Canadians going to US for long stays need to be mindful of changes, says MP

Canadian border guards are silhouetted as they replace each other at an inspection booth at the Douglas border crossing on the Canada-USA border in Surrey, B.C., August 20, 2009

CBC - A BC. MP is warning people about a new information-sharing agreement between Canada and the United States that could put travellers who spend a lot of time in the U.S. at risk of significant consequences.

The Entry Exit Initiative allows officials to track how many days Canadians have spent in the U.S. Prior to the agreement, the country could only track re-entry dates, not exit dates.

"We were specially wanting to alert people that this could potentially be a problem for them if they were being careless about their travel," said Gail Hunnisett, constituency assistant for Alex Atamanenko, MP for B.C. Southern Interior.

Hunnisett said she's been fielding a lot of calls since her office put out the information.

New Democrats MP quits federal politics to run for Ontario Liberals

Former Liberal hopeful Andrew Olivier, left, said Monday that Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne told him she wants a different Liberal flag-bearer in the byelection to fill Joe Cimino’s vacant seat in Sudbbury. Torstar News Service

The Canadian Press
New Democrats reacted with anger Tuesday after one of their MPs announced he was leaving the party to run for the Ontario Liberals in a yet-to-be called provincial byelection.

“I am proud to announce that I will be running as the Ontario Liberal party candidate in the upcoming byelection in my community of Sudbury,” Glenn Thibeault said in a statement.

Thibeault’s decision, which comes less than a year before the next federal election, is seen as a blow to NDP Leader Tom Mulcair and his provincial counterpart, Andrea Horwath, whose newest member of the provincial legislature quit after five months on the job, prompting the need for a byelection.

It also came one day after the Liberal candidate in the June 12 Ontario election, Andrew Olivier, said he was offered a government appointment or job to stop pursuing the nomination for the Sudbury byelection.

UK MP Mark Pritchard has been arrested over an allegation of rape.

Mark Pritchard is the Conservative MP for The Wrekin, in east Shropshire. Photograph: Graeme Robertson for the Guardian

Josh Halliday and Haroon Siddique | The Guardian,
The Metropolitan police confirmed that a 48-year-old man – understood to be the Tory MP for The Wrekin in east Shropshire – was arrested on Tuesday in central London.

Scotland Yard said he was arrested after voluntarily attending a police station and had been bailed until early January.

The news emerged after a letter from the Met to the Commons Speaker, John Bercow, about the arrest was referred to on a publicly available Commons order paper.

The letter said: “I write to inform you that on 2nd December 2014, Mark Pritchard MP was arrested at 6.14pm at Holborn police station in London by MPS officers.