The Premier of New Brunswick looks eager to
sign off on Harper’s disastrous Senate reform plans, and he’s willing to table
some “consultative elections” legislation like Alberta’s (which I will remind
you is a giant farce). Of course, we’ll see how he feels once it occurs to him
that under said law, his province would be required to pick up the tab for such
a meaningless gesture of a “consultative election” – one of the reasons why
Saskatchewan opted not to put their own “consultative election” legislation into
action. (Also, here is Stéphane Dion’s speech as to why the Liberals are not
supporting the reform bill, and lays out some very good constitutional reasons why).
The CBC has learned that the government
will be laying out a small business tax credit programme aimed at job creation
on Tuesday.
Alberta is about to have a new premier – Alison Redford,
the province’s first female premier. Maclean’s
Colby Cosh gives a great analysis of the leadership race here.
In case you missed the news, Paul Dewar has announced his intentions to run for the NDP leadership. In a piece in the Ottawa Citizen, Dewar credits his
Catholic faith for his interest in politics.
Brian Topp, meanwhile, gained the endorsement – and campaign contributions – of several high-profile Canadian
actors thanks to his work with their union, ACTRA.
Michael Geist breaks down some of the issues with the re-tabled copyright bill.
Criminologist Justin Piché looks at the
provincial capacity for new jails, who are trying to deal with their current
overcrowding before the new tough-on-crime legislation comes into play, and
many of those provinces haven’t been looking at what the impact of those new
bills will be for them. This could prove to be a problem.
A new book out on the Afghan conflict lays
out some of the secretive games the PMO was playing – even keeping Peter MacKay
out of the loop on some of it.
And Mitchel Raphael of Maclean’s posts some pictures of the politicians at the Egale
Canada gala, including Senator Nancy Ruth.
