Stephen Harper met with Nycole Turmel last night to talk about the upcoming budget. No, seriously, they did, and apparently it was really cordial. I’m quite certain that Harper isn’t going to do absolutely anything the NDP wants him to do, but hey, no harm in giving Turmel her few minutes of time, right? It was also pointed out that during the era of minority government, Harper would still meet with the NDP, but not the Liberals, but considering his utter hatred of the Liberals, this shouldn’t really surprise anyone.

Harper also had a sit-down interview with Postmedia, where he indicated that the Conservatives are still looking at various options when it comes to “transforming” OAS in the future, as well as talking about the need to diversify energy markets as part of the push toward Asia and repeating nonsense about Iran and nuclear weapons.

The chief of Attawapiskat has lost a court battle to try to reject the third-party manager. It wasn’t a total loss, as the manager was ordered to disperse a bunch of money for the incoming modular homes.

The Citizen’s Glen McGregor crunched the numbers and has found that the Conservatives have gone out to meet the media in the foyer even less than they did before the election.

The federal government announced its joint federal-provincial monitoring program for the Alberta oil sands, which will take some three years to roll out. The lack of an independent monitoring commission at this point is already leading to calls that this is just another PR stunt on the government’s part.

Alison Crawford at the CBC finds Vic Toews is being evasive in question period about the RCMP air fleet when she can get the information directly from the RCMP website no problem. That makes one wonder if Toews simply isn’t using “secrecy” as an excuse for ignorance and not learning his file.

And as the official date of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee approaches, here are 10 fun facts about Her Majesty.