The saga of Bev Oda and the wayward "not" has gripped the House of Commons. But it turns out a recent situation from Saskatchewan provincial politics has worked its way into the debate over whether the Conservative international co-operation minister breached the parliamentary privileges of MPs. Just before the House of Commons broke for a week, NDP MP Libby Davies raised in debate a ruling by Speaker Don Toth. In the spring 2010 sitting of the legislature, Toth found there was enough evidence to suggest Health Minister Don McMorris had misled the assembly to warrant a debate over whether he was in contempt of the legislature…"I believe that in this ruling, the Speaker in Saskatchewan clearly established that the test is not the member's statement in reply to an allegation, but it is actually the evidence before the Speaker that establishes the prima facie case," she said.

The Harper government issued its first, grudging acknowledgment Friday that a controversial funding decision and subsequent cover-up by International Co-operation Minister Bev Oda may have been less than pristine…Lukiwski also made the case that just because Oda testified in December that she didn't know who added the hand-written word "NOT" to the Kairos funding approval, that didn't contradict her later assertion that she ordered the revision. "Precise answers to questions do not constitute contempt," said Lukiwski. He blamed Liberal MP John McKay, who "should have asked different, or more, questions, or been more diligent in his inquiry." Transcripts of Oda's Dec. 9 testimony at the foreign affairs committee show McKay being cut off by Conservative chairman Dean Allison as he pressed the minister on the specifics of her knowledge about the doctored document. NDP MP Libby Davies called the government response "very tawdry." "They're hiding behind ludicrous technicalities," she said in an interview.

OTTAWA – Canada's overall immigration levels aren't changing, Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney says…Overall, our target is consistent," Kenney told a House of Commons committee…Numbers released to CBC News, however, show a 20 per cent cut in the skilled worker category and 25 per cent cut for parents and grandparents who want to be reunited with children in Canada. NDP MP Libby Davies says the new target for parents and grandparents means some families will have to wait as long as 13 years for the government to decide whether their loved ones can come to Canada. "Now, that's clearly unacceptable in terms of wait times," Davies told Kenney in the committee meeting. "Your government has said repeatedly that the backlog is going to be cleaned up, that we won't have these incredible wait times. And yet … we're faced with dramatically different information."

NANAIMO, BC – The debate over cellular phone antennas and the possibility of associated health impacts continues to heat up around North America…Local governments should be more involved in site selection for these towers, according to Vancouver East MP Libby Davies. She is working on a private members bill that outlines why the federal government should take more of an active role in determining where the towers are installed. It explicitly demands that municipalities be far more involved in the process.