t need to make. On the subject of the reference question, this piece looking at the abolition of Quebec’s Legislative Council is a neat bit of history, but actually has almost no use in terms of abolishing the Senate because the provinces aren’t federations. I’m not sure why this is such a difficult concept for people to grasp, and yet they keep pointing to places like Nebraska, New Zealand and Sweden as places that don’t have upper chambers – never mind that they’re either unitary states or sub-national governments, and don’t have the same dual federalism concerns that Canada as a whole does, which is why we need a bicameral legislature.

The government is reaching out to other countries and companies to partner with it for its planned massive Polar Communication and Weather satellite project. This is an attempt to help defray its original estimated $600 million price tag.

A year after the government decided to do away with its part-time prison chaplains in favour of their full-time Christian ones after exaggerated complaints were made about the requests for a Wiccan chaplain hit the media, and the subsequent recanting of that decision, comes word that they’re overhauling the chaplaincy system yet again. This time, all services are going to be handled by a private firm that will serve the majority and minority religious populations, taking over contracts as the current ones expire.

The new headquarters for CSE, still under construction, suffered a fire on Saturday night. The extent of the damage is still unknown.

The former policy advisor in Marjory LeBreton’s office is now recanting some his earlier advice when it came to the Duffy and Wallin residency questions, and admits that he was being flippant in some of it, as he never expected the expenses issue to come up. I will agree that there is no particular constitutional provision that says that they needed to be a residence of the province they are appointed to represent at the time, but the onus on them was to ensure that they maintained residency beyond just property qualifications, and clearly Duffy and Wallin did not do that.

Senator Hugh Segal is wholly unimpressed with the way that the employees of the three suspended senators have been treated, and thinks that they should at least have their contracts paid out.

Treasury Board will finally start implementing the Information Commissioner’s recommendation about adding a “decline to answer” response for the question on the Access to Information website that asks requesters if they’re from business, media, academia or elsewhere. Treasury Board says the question was only for statistical analysis, but there are concerns that it is used to highlight some requested files to the minister’s office.

After yet more online wailing and gnashing of teeth about things that Justin Trudeau said, here is a political science professor to explain why it’s all out of context. Because apparently it’s come to this. Michael Den Tandt writes that Trudeau is trying to be a more spontaneous politician than his rivals, but that he needs a better self-editor if he’s going to pull it off.

Former Prime Minister Joe Clark talks about foreign policy, the institutions of political parties, the balkanization of political discourse, and he gives high praise to Thomas Mulcair’s performance as opposition leader. The full sixteen-and-a-half minute video interview is well worth watching.

In Toronto Centre, it’s becoming a battle of old quotes of Linda McQuaig – who praised former Venezualan president Hugo Chavez – and Chrystia Freeland – who once wrote about Sarah Palin as a kind of feminist icon.

Anne Kingston writes about the realities of rehab, and applies it to the calls for Rob Ford to enter it.

Susan Delacourt writes about Harper’s rhetoric about how he’s a reluctant resident of Ottawa, so full of elites that we allegedly are (hint: not really), and how the Public Works disaster zone that surrounds Parliament Hill has become a reflection of the wrecking ball rhetoric coming out of the House.

And Alheli Picazo writes about the War of the Poppies, the newest faux cultural battleground to go along with the War on Christmas, and discusses what the real fight should be when it comes to veterans.