Each week, the Maclean’s Ottawa bureau sits down to discuss the stories behind the week’s stories in our politics podcast, On The Hill.

They also gather in the OMNI studios to talk about the stories that matter. This week, Paul Wells and John Geddes joined Cormac MacSweeney. The trio hashed out the government’s planned rewrite of a long-gun registry law that could excuse alleged lawbreaking on the part of the RCMP—a feat akin to Bruce Willis’s time travel in Looper. They also make sense of the NDP’s sustained momentum in horse-race polls, a conversation that inspired comparisons between the party’s reunited leadership and Avengers: Age of Ultron. The panel finished by trading thoughts on the future of the increasingly vacant Senate of Canada. Curious how the august chamber resembles Ben Stiller’s Night at the Museum trilogy? Listen to the end.

THE HEADLINES

• 
  ON BRIDGES
  Canada’s $4-billion gift to Americans

• 
  ON C-59
  Tories undo alleged law-breaking

• 
  ON NOTLEY
  The surprising premier, a family story

• ON HARPER
  ‘I like the way me thinks!’

• 
  ON ELECTIONS
  Tory wins are seldom smooth

• 
  ON MULRONEY
  Wells speaks with the former PM