We’ve had the weekend to look over the new anti-terrorism bill, and it’s not really winning a lot of praise, other than being noted for changing the election narrative from one of economic stability to national security. The fuzziness around what constitutes “terrorist propaganda” that they want the powers to scrub from the Internet (and good luck with that task) is certainly one of the issues that will need to be examined in further detail. The mother of a Calgary man who went over to fight for ISIS, and later died doing so, says that it’s not enough to just take away passports – the government needs to offer some kind of de-radicalisation programmes to go along with the new powers. In fact, one thing the new powers desperately need are more oversight mechanisms and bodies for CSIS and others, but according to the government, that’s just “needless red tape.” No, seriously. SIRC is not effective oversight, and no, Canada is not so different from other countries that we don’t need these mechanisms. But hey, apparently we’re special for not having this kind of oversight, but I don’t think it’s something we should be patting ourselves on the back for.

Good reads:

• The Alberta civil service is demoralized and cowed and no longer giving advice post-Redford, and one wonders how applicable this is to the federal public service, whose advice has been ignored for so many years.
• StatsCan data shows that the middle class is not being hollowed out for the sake of the “one percent.”

Odds and ends:

Conservative MP Randy Kamp won’t seek re-election. Out goes another parliamentary secretary who frequently outshines his minister.

It looks like Mohamed Fahmy could be deported from Egypt in days.

Here’s a look at the roots of Groundhog Day.