Politics

Tease the day: Parliament could sound like a broken record, or not

Whenever the opposition hammers away at the same issue a few days running, it gets boring quickly. Their questions are unchanging. Government responses are unchanging. No one listens to each other. Eventually, the exchanges devolve, naturally, into pot shots about who cares less about Canadians. It all becomes boring, rather quickly, since everyone watching stops learning anything new. There’s little headline news today to distract MPs from recent topics du jour, so MPs will either bore us to death or, with a little luck, at least find different ways to ask and answer the same questions. Place your bets in the comments.


What’s above the fold this morning?

The Globe and Mail leads with more details about the case of alleged Canadian spy Jeffrey Delisle. The National Post fronts the debate about what to do with beef recalled from the XL meat processing plant. The Toronto Star goes international, with a top story about President Barack Obama’s performance in last night’s presidential debate. The Ottawa Citizen leads with a PTSD-diagnosed soldier billed by the Department of National Defence for sick leave. iPolitics fronts the news that Premier Dalton McGuinty won’t seek the federal Liberal leadership. National Newswatch leads with Chantal Hébert’s column in the Toronto Star about upcoming byelections as potential political game-changers.


Stories that will dominate the Hill Stories that will be (mostly) missed
1. Foreign investment. Expect more questions from opposition MPs about the blocked takeover of Progress Energy Resources by Malaysia-based Petronas. MPs will ask for clarity on the “net benefit” clause of the Investment Canada Act. 1. Language demographics. The number of Canadians whose mother tongue is neither English nor French is set to surpass Canada’s French-speaking population. That’s what experts say census data released tomorrow will reveal.
2. Omnibus legislation. There’s no sign the opposition will roll over and accept the omnibus budget bill working its way through the House of Commons. Expect more questions on navigable waters, among other contentious elements of the bill. 2. Robocall allegations. The Conservatives are fighting back against suggestions they fiddled with democracy in several ridings, attempting in court documents to discredit the complaint of a voter who actually lives in a different riding.

Scorecard for yesterday’s Tease: There were about five stories that might have featured prominently during Question period, all of which were mentioned in the intro to yesterday’s tease. The opposition jumped on most. I wagered Glen McGregor’s story in the Ottawa Citizen about ministers’ spouses not placing publicly traded securities in a blind trust would have had more play. It merited just a single question. I didn’t bet foreign takeovers would have been the top issue during QP, which it was.

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