After a really good QP, and one that was a little better than average, there we no hopes for a good show as none of the leaders were present — Harper was entertaining the president of Chile, while Mulcair and Trudeau were each giving speeches in Montreal and Toronto respectively. That left Megan Leslie to lead off, with the kinds of preambles and soliloquies that we expect from QP scripts, and James Moore — the designated back-up PM du jour — gave a boilerplate about how Wright admitted doing wrong, and by the way, your leader is covering up corruption in Montreal. Leslie tried to ask about former Senator Bert Brown’s travel expenses — which has precisely zero do do with government operations and should have been disallowed. Moore mentioned Elections Canada had all of the campaign expense files, and returned to the point about Mulcair covering up corruption. Leslie then moved onto the appropriateness of Nigel Wright getting severance pay, which was followed up by David Christopherson, who tried to tie it to Harper’s comments about David Dodge back in 2005. Moore said that Wright would get the minimum amount owed to him by law and nothing more. Ralph Goodale was up for the Liberals and brought up Nigel Wright’s emails to Senator Duffy, but Moore’s dodge/counter-punch was about Liberal Senator Pana Merchant’s husband’s offshore account. When Goodale wondered why Duffy’s wage weren’t being garnisheed to ensure that he paid the $90,000 he personally owed, not that Moore’s answer changed, nor did it change when Stéphane Dion tried to impress upon him the illegality of Wright’s payment.

Round two started off with Charlie Angus asking about senators on the campaign trail (Moore: Campaign expenses have been filed with Elections Canada), before he and Françoise Boivin moved onto the early talking points by Pierre Poilievre gave in the time between the revelation of the payment and Wight’s resignation (Moore: How can you be so self-righteous when our own members don’t pay their taxes), Boivin then asked about Senator Pamela Wallin’s expenses and what changed that the government stopped defending her (Moore: Your leader sat on bribery allegations), Alexandrine Latendresse asked for more details about the cheque Nigel Wight wrote (Moore: He took sole responsibility), Craig Scott asked about documents being turned over to appropriate authorities (Moore: These authorities are arm’s length from government), and Nathan Cullen demanded contrition for the supposed cover-up orchestrated by the PMO (Moore: Look at your own MP who tried to pass a bill to absolve himself of his own tax liabilities). Bob Rae asked if the government considered there was just cause for Nigel Wright to have been fired instead of letting him resign (Moore: He resigned and took sole responsibility). Mathieu Ravignat asked about bid-rigging for the sale of AECL (Anderson: It was independent Crown corporation and is subject to a legal proceedings so we can’t comment), and Yvon Godin and Ryan Cleary asked about problems at Enterprise Cape Breton Corporation and ACOA (Keddy: That is false, the Public Service Commission was clear that there was no interference from the minister).

Round three saw questions on evidence that Julian Fantino’s office was involved in putting partisan material on the CIDA website, the privacy implications of the union transparency bill, more questions on that questionable ACOA hiring, the sports betting bill in the Senate, the government invading the privacy of Cindy Blackstock, the homelessness partnering funding, Greek opposition to a project by a Canadian mining company, and EI reforms affecting Quebec workers.

Sartorially speaking, snaps go out to James Bezan for a tailored dark grey suit with a pink shirt and pocket square with a light blue tie, and to Paulina Ayala for a sleeveless black dress with a grey hexagonal pattern. Style citations go out to Peggy Nash for a clashing orange jacket with a dark blue dress, and to Bev Shipley for a tan suit with a black shirt with white collar and cuffs, and a white tie. Dishonourable mention goes out to Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe for a mustard jacket with a floral top and black trousers.