Party's War Of 1812 Spending Plans Exclude Key Figure's Resting Place

The Conservative government's multi-million dollar effort to ensure Canadians never forget the War of 1812 may have sidelined a key figure in the conflict.

Liberal MP Carolyn Bennett told The Huffington Post Canada Wednesday that she was shocked to discover that the grave of Shawnee Chief Tecumseh has been left uncared for when she visited Walpole Island, Ont., near the U.S. border.

Industry Minister Paradis asks NDP to endorse Quebec anti-protest law

OTTAWA - Prime Minister Stephen Harper`s Quebec lieutenant, Christian Paradis, challenged opposition New Democrats Tuesday to offer their symbolic support in Parliament to an anti-protest law adopted by Premier Jean Charest to quell social unrest in the province.

``We`ll see now if the NDP is serious about this,'' Paradis said, heading into the daily question period in the House of Commons. ``Does the NDP support the principle of the rule of law?''

The Commons: If Kevin Page has overstepped his mandate, maybe it’s time to expand it

The Scene. It was just two years ago, Peggy Nash reported to the House, that a Conservative MP was heard to remark that the Parliamentary Budget Officer had “improved the decision making of Parliament.”

But just yesterday, Ms. Nash next recalled, the Foreign Affairs Minister had stood and suggested that the Parliamentary Budget Officer had “from time to time and on occasion … overstepped its mandate.”

Ms. Nash was confused. “Do Conservatives really think that Kevin Page has gone beyond his mandate?” she asked, shrugging and throwing up her hands.

Trans Pacific-Partnership: A few questions

The Harper government currently lists 18 different sets of free trade negotiations "in play." (See my recent post on this.) The government recently announced (from the G20 meetings in Mexico): Canada has been invited to join the Trans Pacific Partnership talks. The TPP negotiations were initiated several years ago by a number of smaller Pacific countries. The Obama government jumped on board in 2009, arguing that it could be a "new kind" of trade deal, one that supposedly embodies more "humane" founding principles (side deals on labour and environment, and all that claptrap). This is window dressing, of course; it's clear that (with a couple of exceptions noted below) this deal will be very much founded on the NAFTA template: investor rights and mobility, protections for intellectual property, and disciplines on state interventions. Mexico has also now been invited to join the talks. Reporters already breathlessly refer to this invitation as a big "prize," like we're being admitted to an elite club.

Tories ignore Elizabeth May's budget bill quiz challenge

OTTAWA — It was a challenge that went unanswered.

Not one Conservative MP showed up to take Green leader Elizabeth May's open-book test on the contents of Bill C-38 Tuesday morning, and May said she wasn't surprised.

"Why bother to know what's in this act, if reading it and understanding it can get you fired?" May said in an empty room, save for a stack of unopened quizzes, a copy of the bill, and some untouched pitchers of water.

Pipeline spills are not the exception in Alberta, they are an oily reality

When a smiling Alberta Premier Alison Redford describes last week's pipeline spill of 475,000 litres of oil into a pristine river as an "exception," she is serving up unadulterated spin.

Something is exceptional when it happens so infrequently that when it does occur, it's a surprise.

But I know from my reporting career, which was ushered in by a series of massive pipeline spills in Alberta more than 40 years ago, that these events occur with depressing regularity.

Romney's 'Some Towns Just Don't Count' Tour

Mitt Romney’s “Every Town Counts” bus tour brought the presumptive Republican presidential nominee across southern Wisconsin and into Iowa Monday and Tuesday.

But the towns didn’t count enough for him to learn their real histories and their real needs. And the tour scrupulously avoided towns where Romney’s Bain Capital continues to put the hurt on American workers.

Don’t blame the ‘Euro welfare state’

The Conservatives have found their Welfare Queen. Her name is Europe.

The original Welfare Queen, you will recall, was a stock character in Ronald Reagan’s speeches. “There’s a woman in Chicago,” Reagan said in 1976. “She has 80 names, 30 addresses, 12 Social Security cards and is collecting veterans’ benefits on four non-existing deceased husbands. … Her tax-free cash income alone is over $150,000.” She drives a pink Cadillac.

Repeating a sorry legacy

Helen Forsey, daughter of Canada's pre-eminent parliamentary scholar, the late senator Eugene Forsey, sees a parallel between the Harper Conservatives' 450-page omnibus budget bill and the St. Laurent Liberals' conduct during the infamous 1956 pipeline debate. Both demonstrated the government's scorn for Parliament -- the foundation of our democracy.

"The art of parliamentary bullying has recently reached new heights," she writes in her new book, Eugene Forsey - Canada's Maverick Sage. "Outrageous behaviour has increasingly become the norm, with Parliament being treated as a mere showcase, parliamentary debate as window-dressing."

Stop stalling release of donor information for political insiders’ school, Carleton told

OTTAWA — Carleton University has suffered a setback in its fight to withhold information about a $15-million donation to a new school for political insiders.

The university’s request for a nine-week extension was rejected by the information and privacy commissioner of Ontario, which ordered the university to supply an explanation by Tuesday.

The ruling is the latest shot in a year-long battle over a freedom-of-information request it received from The Canadian Press.