Corruption inquiry, hacking controversy, guns!

Screenshot from the website set up to help expelled Dawson student

Hey, look, another Quebec Liberal leadership debate happened yesterday. And what do you know? Everyone involved — Philippe Couillard, Pierre Moreau and Raymond Bachand — showed mad love for federalism. One idea we did like, and not for purely selfish reasons, we promise: Moreau’s suggestion to make the Charbonneau Commission permanent.

Oh, yes, the Charbonneau Commission, which at long last resumes today. It didn’t take long for Alexandra Pion, a one-time receptionist for Union Montreal, to say that Mr. Three Per Cent himself, Bernard Trépanier, had asked her to count cash, a request she denied. Fittingly, the funds were held together by rubber bands. At press time, the Commission had gone on its morning break.

Back in mid-November, Dawson College expelled 20-year-old computer science student Ahmed Al-Khabaz for uncovering some “sloppy coding” that basically gave anybody with a general sense of the on/off function on their laptop unfettered access to current and previous students’ personal info. Though it happened a couple of months back, it hadn’t been made public until yesterday, when Ethan Cox, reporting for the National Post, broke the story. In his piece, he wrote that Al-Khabaz alerted Dawson and Skytech, the makers of the flawed software, to the system’s vulnerability — and the college responded by giving him all zeroes in his courses and expelling him. A website has been set up to rally support behind Al-Khabaz. Somewhere, Anonymous members are gleefully wringing their hands.

In other news, anyone got a cool $325,000 to lay down for this place (specs here)? We can’t promise you’ll make Grammy award-winning music in it, but it’s at least a pretty cool spot for a Superbowl party.

Finally, presented without comment: Five people were wounded at gun shows in the States this weekend when firearms went off inadvertently. ■