As far as the government scientist was concerned, it was a bit of fluff: an early morning interview about great white sharks last summer with Canada AM, the kind of innocuous and totally apolitical media commentary the man used to deliver 30 times or more each year as the resident shark expert in the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO). So he sent an email off to Ottawa notifying department flaks about the request, and when no response had been received by the next morning, just went ahead and did it.

EDMONTON — Despite controversy over a $430,000 “bulk donation” to her party by a billionaire NHL team owner and his associates, Premier Alison Redford says there’s no need to amend Alberta’s election laws to ban corporate donations or to reduce the amount that can be contributed.

OTTAWA — Canada’s public sector integrity commissioner said he suspects “thousands” of wrongdoings are going unreported among the 375,000 federal workers covered by the whistleblower legislation he enforces.

A representative of a coalition of construction companies and anti-union contractors lobbied Premier Alison Redford by linking large political donations to Redford and to the provincial Conservative party with political promises to revise Alberta’s labour code, according to documents obtained through Freedom of Information.