Among other budget fallout, the
Conservatives have signalled that they will reform EI to try to cut down on its
“reliance” by those in seasonal industries, which makes some people on the East
Coast nervous that it could mean a mass migration westward. Legislation on MP
pensions will likely come in the fall. The death of the Public Appointments
Commission Secretariat – which hasn’t done any work – is another scrapped promise of Harper’s earlier days. Jim Flaherty says that the budget changes won’t
leave the provinces short – and then went on to pick a fight with Ontario. Here
are some questions raised by the changes made to innovation tax credits. The
diplomatic community is warning of the true cost to Canada’s reputation by the
plans to scale back diplomatic residences (and the plan really is pretty
boneheaded when you look at the realities of diplomacy, which this government
still has no knack for six years later). And First Nations in BC are preparing to fight the government attempts to “streamline” the environmental assessment
process of the Northern Gateway pipeline.
Thomas Mulcair is starting to play the game
of issuing separate releases for Quebec than the rest of the country, as he did
with the budget. Bob Rae, meanwhile, is put out by the New Democrats’ choice to use
their right of unlimited time in budget debate to shut them out of any debate
on Friday.
Susan Delacourt examines how, from
robo-calls to DDOS attacks on online voting, computers and machines are becoming
important players in our democracy.
Rob Anders, no longer on the veterans’ affairs committee, writes a typo- and grammatical-error-ridden letter to The
Prince Arthur Herald about further loosening gun regulations in this country.
Stephen Harper’s sixth communications
director has resigned. If Harper’s d-comms were wives of Henry VIII, I believe
Angelo Persichilli would be Anne of Cleves.
Here is a bit of an obituary, if you will,
for the humble penny.
And here’s Bev Oda’s verbal slip from QP on Thursday about
eating babies, which got edited out of Hansard.
Why you can trust Xtra
