On an otherwise hot and sleepy Monday in the Nation’s Capital, an otherwise innocuous-sounding tweet turned into a bit of a flap, which of course feeds the broader narrative of the coming election.

NO to austerity! YES to democracy! http://t.co/9RqzlLnBmk #OXI

— Niki Ashton (@nikiashton) July 5, 2015

NDP policy: Be like Greece.

— Pierre Poilievre (@PierrePoilievre) July 6, 2015

Suffice to say, both positions were both pretty ridiculous. Ashton (who later made it clear this was a personal position and not a party one) being ridiculous of course in trying to infer that there is some kind of oppositional dynamic between democracy and austerity (would a “yes” vote have been anti-democratic? Really?), while Poilievre ridiculous in trying to make any kind of economic comparison between Canada and Greece, even if Canada were to have an NDP government. It would take decades of structural and even cultural factors for us to even approach a Greece-like situation, but that doesn’t fit well into a tweet. Poilievre kept on, tweaking the opposition parties about their previous support for joining a Greek bailout, which would mean that Canada would now be on the list of countries owed billions, had we opted to do so. And then both the NDP and the Liberals chipped back with both Harper’s mediocre economic record and the ridiculous comparisons to Greece. So, I guess it gave us all something to talk about, but it’s still kind of lame – and did I mention ridiculous?

Good reads:

• TD Bank is now saying that falling oil prices sent us into recession for the first six months of the year.
• Pipelines, climate change, and flood mitigation were apparently up for discussion when Harper met Rachel Notley – not that we really know, as media was banned.
• The government dropped a Supreme Court appeal regarding CSIS overseas warrants, saying C-44 and C-51 resolved matters.
• The cost of maintaining our sub fleet could start to skyrocket as spare parts become impossible to find. Of course.
• Glen McGregor crunched the numbers and found the Conservatives in Ontario could take the biggest hit for community mailboxes.
• Here’s a look at Jacques Gréber, a Parisian urban planner who transformed Ottawa post-WWII.

Odds and ends:

1400 military personnel are being deployed to fight the wildfires in Saskatchewan.

Standard & Poor downgraded Ontario’s debt rating.