The tale of the puppet master

For those of you who haven’t been paying much attention to what’s been going on the past few weeks with the census debacle, The Canadian Press has you covered. Ace reporters Jennifer Ditchburn and Heather Scoffield have compiled an exhaustive accounting of how Stephen Harper has played puppet master and has been pulling the strings on this whole ugly affair for months, if not longer, and how he’s tried to keep Canadians from finding out about it while he’s at it. It’s a compelling and worthwhile read, which I encourage everyone to do.

Michael Ignatieff’s Liberal Express was in New Brunswick, where he was championing the nuclear sector and questioning the Port Lepreau reactor refurbishment costs.

The provincial premiers are meeting this week and plan to talk about the economy, water and the census.

CSIS has quietly begun a review of its activities around Afghan detainees because of serious questions as to whether they’ve been using information obtained through torture, as well as their other Afghanistan operations. Small surprise the experts say this smacks of a damage control exercise.

The Shell refinery in Montreal looks set to close. So much for all those emergency industry committee meetings on the subject.

Here’s an article about the 76 countries that still prosecute you for being queer, which talks about the fact that the UK still has a ways to go.

And the Toronto Star takes a closer look at Canada’s newest senator, and finds that she is no Conservative hack (even if she did run for them once).

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