Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will be in Nunavut today to participate in a signing ceremony about transferring responsibilities for public lands and resources to the territory. [CP]

The House of Commons ethics committee unanimously agreed Wednesday to call Parliament’s Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner to “explain” the rules that govern the travel MPs take and the gifts MPs receive.
 
Opposition MPs on that committee are keen to hear what the commissioner thinks of the Prime Minister’s recent Christmas holiday in Jamaica. The Trudeau family stayed at a villa owned by a long-time friend of the family. The National Post reported that that commercial rate to rent that villa is about $9,300 a night. Trudeau, in Saint John Monday, said in French that he followed all the appropriate rules for that travel but the opposition believes the prime minister was, at the very least “politically tone deaf” in accepting such generosity while the Conservatives believe the prime minister has failed to fully disclose the circumstances of his travel. 
 
But Liberal, NDP, and BQ MPs are also keen to use the same opportunity to shine a light on some travel that Conservative MPs took last fall to London, England where, among other things, they consumed $600 bottles of champagne as part of a meal that the four Conservatives on the trip said cost them each $404.  The four MPs’ flights, hotel rooms, meals and ground transportation cost between $7,711 and $8,322 each, their disclosures show, and all of it was paid for by a Hungarian think tank opposed to carbon taxes and which operates a fundraising arm in Canada.
 
Interim Conflict of Interest Commissioner Konrad von Finkenstein has not initiated investigations into either Trudeau’s trip or the Conservative travel to London though a Conservative MP, Michael Barrett has asked von Finkenstein to open an investigation into Trudeau’s trip.
 
The commissioner is expected to testify at a meeting of the Ethics committee sometime after the return of the House of Commons on January 29. - DA

Premier Blaine Higgs spent part of his week outside New Brunswick rustling up much-needed cash for his Progressive Conservative party as he ponders the possibility of an election call as early as three months from now. [CBC]

The Saskatchewan Medical Association has reached a tentative contract agreement with the province. [Global]

The airstrikes follow Iran’s attack Tuesday on Pakistani soil, raising tensions between nuclear-armed Islamabad and Tehran. [AP]

Michael Hiltzik: The fact is that bringing together a host of successful but self-important luminaries to forecast the future is a mug’s game. They’re wrapped up in their own worlds and insulated from what’s happening on the ground. [LA Times]

"One of the main objectives was to bring a pristine, untouched sample of an asteroid back to earth," Dr. Edward Cloutis said. [Global]