The reviews are in

Susan Delacourt on just how obvious it is that even to the extent Con MPs could be bothered to carry out consultations, those had no effect whatsoever on Emperor Harper's plans:

I believe it was CanWest reporter David Akin who told us that federal cabinet ministers howled in protest when they first learned of the plan on Wednesday morning.

Yes. Wednesday morning. This whole kerfuffle over the anthem, if nothing else, has given us a bit of insight into the "consulting" claims of the government over the past two-plus months of prorogation. Others have made this observation too; I don't claim it to be original, but why the heck did the government need all that time to "recalibrate" its plans -- if writing the Throne Speech amounted to jotting some hare-brained schemes on the back of an envelope and sending them to the committee of speechwriters?

It also tells us how much the cabinet is in the loop too. Keep that picture in your mind, of Canada's ministers of the Crown, only learning of their government's overall plan a few hours before the rest of the country heard it. Relatedly, Immigration Minister Jason Kenney seems not to have known that he deliberately excluded gay rights from the citizenship guide, leaving us with the suggestion that someone else -- an aide, perhaps -- did it for him. So this is what it's like to be a cabinet minister these days? You're told at the eleventh hour of the government's marching plans and aides make decisions for you?