When the Prime Minister appointed longtime journalist and broadcaster Mike Duffy to the Senate it was to represent Prince Edward Island (PEI), not the province where Duffy actually lived, Ontario. 

Duffy was born and raised in PEI and still has, we are told, deep connections there.

The original Canadian Constitution, the British North America (BNA) Act, says a Senator must "reside" in the province she/he represents. But the notion of "residence" is, apparently, "undefined."

The Conservative Leader in the Senate, Marjorie LeBreton, and Prime Minister Harper have argued that Duffy's intimate connections to the Island qualify him to represent it in the Senate, even if he is not a resident in the "normal" sense of the word.

A lot happens in Parliament, aside from the theatre of Question Period and the now ritualized scrums that follow in the lobby of the House.

Some of it is sublime; some, ridiculous.

Some of it is enlightening; some, mind-numbing.

And most of it happens far from the gaze of the media or the public.

On April 25, for instance, the House Finance Committee heard from a number of expert witnesses on -- believe it or not -- the subject of inequality.

How and why -- in this time, and with the current Conservative Party in power -- a House of Commons committee decided to even talk about such a subject is a bit of a mystery.

It happened, however, and it was an exercise that might have merited a bit more attention.

Are the Conservatives interfering with the CBC in a dangerous way -- or just seeing to it that salaries at crown corporations fall in line with those in the private sector?

One thing is certain: this government is definitely inserting itself into collective bargaining at the CBC, and at other crown corporations -- entities which, historically, have operated at arm's length from government.

The Conservatives are quite unabashed about this, and they are not fazed by the argument that this sort of interference has never happened before.

Predictably, Parliamentary Secretary (and Harper's current chief purveyor of anger), Pierre Poilievre, characterizes this Conservative initiative as taking on the "union bosses."

Sometimes Immigration Minister Jason Kenney can get a bit too enthusiastic.

It happened, for instance, on Monday afternoon, when he was explaining one of the hastily-concocted changes to the government's temporary foreign worker program.

The change in question was the new rule obliging employers who use temporary foreign workers to provide a plan showing how they will transition to full time Canadian workers.

As he was elaborating on this reform, Kenney got carried away and exulted that even farmers who bring in help from other countries will have to abide by this new rule.

Oops!

A moment later, Kenney had to correct himself and admit that farmers are, in fact, excluded.