Chief Electoral Officer Marc Mayrand issued his ruling today [PDF here] on an application by Stéphane Dion's Liberal leadership campaign for an extension to pay off campaign debts. Like he did for other leadership candidates, Mayrand gave Dion until the end of 2009 to pay off debts that , as of June 3, added up to $690,000. If Dion's team takes all of the extension to pay that off, he will most certainly be fighting the next general election campaign while fighting to pay off his leadership campaign.

This is culled from the briefing books given to MP Rob Nicholson when he was sworn in back in February of 2006 as Government House Leader and Minister for Democratic Reform.... The Governor General then reads the Speech from the Throne, after which, the Speaker, the Prime Minister and the MPs return to the House of Commons. The business for the day's sitting then proceeds: The Prime Minister moves for leave to Introduce the pro forma Bill C-I, An Act respecting the Administration of Oaths of Office (this bill does not proceed and is introduced only to assert the House's right to pass legislation and conduct debates); The Speaker reports receipt of a copy of the Speech from the Throne; The Prime Minister moves that the Speech from the Throne be considered either later that day or on some future day; The Speaker announces the membership of the House of Commons Board of Internal Economy; The Prime Minister moves the appointments of a Chairman, a Deputy Chairman and an Assistant Deputy Chairman of Cornmrttees of the Whole; The President of the Treasury Board moves a continuing Order for the consideration of Supply; Two backbench MPs (selected In advance by the Prime Minister) move and second the Address in Reply to the Speech from the Throne, usually on the same day as the Speech; and The debate on the Throne Speech Is then usually adjourned by the Leader of the Opposition until the next day.

He's one has a little fun with the obsession with the horse race approach to political coverage in the most recent New Yorker: Cheering the Obama camp, particularly after his Middle East visits, a Fox News/Toronto Star/Amway poll, released but not yet caught, charts a severe downturn in support for efforts not to not repeal the NAFTA treaty. But the influence on French public opinion of the marriage of President Nicolas Sarkozy and international hottie Carla Bruni will have to wait until tomorrow. Meanwhile, the normally reliable Quinnipiac University poll was travelling and was unavailable for comment.

I report today on a new Ipsos Reid poll, a poll taken this week as the Conservatives were meeting near Quebec City during which Prime Minister Stephen Harper to "fish or cut bait".... And, as my friend Paul Wells sort of pointed out: If the bait was already in the water, wasn't Dion already fishing?... The poll finds that Canadians are hardly moved by all the back-and-forth about the green shift and Harper's attacks: 34 per cent would vote Conservative; 30 per cent would vote Liberal.

You can read the whole report for yourself and I have summarized the good bits here from the timeline in that report: March 31 — NATO Summit Conference background books, classified as SECRET are hand-delivered to a Bernier assistant.... April 20 — Ian Brodie, then the prime minister’s chief of staff, telephones Bernier to alert him to rumours about Couillard’s past associated with members of Montreal biker gang.... May 25, 2 p.m. — Bernier’s chief of staff Aaron Gairdner takes a call from Couillard’s lawyer, advising him that she has received government documents from Couillard with instructions that they be returned tot he government.