I smell an election coming. Not in October 2015; much sooner than that. Harper has just unveiled the new anti terror legislation with new and enhanced powers for police and CSIS. The legislation allows various agencies to share information to enhance safety of Canadians. It also allows prosecution for promoting terrorism online. In an election style announcement away from Ottawa Harper introduced these new measures. In his hard hitting remarks one could hear an election bugle.

The Liberals and the NDP had made a political blunder in opposing the Canadian mission in Iraq. The more recent controversy about whether or not it was still a non combat mission did not serve the opposition parties well at all. The most muted response from the NDP's Mulcair to the newly unveiled legislation showed the NDP had realised that its position on our Iraq mission was not beneficial to its political fortunes. Mulcair did not vex eloquent about liberties any more. His emphasis was on defending Canadians' safety which needed to be enhanced without curtailing our liberties, he said. Paul Dewar of the NDP focussed mainly on lack of robust oversight and more resources.

The Liberals had already telegraphed their inclination to be "reasonable" and most likely support the new Conservative initiatives. They are still smarting from Trudeau's self inflicted wounds with his gaffe about the size of Canadian CF18s and his less than stellar response to the Commons resolution on our current Iraq mission. As of this writing I have not seen or heard Trudeau's response to the Conservative's bill. My friend Wayne Easter the justice critic for the Liberals said they will wait for the bill to be discussed in the Standing committee before passing any judgement on it. He then went on to talk about more and better resources and oversight.

Both the liberals and the NDP offered more muted responses to Harper's new anti terror bill than was the case on the Iraq Mission. In the post Ottawa/Paris terror environment no Party would want to be branded weak on antiterrorism; more so because an election may be just around the corner; well before October 2015 particularly if Harper can make the opposition look weak and without a clear response to the threats Canada faces to our public security and economic prosperity. The endgame has just begun