"We never agreed to buy you kids lunch": Conservatives

Greg Thompson may be the reason permission slips were invented.

For the Conservatives, the 90th anniversary of the Canadian victory at Vimy Ridge is a "gimmie" -- the kind of event that allows governments to look, well, like governments.

For anybody else, this would be an occasion of high statesmanship. Of ceremony played out against an international backdrop, with reverence to historical and solemn circumstance, executed with the greatest of decorum and humility.

And then there's Greg Thompson.

Our Minister of Veteran's Affairs has decided to commemorate the battle that saw the loss of 3,598 Canadian soldiers and the solidifying of our country's place at the table of nations by turning it into a fight over who's going to fork out $5 for a sandwich for a group of school kids.

That's the same Greg Thompson who didn't bat an eye at dropping almost $200 on lunch for he and his staff in one month last year.

"To you from failing hands we throw The torch; be yours to get a receipt."