Jack Layton was absent from the House today, which left his deputy Thomas Mulcair to lead off Question Period, kicking off with a pair of questions about news that the PMO had broken its own rules on hospitality expenses, to which Dean Del Mastro, Harper’s parliamentary secretary (seeing as Harper wasn’t in the House either), assured the House that they had cut hospitality spending. For his last question, Mulcair asked about the Canada Post strike before handing it off to Yvon Godin for two more questions on the subject, to which Lisa Raitt assured them both that they had given both parties ample time to come to an agreement. Bob Rae picked up on the strike questions, and extended it to the broader issue of pension security in Canada (Raitt: They’ve narrowed it down to three of four issues), and Judy Sgro took the pension issue and accused the government of adopting a failed Australian experiment on private pension pooling (Ted Menzies: The Liberals did nothing during all those years).
Round two kicked off with Peggy Nash asking about questions about private mortgage insurance that is part of the Budget Implementation Act, to which Jim Flaherty assured the House that we have a solid housing market and that the NDP just hates free enterprise. Alexandrine Latendresse and David Christopherson asked increasingly shill and sanctimonious questions on Senate reform (Tim Uppal: The Senate has to change, and we’re going to do it!), Alexandre Boulerice asked about cuts versus G8 spending (Baird: Yay G8 legacy products, Tony Clement: I will be in committee to defend the spending estimates), Charlie Angus tried to employ alliteration in asking about the ethical standards of cabinet ministers (Baird: You’re no Pat Martin), and Andrew Cash asked about G20 compensation for Toronto businesses (Baird: We’re reviewing the rules around it). John McCallum returned to the topic of PMO’s hospitality rule-breaking (Del Mastro repeated the same talking point), Denis Coderre asked about Montreal bridges (Denis Lebel: We’re investing in infrastructure), and Ralph Goodale about floods in Saskatchewan and natural disasters (Candice Hoeppner: We’re committed to helping!). Megan Leslie asked about that million-dollar carbon capture and storage lobbyist (Peter Kent: It worked in Saskatchewan!), and Romeo Saganash asked about crysotile asbestos (Joe Oliver: We promote the safe and controlled use of crysotile).
Round three saw questions on cuts to the National Research Council (Turmel called out Gary Goodyear as a creationist, which doesn’t sound like she was “raising the tone of debate” like the NDP promised to), the affordability of housing, that New Brunswick farmer in a Lebanese jail, the Canadian Wheat Board, First Nations needing capacity to help with equality now that they’re under the Canadian Human Rights Act, helicopter procurement, and job cuts to Public Works.
Sartorially speaking, snaps go out to Joyce Murray for a nicely tailored black suit with a fuchsia top beneath, and Ted Menzies for a grey suit with a violet shirt and a grey striped tie. Style citations go out to Megan Lesliefor her faded floral old lady dress with a light grey jacket, and Alex Atamanenko needs to burn that powder blue jacket. (Dis)honourable mention goes to Rathika Sitsabaiesan for a yellow-top-black-trousers violation.
Overall, things were slightly more engaging today, but only just. I will note that the NDP did manage to get in a question at the end where they could ask about breaking news (the PWGSC job cuts), but it remained a robotic reading from a sheet handed to Turmel, rather than something demonstrating a bit of life or passion about the subject. As well, most attempts at wit or humour in the House failed miserably, and somewhat painfully. It would be nice if we had some actual dynamic cut and thrust and genuine wit, but I may be asking too much.