MPs have a week left on the Hill before heading back to their ridings for the rest of the summer. Whenever I had a week of school left, it was time to gear down and coast to the end. Not so for our MPs. Today is one of the busiest I’ve seen this session on the Parliamentary calendar. I’m not complaining, or anything, but these are just the main event happenings on my beat today:
- The Senate Committee on National Security and Defence will hear testimony today from Jim Judd, the top guy at CSIS — the spy agency that investigated the 17 people arrested on terrorism charges in Toronto. So far as I know, it will be Judd’s first public appearance since those arrests and Senators will want to talk to him about it. William Elliott also appears before this committee. He is associate deputy minister in Stockwell Day’s deparment: The Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness. The buzz in Ottawa, though, is that Elliott is more influential than his title suggests. He has been in his current job only for a few months but had been the National Security Advisor to the Prime Minister (both Martin and Harper) since early 2005 but earned his stripes in Ottawa during the Mulroney era, serving as a top advisor to then Deputy Prime Minister Don Mazankowski. The Committee also interviews top officials at the Canada Border Services Agency and Transport Canada about border security.
- Justice Minister Vic Toews is in front of the Commons committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics where he’s going to talk about the governnment’s approach to Access to Information — a topic near and dear to the heart of every journalist and not near and dear enough to the heart of most Canadians. His views may be challenged by Information Commissioner John Reid, who is also before the committee.
- Finance Minister Jim Flaherty starts the day in Halifax where he will be talking about the creation of a new national securities regulator then he flies to Ottawa where he tells the Commons finance committee about his plans to create a Parliamentay Budget Office.
- All of the provincial trade ministers are in Ottawa today where they are meeting with International Trade Minister David Emerson. Their mission: Figure out ways to knock down interprovincial trade barriers.
- The Commons Committee that examines our international trade issues is yakking about softwood lumber.
- And, if the rain holds off, Speaker Peter Milliken hosts the annual Speakers Barbeque for Parliamentarians, to which I am invited, at official residence of the Speaker, The Farm at Kingsmere.