Oh, Canadian politics. Did you really have
to be so busy while I was on vacation, virtually unplugged and confined to
radio silence? And what did I miss? Harper announcing a visit to China, Lise
St-Denis’s defection from the NDP to the Liberals (and really, what does it say
about the state of the NDP when St-Denis wasn’t even willing to see how the
leadership would turn out before feeling the need to up sticks), and utter
moral outrage (almost entirely misplaced) over the announcement to clarify
regulations on same-sex divorce (even though we knew this was coming way back in October), and Mike Crawley being elected Liberal Party president (while
the party opted not to touch the monarchy and to look at legalizing
marijuana). So the moral here is
no more vacations for me, right?
Speaking of St-Denis’s defection, Nycole
Turmel is headed to her riding office (along with Ruth Ellen Brosseau, who, as
you all know, has made a great life-long commitment to politics and engaging the
grassroots of her party) to talk about the defection, while the New Democrats set up a campaign of robo-calls to harass St-Denis’s office to show that they weren’t
“abandoning the voters” in the riding (caution: possible paywall). It looks
like the NDP has taken another page out of the Conservative/Republican
playbook when it comes to using these kinds of tactics.
Oh noes! Thomas Mulcair has dual French
citizenship and will keep it should he hypothetically one day win the NDP leadership
and become prime minister. Let’s all get hysterical about the divided
loyalties! Stéphane Dion, who faced similar criticism, says this is what
multiculturalism is all about.
Stephen Fletcher will be taking a leave of
absence as minister of state for transport while he undergoes an unspecified
medical procedure. Oh no! Who will deliver random talking points in his
absence? (Denis Lebel, apparently.) And here I thought it was going to be John
Duncan to resign for “health reasons” first.
The premiers met in Victoria, and they’re
still fuming about the unilateral decree on healthcare transfer funding.
A Canadian naval intelligence officer has
been charged with passing along information to a foreign entity. Drama!
And a scholarship has been set up in
Michael Ignatieff’s name.
Why you can trust Xtra
