With Harper prepping for his trip to Europe, and Justin Trudeau elsewhere, Thomas Mulcair was holding down the fort in the House for QP. He began by asking in Nigel Wright had signing authority for the “secret” party fund. Pierre Poilievre was designated to answer, and he insisted that the fund wasn’t secret, it was controlled by the party, and audited by Elections Canada (which is not exactly true). Mulcair then turned to the issue of the American surveillance programme PRISM, and asked about the Canadian monitoring by the Communications Security Establishment. Peter MacKay answered that the CSE is prohibited by law from engaging in domestic surveillance, and has been lauded for its culture of compliance. Jack Harris asked more of the same, before wondering if CSE was using PRISM data. MacKay noted the policies on foreign information sharing, and that those reports are tabled in Parliament. Ralph Goodale was up for the Liberals, and asked if Benjamin Perrin was aware of the the deal between Wright and Duffy, if not the source of the funds. James Moore was up, belatedly the designated back-up PM du jour, and took swipes at the Liberals over Senators Mac Harb and Pana Merchant.

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