Portrait of the wrong queen

Remember that whole issue about ensuring
that the Queen’s portrait is hung in our embassies? It seems that may have
been touched off when John Baird was offended that an old picture of him was
hanging in our embassy in Mexico. Right idea – wrong queen, it seems.

It looks like Jason Kenney’s proposed
immigration caps will be targeted toward parents and grandparents under family
class applicants – no matter that those numbers have been declining and are at
their lowest level in years. Oh, and there’s still zero acknowledgment from
anyone that the auditor general pointed out that the Conservatives created the

backlog when they refused to fill vacancies on the IRB.

Amidst the anniversary-palooza that the
government is planning to mark all manner of historical events over the next
few years, an NDP MP wants to make sure that the role of women isn’t entirely effaced throughout. Laura Secord’s role has been prominent in the War of 1812 talk, while
there are plans to mark the 100th anniversary of women winning the
right to vote in 2017, but there is a lot of Fathers of Confederation talk,
without a lot of acknowledgment of the roles that women played in these
events.

The long-gun registry-killing bill never
did show up on the order paper last week, despite notice having been given. Current
supposition is that the government held it back because last week was too
packed with other business (shipyards, Supreme Court appointment vetting, the
destruction of the Canadian Wheat Board, to name but a few). No doubt it’ll
show up before too long.

Brian Topp has become the first NDP
leadership candidate to advocate taxing the rich on top of higher corporate
taxes. Meanwhile, outsider leadership candidate Martin Singh is running on a
more pro-business platform, which could inject some real difference into the
race.

Aaron Wherry gives us some background on
what the Conservatives meant when they said the Quebec Bar Association
supported the omnibus crime bill. As with most things, there’s more to the
story than just they “support” it.

And the new Supreme Court justices will be sworn in Thursday. Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin says she’s looking
forward to working with them.