Sunday Afternoon Links

Assorted content to complete your weekend...

- Scott Feschuk has the definitive commentary on the Cons' attempt to distract Canadian voters with pandas:

We must be in tight with the Chinese now because they’ve rented us pandas for an exorbitant sum—the kind of transaction they’ve entered into with only their very bestest friends, such as Germany and Australia. And the United States. And Spain and Thailand and Singapore and Mexico and Japan and Taiwan and wait are we the last country on Earth to get some freaking bears out of these people? Are we going to be stuck with the slow-witted pandas—the ones every other nation passed on? Mommy, why does the cuddly panda bear keep falling out of the tree?
...
What’s really important is this: after five years, Stephen Harper finally has a legacy. He didn’t cut wait times or create those child-care spaces he promised. He didn’t balance the budget or protect the environment or smile without physical effort. But he did send half his cabinet around the world to beg for 600 lb. of panda bear for zoo visitors to enjoy and, presumably, Peter MacKay to wrestle late one night to impress a girl.

Sleep easy, Canada. Our long national nightmare of pandalessness will soon be over.

- In case anybody was still willing to give the benefit of any doubt about the Cons' jaw-droppingly flawed decision-making that resulted in the expenses of the G8 and G20 conferences, this should put that to rest:

Accommodations for the RCMP, who sent nearly 20,000 officers to the two summits, topped $65-million, including big bills from nearly every major hotel in Toronto.

But most of the accommodation cost, $57-million, went to a massive trailer camp in Muskoka – a cost of $700 per room per night, according to RCMP officials. The lack of available hotel rooms near the Deerhurst summit left no other option, RCMP officials said.

So for the sake of giving Tony Clement bragging rights about holding the G8 in his backyard, the Harper government made a choice to spend tens of millions more on accommodations to protect the smaller, barely-protested conference - when it was possible to accommodate more officers in Toronto for far less.

- And in other news about the Cons' consistent choices to waste public money...

- Finally, David Livingstone offers up a friendly reminder as to where the Fraser Institute's constant attacks on social values come from and why. (H/t to Next Year Country.)