A periodic assessment

Notes from today's Question Period:

- Elizabeth May's riding announcement was obviously as poorly kept as a secret can be in Canadian politics. But her choice of issues may be more surprising: in addition to the environment and foreign policy, she seems to want to make a major theme out of MacKay's role in the PC/Alliance merger. Given that MacKay won 43% of the vote in the 2004 election and saw his margin of victory decrease in 2006 after the merger presumably faded in voters' memories, it's questionable why May would want to attack that relatively distant decision rather than the ample material offered by the Harper government.

- As usual, Jim Flaherty didn't have much of interest to say. This is all too likely to be true tomorrow as well.

- More interesting was that Stephane Dion wouldn't rule out essentially conceding in Central Nova, declaring only that no decision has been made as to whether or not to try to foist May onto the riding's voters. Can we safely say that any talk of a 308-riding strategy for the Libs is now in the past?

- From Jack Layton's appearance, the most significant news looks to be the apparent lack of progress to date on the committee reviewing C-30. I'd think it would have been all the better for Layton to point out that it would be equally possible to strike a deal with the other opposition parties as with the Cons. However, if the NDP is now saying little more than that the committee is still around rather than that it's likely to get much done, that seems to give a strong sense of what has (and hasn't) happened over the past couple of months.