The Davos files

With Harper in Davos, preaching “moderation” in the global bank crackdown, is not only talking about his new commitment to women and children in developing countries, but he’s also met with the Prime Minister of Zimbabwe. Harper was silent, apparently, on increasing our aid for that country, which I’m not about to complain about given their human rights record – particularly when it comes to the GLBT community.

Also on the Davos file, the Globe and Mail’s Jane Taber files a rather condescending blog post about Scott Brison’s participation there, painting him as some kind of bumpkin who never thought he’d be there with so many world leaders when gee, he’s only been part of the World Economic Forum’s young global leader’s programme for years now and attends the Davos and “summer Davos” in Dalian, China, regularly. And it’s not like he hasn’t been meeting with global leaders over trade issues for years either, so this is, like, totally new for him, obviously.

Ignatieff, incidentally, is sceptical of the new Conservative commitment to women and children. And hey, when it comes to women in top jobs in our own country, it looks like we’ve…stalled. Hmm. Perhaps Harper may need to realise that to lead by example, he still needs to fund things like Status of Women.

Transport Minister John Baird held a press conference yesterday to celebrate the one-year anniversary of their Economic Action Plan. And sure, he pointed to all kinds of projects on the go, but had no numbers on job creation. His Liberal critic, Gerard Kennedy, hijacked the end of the press conference to point this out, had some concrete examples of what his party would have done differently. Not long later, the party unveiled some new proposals for job creation.

The NDP’s Paul Dewar held a press conference yesterday to keep the Afghan detainee issue in the media, and he raised the possibility that the government wouldn’t reconstitute the special committee on Afghanistan, which we all know they prorogued Parliament to stonewall. The PMO immediately turned around to assure Canadians that they do care about Afghanistan and that the committee will indeed be reconstituted. But no mention as to whether or not they’re still going to boycott it or play procedural games to stonewall its inquiry into the detainee issue.

Jim Flaherty is calling for the world to cancel Haiti’s debts, just like Canada did last fall. And you can be sure the NDP is going to take credit for this one. Oh, and it seems the government’s response to the Haiti crisis hasn’t helped them in the polls. More proof that Canadians do care about the prorogation issue, and they’re not so quick to forgive – or forget.

There’s been an update on the Richard Colvin story – turns out he is finally getting his money back for hiring independent counsel. Not that the government had to be embarrassed into doing it or anything.

Up today – Liberal MP Rob Oliphant hosts his roundtable session on veterans, which includes a keynote address by Senator Roméo Dallaire.