America's new homeland security secretary may have a bit of homework to do when it comes to Canada.

It seems Janet Napolitano hasn't ventured north all that often.

Although born in New York City and raised in Pittsburgh, neither of which is that far from the Canadian border, the former Arizona governor seems much more comfortable with southern geography.

During a conference call with Canadian reporters about her review of the problems surrounding the U.S.'s northern border, Napolitano was asked how often she'd been to Canada.

She replied that years ago she'd visited Winnipeg during her years as a lawyer.

Then, after further thought, she recalled that she'd "also" been to Manitoba and saw some polar bears.

— Kathleen Petty

The federal minister of natural resources opened the annual meeting of the Canadian Nuclear Association in Ottawa Wednesday night.

In her brief remarks, Lisa Raitt praised Canada's nuclear industry, and the work done by Atomic Energy of Canada.

But flashing on large screens behind her and on the podium she was standing at were ads for Areva — the French company that is seen as AECL's biggest competitor.

Today, Judge Jeffrey Oliphant ruled on the "standards of conduct" he expects to employ in the inquiry involving former prime minister Brian Mulroney and Karlheinz Schreiber.

This is important because it sets the terms under which Mulroney's dealings with the former lobbyist will be considered.

In short, Oliphant said he will not apply legal standards to the business dealings between the two men, although he may look to the Income Tax Act and Criminal Code to help him.

Oliphant said he will use what he calls an "objective standard" in determining the "appropriateness" of what Mulroney did or did not do when he accepted money from Schreiber.

To do so, Oliphant will use the code of ethics set out by Mulroney himself.

Oliphant writes: "One of the purposes of an inquiry is to bring that public scrutiny to bear. If the prime minister (Brian Mulroney) intended to hold ministers personally accountable to that level, then it follows that he himself would be accountable on the same basis."

— Rosemary Barton

Listening to question period today, it was hard to believe that it wasn't so long ago in this country that the winning political play was to maintain a respectful distance from Washington.

Canadian politicians strived to avoid being seen to be too closely aligned with the U.S. government. Now, not so much.

The off-the-scale popularity of U.S. President Barack Obama has created a political paradigm shift in Canada-U.S. relations, which seemed to explode into being on the day of the presidential visit.

At that time, Conservative cabinet ministers were quite comfortable, indeed eager, to talk about the rapport they felt they had experienced with Obama.

Today in QP, Industry Minister Tony Clement made three references to "working with the Obama administration" and he was far from being the only one to do so.

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty mentioned the visit in one of his replies and Environment Minister Jim Prentice managed to fit in two passing remarks about working with his counterparts in Washington.

For his part, Prime Minister Stephen Harper made a day trip of the trend.

He was in New York where he said he hoped to continue the "momentum" that came from the Obama visit.

— Susan Bonner

The Barack Obama visit may be over but politicians here in Ottawa are trying to keep riding that happy wave.

A quick glance at party and government websites proves the point.

Over at the prime minister's official website, there is a picture of President Obama chuckling with the PM as they sit in his office on Parliament Hill.

The Conservative party's website doesn't miss its chance either to bask in the afterglow: again, there's Stephen Harper walking alongside Obama amid a row of patriotic flags.

The Liberal party gets in on the action by featuring a photo of Michael Ignatieff and Obama smiling broadly.

Jack Layton didn't get to meet the president so instead there's just a picture of him, penning a letter to Obama.

As for the Governor General, well, there is no evidence at all on her website that the two had even met.

But then, the picture of Obama being greeted by Michaelle Jean was probably one of the most popular photos of the day last week and so there is perhaps no need to belabour the point.

— Rosemary Barton

Parliament Hill is abuzz with pre-Obama preparations.

But those in the nation's capital might want to listen extra closely as the president's motorcade arrives downtown at around 11:30 Thursday morning.

There may be cheers and yelling, but behind all that Parliament's carilloneur, Andrea McCrady, will be playing America the Beautiful on the bells of the Peace Tower.

What makes it even more special is that McCrady is an American herself. She recently moved to Canada to take up the job of Dominion Carilloneur. McCrady is the first American to have the position as well as being the first woman.

At noon, she will play her regular program, which includes:

One in the Spirit, by Peter Scholtes, arranged by Milford Myhre;
Once to Every Man and Nation, by T. J. Williams, arranged by Leen t'Hart;
Lift Ev’ry Voice, by James Weldon Johnson, arranged by Sally Slade Warner;
and America the Beautiful, by Samuel A. Ward, arranged by Milford Myhre.

&8212; Rosemary Barton

Companies across Canada are laying people off. But the department of finance is hiring!

Well, to be fair, it's looking for one person.

In a help-wanted ad, published in newspapers across Canada, the department says it's looking for an "experienced financial economist" to act as its Senior Chief of Economic Analysis and Forecasting.

Ideally, Finance says, it is looking for someone with a master's or PhD in economics and a minimum of five years experience in the field.

The lucky candidate's future duties will include providing strategic advice to Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, representing Canada at national and international meetings, and improving the department's modelling and forecasting tools.

Now that last bit might be of interest to Kevin Page, Canada's parliamentary budget officer. He has a pretty good record when it comes to predicting the financial future.

In November, for example, he accurately forecast a deficit in the billions of dollars at the same time as Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Finance Minister Flaherty were telling Canadians the country would end the fiscal year with a modest surplus.

— Alison Crawford

Seen: looking wistfully (or contemptuously?) down on the gathering media horde in the foyer of the House of Commons, Ralph Klein, former Conservative premier of Alberta.

Klein is a senior fellow at the Fraser Institute, which sent a delegation to Ottawa to hear from parliamentarians on public policy. Jack Layton was scheduled to address them.

Heard: talking loudly to a group of 30 or so students on a tour of Parliament Hill, in a hallway lined with portraits of prime ministers past, one Peter Van Loan, minister of public safety.

"Anyone know who that one is? That's right, Pierre Trudeau. Anyone know what he's famous for? Anyone? Anyone? Multiculturalism, official bilingualism, he sent the country into deficit. He's actually the reason why I became a Conservative," Van Loan said as a gaggle of reporters strolled past. "I used to a be a Liberal."

Read: a press release handed out by a staffer to Immigration Minister Jason Kenny, under fire for suggesting that maybe Canada would reduce the number of immigrants it accepts as a result of the economic downturn.

The release accuses a "Liberal spokesman," MP Jim Karygiannis of "misleading Canadians."

The proof? Right here: "Karygiannis is reported to have agreed with anti-immigrant comments."

The release goes on to quote a Toronto Star article quoting a St. Catharines Standard article that said Karygiannis allegedly "sympathized" with someone who thought "doors were closing to Europeans in favour of 'unproductive people from Jamaica, Pakistan, China and India.'"

The article was dated March 9th, 1990.

"We go way back," the staffer said.

— James Cudmore

Shhh! You'll just make it angry.

It seems to be a lesson the government can't quite get its head around: that to talk about the stock market is to tempt fate.

Asked today about Canada's first trade deficit in 33 years, International Trade Minister Stockwell Day called the news "concerning" but also "predictable."

He then tried to show what a great job the government is doing on the economic front by saying, "You saw in the TSX as recently as about an hour ago, there’s a slight increase in the TSX even though these negative export numbers came out."

Two hours later the TSX was down almost 200 points from that high Day had been talking about.

— James Fitz-Morris

For many, The L Word is a popular cable TV show featuring, ahem, mature content of a decidedly female nature.

But on the Liberal party's new community website En Famille, any use of that particular "L" word has been replaced with a series of asterisks.

Still don't know what I'm talking about?

Well yesterday, two Liberals posting to En Famille noticed that their writing had been altered. Someone had replaced the word "lesbian" with *******.

— Alison Crawford

It's kind of like a report card. A very loooong report card that uses language such as "the RCMP has updated the PAA measures in the Expenditure Management Information System (EMIS) and is continuing to create opportunities to further harmonize with the MRRS policy."

The new crop of Departmental Performance Reports came out late last week. And while it takes an awful lot of caffeine to get through those long lists of performance goals and strategic outcomes, every once in a while something catches your eye.

This time it was the detail under the heading "Strategic Priority — Terrorism" that said the Mounties had "disrupted" a total of 13 terrorist targets in 2007-2008. Thirteen, eh? That seemed like a much larger number than had ever been previously reported.

Alas, it proved not to be quite the case.

— Alison Crawford

The French refer to it as a bras d'honneur, which translates into arm of honour, though it is anything but.

Whatever you call it, it is a physical gesture that has the effect of conveying the indelicate expression, "up yours." And some Conservatives claim Bloc Leader Gilles Duceppe brazenly offered it up right in the House of Commons today.

After question period, Quebec Conservative MP Steven Blaney rose in the House on a point of order. He was taking exception to some of the wording in Duceppe's earlier questions.

Things grew heated between the Conservatives and the Bloc during the point of order and Duceppe was seen waving his arms in the air as he stormed out of the House to loud shouts from Conservative members.

That was when some Conservative's said things really got out of hand, so to speak.

They claim Duceppe bent one arm in an L-shape and then grabbed the inner side of his bent arm with the opposite hand, offering Blaney the obsence gesture.

Among those who saw it: Defence Minister Peter McKay; secretary of state Rob Merrifield, who said after, "It didn't look polite;" and Minister of Public Works Christian Paradis who quipped, "This is not a zoo."

Blaney said, "We want every parliamentarian to show respect and Mr. Duceppe has to show the way as he leads a party."

But Duceppe denies the gesture entirely. In response to the allegation, he said in French, "I cannot waste my time on that guy."

Meanwhile, the Speaker had his aides double-check what transpired with the clerks who were present in the House at the time. The clerks said they saw no such gesture. A spokesperson said, "As far as the House is concerned, nothing happened."

So for now, it's the Conservatives' word against the Bloc leader's. Perhaps another point of order after tomorrow's question period will sort it all out.

— Krista Erickson

When the prime minister's office sent out a note listing off the government's press secretaries and directors of communications, there was one omission that jumped out.

Carolyn Stewart-Olsen has been with Stephen Harper for years. Back when he was leader of the opposition. And back when he ran for leadership of the Canadian Alliance Party in 2002 and then the Conservative Party after that.

She's also been with him all through the campaign trails in 2004, 2005 and 2008.

In fact, everywhere that reporters followed, it was rare to see Harper without Stewart-Olsen nearby. She was routinely said to be one of his few trusted advisers in a small inner circle.

But the Harper loyalist hasn't left the prime minister's office altogether. Rather, she's taken a promotion to the job as senior adviser and director of strategic communications. It apparently also means Stewart-Olsen won't have to pack a suitcase as often as before.

— Susan Lunn

Elections Canada has finished counting all the receipts from the last campaign and the total cost to taxpayers for Canada's 40th election is $288-million, a 6.6 per cent increase over the one two years earlier.

Another way to look at it is that it costs taxpayers just over $935,000 to elect an MP.

Much of these are fixed costs devoted to maintaining voter registries, election sites and election officers, as well as to verifying results and policing Canada's elections act. But almost $60 million of this amount gets returned to candidates to offset some of their costs.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper called the election early, despite his own fixed election law, hoping to get a majority. He fell short of that goal but did pick up 16 more seats than he had going into the campaign.

— James Fitz-Morris

The verbal battle grew a little noisier in Parliament today in the ongoing dispute about how Newfoundland actually fared in last week's federal budget.

Though now a have-province, Newfoundland nevertheless maintains it will lose federal transfer money because the proposed changes to the equalization formula will cut into the province's revenues under the offshore oil agreement, the so-called Atlantic Accord.

As a result, some Liberal MPs, particularly those from the Rock, have been struggling with how they can support the budget, which their leader wants, and still try to bring about some kind of change.

In the House, as Finance Minister Jim Flaherty rose to answer yet another question on the subject, Gerry Byrne, a Liberal MP from Newfoundland, yelled questions at the minister making it hard to hear the answer.

Flaherty finally snapped back: "I know screech is a product of Newfoundland."

Screech, as well as being a way to scream, happens to be a potent type of alcohol available only in Newfoundland and which is offered to guests on their first visit to the province. Visitors are "screeched in," they say.

It was not entirely clear from his answer which version of the term the finance minister was referring to. But no screech of the liquid variety was spotted in Parliament today.

— Rosemary Barton

The days of being able to distinguish the prime minister and the leader of the Official opposition as "cat person" versus "dog person" are over.

Michael Ignatieff was quoted over the weekend saying he's looking to adopt two Burmese kittens.

The previous opposition leader, Stéphane Dion, was a self-proclaimed dog person and Harper jokingly warned Canadians that it signalled a weakness to be loved. "I think people should elect a cat person," Harper said in 2006. "If you elect a cat person, you elect someone who wants to serve."

No word on whether Harper will reiterate these views in two weeks with visiting U.S. President Barack Obama, who is in the market for a puppy.

— Julie Grenier