A blustery Monday in Ottawa, and only one major leader was present in the Commons. Thomas Mulcair led off, decrying the insulting way in which the Finance Minister treated the premiers and the Prime Minister’s lack of attendance at their meeting. Paul Calandra stood up to give a bog standard talking point about how the PM meets with the premiers on a regular basis, so that was getting things off to a good start. Mulcair pushed about the PM shunning those meetings, but Calandra repeated his answer. Mulcair demanded to know why Harper sent out the finance minister to insult the premiers, and again, Calandra repeated the praising talking points about the relationship with the provinces. Rosane Doré Lefebvre was up next, asking about the lack of increased oversight for CSIS if they are to be given new powers. Stephen Blaney insisted that all activities will be under the review of SIRC, which is independent. Mulcair got back up and demanded to know why the minister considered oversight and the protection of rights “red tape.” Blaney continued to insist that SIRC would do the job. Ralph Goodale got up for the Liberals, and wanted the government to redirect the funds for income splitting and direct it to infrastructure instead. Jason Kenny insisted that theirs was the better plan, and how the Liberals just wanted to raise taxes. Goodale then turned back to the question of oversight for national security, and how Canada was the only Five Eyes country without parliamentary (or congressional) oversight, not Blaney was undeterred, praising their new appointments. Dominic LeBlanc followed up in French, and Blaney tried to claim that our system was the envy of the world.

Round two, and Guy Caron insisted the government was letting the job market “slide off the rails” (Lebel: We have the biggest infrastructure programme in history), Mylène Freeman asked about expropriated land from an airport in Quebec (Raitt: We are working with all stakeholders), Robert Aubin worried about those laid off Target employees who wouldn’t be eligible for EI (Kenney: We continue to make EI available to those who need it), Marjolaine Boutin-Sweet and Peggy Nash read questions about infrastructure and job creation (Lebel: 95 percent of infrastructure is the domain of provinces and municipalities; Kenney: Yay our jobs plan and apprenticeship grants!), Nathan Cullen gave one of his usual bouts of kitchen sink outrage (James Moore: This quote says the NDP plan is dumb and anti-small business), and Ryan Cleary and Don Davies decried the betrayal of Newfoundland and Labrador over their lack of CETA transition funds (Rob Moore: We remain committed to working out the details). Kevin Lamoureux decried the lack of infrastructure spending (Lebel: We have put forward the latest and longest plan), Scott Brison noted the lack of job creation and the need for infrastructure spending (Lebel: We are supporting municipalities). Megan Leslie worried about the loss of environmental research on waterways (Kamp: Oil and gas is an area of significant study), and the study to deal with a bitumen spill (Aglukkaq: We are doing more monitoring), and Hoang Mai asked about CP rail using office workers to drive trains (Raitt: We expect that CP and CN to train their engineers to standards; this may be related to a strike action, and we are on it).

Round three saw questions on the Supreme Court ruling on public sector strike action (Leitch: This is about Saskatchewan), Aboriginal poverty, disability funds only going to Conservative ridings, the desire to use the Ottawa shooting as a “strategic opportunity” to present support for the mission in Iraq, the late-night changes to the New Veterans Charter, regional job creation, and non-violent protests being targeted by CSIS.

Overall, it wasn’t a terribly illuminating day, and Mulcair’s behaviour was a bit odd. After asking the first three questions, he surrendered the rest of the leader’s round, but then got back up for the final question of the round to respond back to the minister — not necessarily a bad thing. But then he sat at his desk heckling and making exaggerated eye rolls as the Liberals asked more questions on the same topic — you know, as leader of the party who promised that they would never heckle. It was unusual to say the least.

Sartorially speaking, snaps go out to Nycole Turmel for a black and tartan dress with a red jacket, and to James Bezan for a tailored light grey suit with a white and purple checked shirt and a deep purple tie and pocket square. Style citations go out to Charlie Angus for a black suit with a bluish-green shirt and reddish tie, and to Christine Moore for an extremely busy red, black and white patterned dress with an off-white bolero jacket. Special mention goes out to Lynne Yelich for a leopard print jacket with a black fuzzy collar and cuffs.