If it wasn't for the men and women dressed in white lab coats and protective boots keeping a close eye on the lights and gauges in the control room at the Chalk River nuclear laboratories, you'd think you were in a museum. The place is that old.

Of course, the escort of men in military-style uniforms — and carrying assult weapons — also reminds you of the present sensitivity of this half-century old facility.

Cast your mind back. It is easy to picture scientists hidden away on this 4,000-hectare site doing their modest bit on the secretive Manhattan project all those years ago.

It's more difficult to imagine what they would think of a bus load of journalists traipsing through the joint taking pictures and asking them what they are up to.

Never mind the huge snow storm that socked in Ottawa and most of central Canada over the weekend, that was not going to stop the prime minister from making a holiday announcement at a place of his choosing. Come Monday morning, he was already on the road.

This early press conference would take place in an old Salvation Army warehouse in the west end of Ottawa, in an industrial mall that most reporters had never been anywhere near, let alone with a PM.

Taxis couldn't find it, reporters were stuck in snow in those same taxis and satellite trucks were found kilometres away looking for the country's prime minister. Where in the world is ...?

Eventually everyone met up and Harper announced his planned legislation that would lead to safer toys. Surrounded by an instant backdrop of over-sized children's toys, Harper said he didn't want "Canadians to have to worry about the toys they are putting under the tree." The proposed legislation will allow for mandatory product recalls and will "force importers to take responsibility for products they bring into Canada." It is also supposed to lead to increased inspections of certain imported goods.

Citing other duties, Harper left Health Minister Tony Clement to field all the tough questions about toys. And off he went, the undisputed winner of yet another game of chase.

The Conservatives love to talk about how their election victory nearly two years ago ushered in a new era of accountability and transparency.

A farvorite target of theirs has been the lobbyists whose firms occupy suites in some of the most expensive office towers just below Parliament Hill.

In opposition, the Conservatives railed against the influence of lobbyists tied to the former Liberal government. They vowed to stop the revolving door between the corridors of power and the halls of influence.

Well then, isn't it interesting to see a well-connected former Conservative aide has been hired as a lobbyist by Taser International, the leading maker of the stun guns used by the RCMP and other police forces, which are now very much in the news.

Ken Boessenkool worked as a senior adviser to Stockwell Day when he was treasurer of Alberta. Day, of course, is now the minister of public safety, responsible for the RCMP.

In his lobbyist registration, Boessenkool lists among his duties promoting an awareness campaign to educate decision-makers on the facts of Taser International's products.

Among the government institutions to be contacted? The department of public safety, headed by his former boss.

It's not often journalists get to Parliament Hill and find the front doors still barred. But that's what met some reporters this morning when they rushed to get seats, and preferably seats at a table, for today's testimony by former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney.

Once inside through the secondary doors under the Peace Tower, journalists had a difficult choice to make. Almost all the seats to the right of where Mulroney would be sitting had already been staked out by early bird television reporters who had arrived even earlier to do live hits for breakfast morning shows.

That left seats at the front table, to the left and behind Mulroney and seats at the back of the room. The seats at the table would have been ideal, except they were in front of a row of seats reserved for Mulroney's wife Mila and their four children. That meant photographers and video cameras will be constantly training their lenses at the family and the reporters up front.

Journalists don't want to be caught in mid-yawn, licking the icing off a cookie or rolling their eyes during the testimony. Choosing the front row seat might mean four hours of writing comfortably at a table, but it also means four hours of exemplary behaviour and a poker face.

So it turns out one of the technical experts called on by Natural Resources to assess the safety of the NRU Reactor at the Chalk River Nuclear Laboratories is also a member of the board of the Durham Conservative Association.

Robert (Bob) Strickert, in addition to being former manager of Pickering Nuclear Generating Station and former Site Vice President of Darlington Nuclear Generating Station is currently the executive vice-president of the Conservative Association in Bev Oda's riding.

If indeed Brian Mulroney brings his family on Thursday to watch him field questions at the Ethics Committee investigation into his dealings with Karlheinz Schreiber, don't expect Mila and the kids to be front and centre (or as the NDP has put it 'lined up within the camera shot.')

Committee chair Paul Szabo says he'll make room for the Mulroney clan and ensure that they have a good view of the action, but they'll get no special treatment.

Best seats in the house will still go to reporters at their usual front row tables. Says Szabo, the Mulroneys will be provided seats somewhere among those green chairs behind reporters, likely toward the centre.

"They'll be in some camera shots, but not all," he says.

Unless, that is, they get something better from scalpers, who'll no doubt be working the sidewalks outside.

Stephen Harper says his government has consulted “independent experts” who have told him it would be safe to fire up the Chalk River nuclear plant again.

Harper also says the head of the Nuclear Safety Commission is holding up the re-start of the reactor because she’s a Liberal appointee who is deliberately trying to hold up the production of radioactive isotopes.

“Since when does the Liberal party have a right from the grave through one of its previous appointees to block the production of necessary medical products in this country?” he asked the opposition during Question Period.

“The longer this goes on, the greater will be the public health damage and the Liberal Party is standing in the way of fixing this.”

Linda Keen, the president of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, has said it is not yet safe to start up the reactor, which provides the isotopes to hospitals worldwide for use in Xrays.

AECL recently acknowledged that cooling pumps on the reactor were not connected to an emergency power source, putting the reactor out of compliance with its operating licence.

Harper’s attack on the CNSC as a partisan Liberal body drew anger and derision from the opposition benches.

It’s not the first time Harper has relied on independent experts to advise his government rather than relying on professional public servants and other government advisors.

Harper did not immediately make it clear which experts he had consulted in the matter.

Karlheinz Schreiber wrapped up his fourth day of testimony in front of the Ethics committee today.

But it may not be his last.

He has given the committee all sorts of document, tips and ideas on who to call in front of the committee next.

The committee is plodding through it all, but is still having a hard time understanding it and that's not surprising.

The events Schreiber describes date back decades and while many of them lead back to him; they're all awfully different. From light armoured vehicles, to airplanes to German reunification to the ins and outs of the world of lobbying: it's enough to exhaust anyone. Or, at very least, to require a detailed flow chart with pictures of key people.

Say, that's not a bad idea!

Schreiber was in fine form again today. He always seems happy to be in front of the committee. Since being released on bail Schreiber seems more prepared (although for some reason he always wrongly refers to the Prime Minister's house as 26 Sussex and not 24), has got a haircut and arrives with his documents neatly organized in a large (and undoubtedly pricey) Louis Vuitton bag.

Schreiber may get a break over the holidays, but he will likely be listening closely this Thursday; that's when the other key witness finally gets his say.

Brian Mulroney will testify for four hours this week. And while Schreiber says he doesn't care what Mulroney says, it's hard to believe, if for no other reason than Schreiber is suing Mulroney to get back the 300-thousand dollars he gave to the former Prime Minister.

Schreiber says he doesn't hate Mulroney, but it's clear the friendship is over. He says, for him, when things get to a certain point, he cuts friends out and never goes back.

Schreiber, however, will be back: the questions aren't over yet.

Every year around this time, journalists' mailboxes fill up with crisp white envelopes full of cards heralding the holidays and New Year.

Most are somewhat flimsy and feature a pretty and usually frosty picture of the Parliament buildings with a black and white photo of the MP's family inside.

This year, Government House Leader Peter Van Loan was the first MP to get cards out to members of the Parliamentary Press gallery. He signed all of them with a red "Z", like Zorro.

Liberal leader Stephane Dion's card arrived today. On the front is a professional photo of Dion and his family. Daughter Jeanne is seated on the floor, wife Janine is in a relaxed pose on a chair and while Dion is also seated, he's leaning forward to pet the family dog, Kyoto.

It's a really nice photo but once again, Dion looks very serious. Everyone else in the photo is smiling — even the dog — no kidding.

Inside, are the signatures of all three, as well as Kyoto's inky paw print.

Justice John Major heard at the Air India Inquiry today that Canada's air cargo security presents an accident waiting to happen.

Risk assessment expert William Leiss testified that the evidence shows air cargo security in Canada has been a known risk for decades. He said, "I don't understand how anybody could be complacent. With respect to the evidence that is before this inquiry about how long this has been flagged, and the knowledge that we have in this area of risk that there are malevolent people out there probing the system on a continuous basis for the weaknesses that they can exploit."

Leiss said he wanted to hear the minister of transport, Lawrence Cannon, say that this is a priority for the Canadian government.

"What would I expect as a citizen? I expect to hear from the minister of transport that the allocation of resources to air cargo security represents an acceptable risk to Canadians. I want to hear him say that. I want to hear him say it before anything happens. I want to know that someone has taken responsibility for making this judgment, because the evidence seems to suggest that it is an accident waiting to happen."

Air India Flight 182 was brought down in June of 1985 by a bomb on board the plane in an unaccompanied bag in the cargo hold.

The inquiry is scheduled to wrap up next week.

MPs are often accused of doing mundane things in the House of Commons as late night debates drag on.

From reading magazines to signing Christmas cards, to playing solitaire on their laptops. No one really cares.

But when NDP MP Irene Mathyssen said she saw Conservative MP James Moore gazing at a laptop photo of a "scantily clad woman" the other night, it suddenly became a big deal.

"I have very good vision. I know what I saw," Mathyssen told reporters. Turns out, however, what she saw was Moore gazing at a photo of his girlfriend.

She didn't find this out until after she had accused Moore of debasing Parliament, and after some Liberals, who didn't see anything, nonetheless waded and called Moore's actions "disgusting."

In the House, Moore strongly denied anything of the sort took place and called the charge "utterly baseless."

A few hours later Mathyssen apologized after finding out what Moore had really been looking at and said she would do so again in Parliament at the earliest opportunity.

Now, boys and girls.

Norine MacDonald, the president of The Senlis Council, shot back at the minister of national defence today for his dismissal of the Council's latest report on the situation in Afghanistan.

Last week at a defence committee hearing, Peter MacKay said he didn't believe their finding of an increased Taliban presence in Afghanistan.

After outlining their findings this morning, MacDonald said that the minister should go back and look at other studies recently released that support the Council's report.

She added that, "the difficulty with the minister and our government not accepting the reality of what's going on in Southern Afghanistan, is they're shirking their duty to the Canadian people to manage our commitment in Afghanistan properly."

MacKay went so far last week as to challenge the validity of the Council as a whole, asking "with respect to the Senlis Council, who are Senlis? Who do they report for? Who is on the ground in Afghanistan making these observations?"

MacDonald said that she had been hoping to see the minister while she was in Ottawa to explain their methodologies but "we haven't heard back yet whether the minister will see me or not."

The Senlis Council, an international think tank, will be presenting its study's findings to the Manley Commission on Saturday.

Retired General Roméo Dallaire had some harsh criticism for the Conservative government today.

At a press conference this morning he accused the Tories of abandoning our peacekeeping efforts in Darfur.

"We were leading before this new government came into being and now we can barely be seen. We are barely supporting the initial efforts that we have put there, and from being one of the five leading nations, we are now barely on the map."

The press conference was an attempt to call attention to the crisis in Darfur, and get the Conservatives to commit more money and resources to the issue.

Dallaire said the leadership in Canada's current government is "being disgraceful to the history and traditions of peacekeeping of this country and it should be held accountable for that."

When KarlHeinz Schreiber arrived on Parliament Hill this morning and left the cruiser in his handcuffs, he zipped right over to a startled House of Commons police constable, Helene Monette, and said "you are the most beautiful police officer I've ever seen."

Schreiber then went into the Centre Block to give his testimony to the Parliamentary Committee — leaving Helene flustered and burning red.

Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day took a break from the hustle and bustle of Ottawa to spend the weekend in Memphis, Tennesse — but not to relax.

Day ran in the Memphis Marathon on Saturday and didn't do too badly.

He posted a respectable time of three hours 37 minutes and 10 seconds — good enough for a seventh place finish in his age group and 337th overall.

No word if he had a chance to see Graceland.

But he may have found other things to celebrate.

Day's son, Logan, 35, also ran in the same marathon and he finished 20 minutes after his dad, 651st overall, a spokesman for the minister called the CBC to point out.

No competition in that family.

But Logan was magnanimous in defeat. In an email exchange, he observed that his father's "pace yourself, conservative strategy, was much wiser then my sprint liberally strategy."

He also noted: "Dad's marathon time was 20 minutes faster than mine because he has had 22 more years to train."

Paul Anka came home to Ottawa last night for a two hour concert at the National Arts Centre. It was a show of old hits, some written "out there in the west end" of Ottawa.

The hometown crowd loved it. And there, near the front, was former Prime Minister Jean Chretien and his wife Aline.

When Anka waded into the crowd for a medley of old hits he spotted Chretien a few rows back, pointed to him and gave a nod of recognition. The Chretiens, who were with U.S. Ambassdor David Wilkins and his wife, returned the favour at the end of the show. The Chretiens and Wilkins joined Anka and the crowd swaying to the music and singing an encore performance of Diana.