The Senate is conducting pre-study hearings on Bill C-36 this week – seeing as the government wants it passed quickly and are doing everything possible aside from imposing actual closure to ram it through – and among the witnesses they’ll be hearing from is a male escort who has exclusively female clientele. You know, someone who will completely mess with the narratives that the government has been pushing with this bill about “protecting vulnerable women,” since the Senate tends to be good about that. I can imagine that the other sex workers will probably get a better hearing at the Senate committee than they did at the Commons justice committee, seeing as there is less of a vested interest in pushing the government agenda.
While the final details of the Canada-EU trade agreement are still being ironed out, Canada and the EU signed a separate agreement yesterday to enhance cooperation around law enforcement, organised crime, cybercrime, money laundering, research and energy security. So at least we’re seeing progress in some areas.
John Baird says not to worry about mission creep with our military advisors being deployed to Iraq. I’m slightly less reassured by certain opposition voices who seem to think that we can have a meaningful contribution while ensuring that such a volatile situation can be neatly constrained into a carefully defined box.
Russian jets buzzed HMCS Toronto while on patrol in the Black Sea, and now our defence minister is trying to talk tough about the “unnecessary provocation.”
It remains a mystery why the interprovincial trade barriers around wine in Ontario are so persistent.
The CRTC hearings into the state of the Canadian broadcast industry got underway, and online content distributors like Google (which own YouTube) and Netflix don’t want any regulation that would force them to pay into the Canadian Media Fund where they can’t benefit from it – which is a ridiculous argument because they can certainly use the fund to create original content, either as a Canadian Netflix original series, or a web series as there are Canadian media funds specifically set aside to help develop and promote.
Some public sector unions are alleging that the government is trying to push them into a strike so that they can have a narrative to fight against in the next election. The blatantly partisan tone being adopted by some of these unions (in particular PSAC’s “Harper hates me” campaign) is slightly unnerving considering that it seems to go against the role of the public service, which is all about providing neutral and unbiased advice to the government of the day.
What’s that? Skilled immigrants have trouble landing jobs? You don’t say!
Here’s an interesting look at why the August Statistics Canada job numbers are probably not wrong, despite what Scotiabank’s economists figure.
In case you were wondering why the government’s big plans on a deepwater port in Nunavut along with a jet-capable landing strip were dramatically scaled back, it seems that the costs escalated far beyond what the government was planning to spend, which is not unusual considering the costs in the North are quite high to begin with.
Residential school survivors in the James Bay area fought for the release of documents, only to find that they have largely been redacted upon release. Understandably, they are unimpressed.
It looks like the big search for the Franklin expedition going on in the North may have found an iron piece of one of the ships. I’m sure this will become exciting news for the government for some time to come.
The General in charge of Canadian Joint Operations Command is due to retire, but has been prevented from speaking to journalists on his way out. One wonder if it’s because the media managers suspected he would be too critical of the current state of spending within the Forces – a narrative that the government doesn’t want to contradict their outdated and currently dubious message that they re-capitalized the Forces when current spending levels are below those during Chrétien’s “decade of darkness.”
Laura Stone profiles the two Crown attorneys who will be prosecuting the case of Senator Duffy. (Note: My profile of Duffy’s lawyer will be the in the next issue of Canadian Lawyer).
Conservative MP Peter Goldring has announced that he won’t be running again next year, despite previously saying that he would be. The number of incumbent Conservatives not running again – particularly Reform-era ones – continues to climb.
Andrew Coyne is none too pleased about what the Scottish referendum vote could mean here in Canada.
And Will and Kate are expecting a second royal baby. Everybody freak out!