The 39th Parliament and side note

Well, I'll start with the side note and progress onto the Parliament. NDP MP's are upset with one of their own. Former MP, Bev Desjarlais, has taken a position with Veteran's Affairs Minister, Greg Thompson. I guess they have trouble understanding how one might set aside partisan issues to work for the betterment of the people. NDP Caucus Chairwoman, Judy Wasylycia-Leis (Winnipeg North), had this to say: "It's hard to understand how Bev could have gone from being an active New Democrat to actually supporting and upholding the Stephen Harper agenda. [It] is just mind-boggling and very disappointing." Not everybody has the same opinion however. MP Peter Stoffer, NDP foreign affairs critic, was quite congratulatory and happy for her. For more details, check out this Globe and Mail article.

On another note, the 39th Parliament of Canada opens on April 3rd. PM Stephen Harper has indicated there a 5 major priorities that they hope to work on during this session of the House. These are as follows: The introduction of a Federal Accountability Act, a reduction in the GST (a .5% cut seems likely), a crackdown on crime, child care and a Patient Wait Times Guarantee agreement with the provinces. In the next couple of weeks, I'm going to go over each point and break them down into what we might actually see and what it could mean for Canada.