Ottawa debates Iraq mission, Victoria begins its fall legislature

In Ottawa the federal government is debating participating in air strikes against ISIS.

The Harper government has offered up 6 CF-18 fighter jets and three support aircraft for a mission that polls say a small majority of the Canadian public supports.

Despite that, the leader of the NDP Tom Mulcair insists that the Canadian mission should focus on humanitarian aid.

“There is a slight majority of Canadians that are in favor of that (the mission). On this side of the house, we’ve always stood by a question of principal when we realize that everything unfolding before our eyes is the direct result of the wrongheaded mission in 2003. We know that more bombing is not the answer.”

The Conservative government stated that airstrikes would be Iraq specific and that they would not hit targets within Syria unless invited to do so by the Assad regime. That point angered Mulcair;

“Why would we give creditability to a character like Bashar Al Assad, saying that if he makes a request, we will answer that request. That gives him a creditability he doesn’t deserve he is a genocidal maniac and we should not be giving him any credibility at all.”

In Victoria, MLAs are sitting down to a rare fall sitting of the legislature. Although today was dedicated to tradition and ceremony, Christy Clark is expected to unveil the provinces tax policy for the LNG industry in the coming weeks.

Government will try to strike a delicate balance between sufficient tax revenues and keeping the industry happy. Emissions control policies will also to a part of the package.

Malaysian state owned Petronas has threatened to delay 10 billion dollar plant in Prince Rupert saying they are worried tax policy won’t be competitive enough. Today they set an end of October deadline for an agreement with the provincial government on ways to reduce the costs of the project. That pressure is what likely caused this very rare fall sitting of the legislature.

The high cost of hiring local labour is also something Petronas in concerned about.