This week, join Martin Stringer and his journalists guests: Louise Elliott, parliamentary reporter for CBC Radio, and John Geddes, Ottawa bureau chief for Maclean's. They'll discuss:
1. The Crisis in Attawapiskat:
The country's attention is focused on the northern Ontario First Nations community of 1,800, which declared a state of emergency a month ago, faced with sub-zero temperatures and scores of residents living in tents and uninsulated shacks and trailers.
While the Canadian Red Cross dispatched emergency aid of heaters, blankets and sleeping bags to the community, in Ottawa a political firestorm erupted.
The opposition parties call the situation a national disgrace. The Harper government says it's not happy about how $90 million transferred to the community were spent, and has called in third-party management of the band's finances.
• What should we make of it all?
• What about the government's handling of the whole matter?
• What about the larger issue of living conditions facing native communities across the country?
2. Thumbs Down on Kyoto?
The COP17 United Nations meeting on climate change has started in Durban. Environment minister Peter Kent is headed to South Africa for meetings next week amidst reports Canada is preparing to announce it will withdraw from the Kyoto Protocol on greenhouse gas emissions.
The government has neither confirmed nor denied those reports, but Kent says "Kyoto is in the past."
• What IS the Canadian position?
• What about reports Canada is actively lobbying other countries to scrap efforts to launch the second round of Kyoto?
• Is this all any surprise? What does it mean for the global climate?
• Politically, how is it all playing out?
3. Search and Rescue for the Defence Minister:
Newly-released Defence Department e-mails seem to contradict Defence Minister Peter MacKay's argument that he was being given a search-and-rescue demonstration when he used a military Cormorant helicopter to shuttle him from a Newfoundlan
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