The government has put chief apple polisher
Candace Hoeppner in charge of the ad hoc panel to look at Supreme Court justice
nominees. Predictably, people cry foul and that it will ensure that only
Conservative-leaning judges get appointed. It should be worth remember,
however, that this process is really just window dressing to make the process
look more open, transparent, and democratic when really, it means that
essentially the same list of candidates foes to the PM for him to make the
final decision on, just with a few extra steps for show. Really, nothing to see
here.
Here’s a look at MPs who failed to file
their ethical disclosures.
Conservative MP Royal Galipeau doesn’t want
to remove the “Support Our Troops” sticker he’s placed in his Parliament Hill
office window, despite the fact that these kinds of signs in windows aren’t
allowed. Why aren’t they allowed? Because MPs like to put other, more
controversial things in their windows, like pro-life messages. This has been a
problem in the past, and will likely be again when they decide that if Galipeau
can do it, so can they.
Harper, while in Costa Rica, said he’s
looking at taking a tougher stance on Syria.
Amnesty International responds to Jason
Kenney’s snarky letter by reminding him about Canada’s international
obligations regarding war criminals and crimes against humanity that we signed
on to. Kenny, meanwhile, says he was inspired to write his letter to “correct
the record” based on Stéphane Dion’s letters to Jacques Parizeau. Somehow I
doubt that Dion was as dismissive or threw tantrums in writing form.
(Here’s a closer look at some of the problems with IRB determinations and the fact that the current appeals process
isn’t really much of one, so we don’t know if any of the IRB determinations
Kenney is relying on are in fact not flawed).
And the Federal Court has ruled that CSIS
really, really should rethink their decision to censor historical documents around
their/previous RCMP surveillance of figures like Tommy Douglas. We’ll see if
that happens.
