I'm sure Monica was just "working constructively" with Bill Clinton, too

John Baird was in full 'Duck-and-Cover' mode today when confronted with the accidentally un-redacted correspondence between his Ministry and the major airlines.

Baird said there's nothing nefarious about the relationship, adding "we're been working constructively with the airlines."

Really? Is that what you call it? Because I can think of a couple of other terms for it, John.

But that's not even the best part. The best part comes later in the article when they start into the Conservative government's third favourite default position - right after "We didn't do it!" and "The Liberals did it first!":

"We did that already!"

In the House of Commons, Baird confirmed Wednesday he doesn't support the [NDP passenger rights] bill, but defended the Tory record on the file, saying the government has "put forward new public policy" in the area of passenger rights.

His office later pointed to the Flight Rights campaign to educate air travellers of their rights. The promised rollout last September of "prominent signage" at key airports has never materialized. Transport Canada confirmed $3,640 has been spent on the initiative, limited to information posted on the departmental website.

I guess all the "prominent signage" got used up for "Canada's Economic Action Plan".

What are they, twelve?!

I remember an episode of some 'Law & Order'-type show in which the prosecution (or maybe the defence) requests documents under discovery, and the opposing side responds by dumping box after box after box of paper in their office.

It seems John Baird saw that episode too.

The Harper government has dumped three boxloads of information about its efforts to stimulate Canada's sputtering economy on Parliament's independent budget watchdog.

Kevin Page had asked for more information, complaining that the sketchy data provided up to now made it impossible to tell whether $12 billion in stimulus spending is having any impact on the economy.

But rather than provide an easy-to-analyse spreadsheet listing infrastructure projects and how much money has been spent on each of them to date, the government flooded Page Thursday with 4,476 pages of documents.

...[Baird] made no apologies for not delivering the information in a more user-friendly form. He said 200 officials at Infrastructure Canada have been "working flat out" to get 7,600 projects up and running and that has to be their "first priority."

"The parliamentary budget officer has asked for a significant amount of information. We've given him a significant amount of information," Baird said.

Tell you what. Next time Canada's Not-So-New Government asks for you to pay your taxes, why don't we all drive up to Jim Flaherty's office in Ottawa and dump it on his desk. In pennies.

That'll show 'em!