All parties agreed late Tuesday night to end the most bitter spring sitting of Parliament since Harper’s Conservatives came to power more than seven years ago.

They packed it in a few days early after almost a month of late-night sittings, as the House of Commons calendar had MPs remaining at work in Ottawa through the end of this week. Proceedings had devolved into acrimonious mud-slinging.

The government remains under a potentially criminal cloud over a $90,000 cheque that was provided by the Prime Minister’s chief of staff to pay off the improper housing expense claims of Senator Mike Duffy.

The Conservatives responded with a loud counter-attack that involved questioning Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau’s past moonlighting as a paid public speaker and the driving habits of NDP Leader Tom Mulcair.

Harper has spent the past week in Europe for a G8 summit, avoiding the scrutiny of the daily question period in the Commons, but he returns to Ottawa on Wednesday morning and will begin preparing for a Conservative party policy convention in Calgary later this month and an anticipated summer cabinet shuffle to shake up his front bench.

The prime minister’s Conservative majority mandate has hit the midway point to the fall 2015 federal election but the government is in a deep malaise.

He returns from Europe without a long-sought free trade deal with the European Union, and other promised trade agreements have yet to come to fruition.

The Conservatives’ heavy emphasis on oil and gas exports as a Canadian economic driver has also been undermined by the politics of pipeline construction, both in Canada and the United States.

But it has been the taint of scandal that has most hurt the government’s image this spring. Three Harper-appointed senators resigned from the Conservative caucus over various expense and personal failings and the fallout from Senate audits is not over yet.

The RCMP has confirmed a criminal investigation into the actions of Nigel Wright, Harper’s former chief of staff.

The government also continues to fend off accusations of election improprieties from the 2011 campaign, including an ongoing Elections Canada investigation into fraudulent robocalls in dozens of ridings across the country.

The governing party was also hurt by the departure of Brent Rathgeber, an Edmonton backbench MP whose scathing, insightful critique of the heavy-handed tactics of the Prime Minister’s Office summed up years of Conservative command and control tactics.

Rathgeber left the Conservatives to sit as an Independent after the government gutted his civil service salary disclosure bill, and his critique touched a nerve with an increasingly restless Conservative base.

The study by the left-leaning Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives being released Wednesday also paints a grim picture of Metis, Inuit, and non-status Indian children, as well as of children of immigrants and visible minorities.

The analysis of census data from 2006 — the latest year relevant statistics are available — finds one-third of immigrant children and almost one-quarter of visible minority kids live below the low income line.

For other indigenous children — Metis, Inuit, and non-status Indian children — the rate is about 27 per cent.

The overall rate for children who belong to none of those groups is about 12 per cent.

“That half of status First Nation children live in poverty should shock all Canadians,” said Patricia Erb, head of the charity Save the Children Canada.

The report points out that poverty is not just a measure of income, noting that status First Nations children often live in communities that are impoverished when it comes to services and infrastructure.

According to the study, indigenous children trail the rest of Canada’s children on practically every measure of well-being: family income, educational attainment, water quality, infant mortality, health, suicide, crowding and homelessness.

“Canada cannot and need not allow yet another generation of indigenous citizens to languish in poverty,” the study states.

“Failure to act will result in a more difficult, less productive, and shorter life for indigenous children.”

David Macdonald, the economist who co-authored the study for the policy centre, said the situation is even worse in Manitoba and Saskatchewan, where almost two out of three status First Nations children live in poverty.

To define the poverty, the analysis uses Statistics Canada’s after tax low income measure, which amounts to about $38,000 a year for a family of four.

The report estimates it would cost $7.5 billion a year from either market income or government transfers to bring all children in the country up to the poverty line.

The report suggests that government jurisdiction plays a critical role in the poverty rates, especially for First Nations children.

It urges an increase in federal child benefits but also says the key is to remove barriers to education, training, employment and entrepreneurship.

Study co-author, Daniel Wilson, said the indigenous population is the fastest growing in Canada.

“If we refuse to address the crushing poverty facing indigenous children, we will ensure the crisis of socioeconomic marginalization and wasted potential will continue,” Wilson said.

But a lawyer for the Kwakiutl (kwa-cue-tul) First Nation says the resulting decision could force the province to implement a treaty it should have honoured over 150 years ago.

Justice Gordon Weatherill refused to reverse a government decision that allowed Western Forest Products Inc. to remove 14,000 hectares land from a tree-farm licence on the island’s northern tip.

The band, which claims the area as part of its traditional territory, says the province didn’t consult it in a meaningful way and as a result breached its constitutional duty.

While Weatherill ruled the provincial government did get the band’s input, he also used his ruling to prompt the federal and provincial governments to negotiate a treaty without further litigation, expense or delay.

Louise Mandell, a lawyer for the band, says the Kwakiutl signed treaties with the government in the early 1850s but the agreements were never implemented and fell off the Crown’s radar.

The tables have turned since the Barrie Advancer outed the PMO as the source of documents circulated to media Monday that showed three fundraising events headlined by the Liberal leader in 2006 — before he became an MP — lost money.

The prime minister’s staff were also busy last week handing out copies of a letter from a New Brunswick charity that wanted Trudeau to reimburse his $20,000 fee for speaking at a money-losing event last year.

It has since been revealed that at least one member of the charity’s board is a well-connected Conservative, whose husband is on the executive of local Tory MP Rob Moore’s riding association.

Questions about the propriety of using his taxpayer-funded office to launch strictly partisan attacks followed Prime Minister Stephen Harper all the way to Northern Ireland, where he was holding a wrap-up news conference at the end of a G8 summit meeting.

Harper dodged the question, replying only that he believes it is inappropriate for a sitting MP to accept payment for speeches to charitable organizations.

Scheer says it’s up to the committee on procedure and House affairs to decide if James Bezan and Shelly Glover should lose their MP privileges until their fight with Elections Canada is settled.

Scheer had earlier declined to suspend them because they had gone to court to settle their disagreement with the elections watchdog.

But he reconsidered the matter after Liberal complaints and decided to let the committee decide the fate of the two Manitoba MPs.

The chief electoral officer wrote to Scheer last month requesting that voting and other MP privileges of Bezan and Glover be suspended for their failure to correct campaign expense records from the 2011 election.

The Speaker says it’s an unprecedented situation and the law is silent about whether an appeal to the court has the effect of staving off the suspension.

“Some have argued that it is just and prudent to await the conclusion of legal proceedings, while others have maintained the two members ought, even now, not to be sitting in the House,” he said. “I believe that the House must have an opportunity to consider these complex issues.

“To bring clarity to the situation at hand and to give the House a voice on the matter and to seek its guidance, the chair has concluded that immediate consideration of the matter by the House is warranted.”

He then referred the case to the committee.

Bezan and Glover says they are fighting over interpretation of spending rules.

“This issue is effectively a question of accounting interpretation,” Bezan told the House when the issue first arose.

Glover similarly told the Commons hers was “simply a disagreement between my campaign and Elections Canada as to interpretations applicable to certain expenses.”

Police say the posted speed limit on Highway 19 near Campbell River is 110 kilometres per hour.

RCMP Const. John Anderson says the 25-year-old man behind the wheel of the black sports car apparently wanted to see how fast the car could go.

He says because the driver was caught going double the posted limit, he’ll have to pay a fine of $483.

Police say windy conditions and heavy traffic added to the danger on the road.

Britain’s Guardian newspaper says spies monitored the computers and intercepted the phone calls of foreign politicians and officials at two G20 meetings in London in 2009.

The paper says the effort included penetration of delegates’ BlackBerry smartphones to monitor their email messages and calls.

The Guardian published PowerPoint slides describing the operation, including one featuring the emblem of the Communications Security Establishment, Canada’s electronic eavesdropping agency.

It appears alongside the logos of key allies — the U.S. National Security agency and Britain’s Government Communications Headquarters — along with an icon labelled Joint Apps.

The documents were leaked to the Guardian by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

And the owner of Telegrams Canada, Colin Stone, says demand for the old-school service is steady, with about 20,000 messages being sent through his company each year.

But before you consider penning one for fun, Stone admits the act of sending a telegram is pricey enough that he considers it a “luxury.”

A traceable telegram of up to 100 words can be sent to someone in Canada or the U.S. by regular mail for $18.95. It takes two to four business days to arrive.

A hand-delivered telegram with faster delivery sent within Canada or to many other countries including England, France, Greece, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Portugal, Spain and the United Arab Emirates is $24.95 plus 99 cents per word. For some countries it’s $44.95 to start and 99 cents per word to send a telegram there.

“It is expensive, there’s no doubt it’s more of a luxury item now, because it stands out, it’s different,” says Stone.

“Telegrams have this timeless appeal that people still latch onto. A telegram is something a person is actually going to keep in a shoebox and pull it out 20 years from now, they have it to keep.”

It’s still relatively common for some Canadians to receive telegrams from abroad announcing a wedding or a death in the family, says Stone, adding that the Italian market is responsible for a big chunk of his business.

“If someone gets married or someone dies you send a telegram, that’s just what’s done there, culturally that’s what people do,” he says.

“There are people who still send telegrams who have always sent them, because that’s the way they do things, but there are also younger people who realize they can still send one — and you’re not going to congratulate someone on their wedding by tweeting them in 140 characters.”

He estimates his company sends a few thousand telegrams a year from within Canada, with many headed to the U.S., as a legal means to opt out of contracts, particularly for timeshare properties.

“Legally a lot of those contracts allow them to cancel by telegram, so they can put the telegram in at 11:59 p.m. and it’s still going to be legally valid that they cancelled the contract before a midnight (deadline),” he says.

“It’s the same effect as having your lawyer send a letter except you don’t have to go through all of that and you can sent it at 11:59 at night.”

A city spokesman says the Montreal interim mayor will make a statement at 3:30 p.m.

Speculation about his departure has been rampant since he was slapped yesterday with 14 criminal charges. The provincial government has explicitly urged him to resign.

As for the nature of today’s statement, the city’s No. 2 politician is hinting that it will be a resignation announcement.

Laurent Blanchard, the city’s executive committee chairman, says that from what he understands the statement will be in line with the “quasi-unanimous” opinion seen in the media.

He says Applebaum is working on his statement with a lawyer.

Applebaum became interim mayor in a vote at council last November, upon promising to build a multi-party coalition to root out corruption.

He promised not to run in the upcoming municipal election anyway, which is scheduled for November.

Applebaum is the first Anglo mayor of Montreal in 100 years.

But his reign was torpedoed by his arrest yesterday on charges including fraud, conspiracy, breach of trust, and corruption in municipal affairs. Applebaum’s arrest made news internationally.

They say they believe the mother is planning to leave Canada with the child and return to China.

The mother is described as Chinese, five-feet-two inches tall, about 125 pounds and as having straight black hair with yellow highlights.

Police say the mother has a stroller, baby supplies and a large suitcase with her.

The baby is also Chinese, has dark hair and a round face.

Police say they are concerned for the well-being of the child.