In the wake of Wednesday’s Conservative leadership “debate” – and I use the term loosely because there was no actual debate, just presentations sans Power Point – the wedge that Kellie Leitch has been nursing in her campaign became all the more stark. While Michael Chong may have been first out of the gate with his condemnation, Deepak Obhrai has used it to crank his campaign up a notch yesterday, with both an appeal for support in order to oppose Leitch specifically, and also told tales about messages he’s received from Leitch supporters telling him to leave the country.

Deepak Obhrai finally put out a press release, looking for support to stop Kellie Leitch. #cdnpoli pic.twitter.com/tQLhmYLzsX

— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) November 10, 2016

At one point during the presentations on Wednesday, Leitch held up a book Points of Entry from sociologist Victor Satzewich to justify her screening proposals. The problem? That Satzewich’s conclusions in the book were the opposite of hers, that the system was working, that demanding more face-to-face interviews for all visa applications would make the system grind to a halt, and that while he went into the research sceptical, his research convinced him that things were better than he had initially surmised. So that’s kind of embarrassing for Leitch (or would be if she had any demonstrated capacity for shame, which I’m not convinced is the case).

Meanwhile Leitch, whose other Trumpian note has been to rail against “elites” – as though she were not the epitome of one – has been holding fundraisers in Toronto with Bay Street lawyers for $500 a pop. You know, more of those elites which she’s totally not one of. Also, if she’s so convinced that she’s going to be Prime Minister by 2019, isn’t this some kind of ethical conflict for her to be holding these kinds of cash-for-access fundraisers?

Good reads:

• Rona Ambrose thinks it’s “insanity” to continue to pursue carbon pricing with Trump ascendant, and wants a focus on pipelines. Trudeau is sticking with his plan.
• Ambrose, incidentally, said that a Trump victory is not a rejection of women in politics (as the only women running in the provincial PC race dropped out).
• Trudeau is hosting an investor summit full of billionaires on Monday.
• The government is preparing for a possible surge of Mexican migrants now that Trump has won the US election.
• Science minister Kirsty Duncan spoke about challenges that women researchers still face with discrimination.
• The GG – the Commander-in-Chief of the Canadian Forces – laments the lack of military awareness in Canada.
• The government has announced $350 million to help the dairy sector cope with CETA, but not everyone is happy.
• The Ethics Commissioner has been asked to look into a Liberal MP giving cash and Kindle awards to students in his riding.
• Here’s a look at the rapidly expanding budget for CSE.
• Here are more details on the government’s aborted plan to sell off our foreign service residences.
• Paul Wells tries to make sense of next steps in the new American reality and how Trudeau should react to it.

Odds and ends:

Over on Canadaland, I write about a Facebook privacy case at the Supreme Court of Canada that could have profound implications on digital consent.

Here is this year’s Silver Cross Mother.