As the minutes counted down before Question Period, Thomas Mulcair, without his usual mini-lectern on his desk, glared across the aisle, while Stephen Harper casually flipped through a briefing binder, and the Members’ Statements were going on around them. At the appointed hour, the Speaker called for Oral Questions, and the rumble began. Mulcair asked if the prime minister regretted any of his own actions in the ClusterDuff affair. Harper got up and said that he expected people to follow the rules, and if mistakes are made then they would have consequences. Mulcair asked if Harper was telling the truth on June 5th when he said that nobody else knew of the deal between Wright and Duffy. Harper said that Wright took full responsibility, and that he accepted that. Mulcair tried again, but got some economic boosterism in reply. Mulcair pushed, asking if anyone had even asked whether they knew the payment was wrong. Harper tried to veer the topic back to the economy, and when Mulcair, somewhat rhetorically asked if Canadians could trust Harper to tell the truth, but Harper tried to further insinuate that the NDP were against CETA, and that their position kept changing. For the Liberals, Justin Trudeau got up and threw a curve-ball, congratulating Harper and everyone who worked hard to get the EU trade agreement, and asked when the full text would be available. Harper accepted the plaudits, and said more details would be forthcoming. Trudeau segued to the fact that leaders took responsibility for when things when wrong as well as when things went right, and that he was responsible for the various appointments at the centre of the ClusterDuff affair. Harper responded that he was clear about people paying the price when rules aren’t followed.

Mulcair got back up for round two, and started quoting the lines from Duffy’s lawyer about the “we” in the PMO (Calandra: The PM has already answered this, and yay the EU trade deal), was Wright at one of the meetings with Duffy (Calandra: Look at our senate reform proposals!), what’s in the binder that Wright turned over to the RCMP (Calandra: We’re cooperating with investigators), did anyone threaten Duffy with expulsion if he didn’t go along with the “cash-for-repayment” scheme (Calandra: Senate elections! Term limits!), which other senators had similar deals (Calandra: What about our agenda on crime and safety?), was Harper not aware of Wallin’s audit results in June (Harper: Of course), was Harper aware of the $40,000 in illegal expenses in May when Wallin was kicked out of caucus (Calandra: Yay our agenda), what changed between February and May around Wallin (Calandra: Yay senate elections!) Charlie Angus picked it up there and wondered why Wight was loll owed to take such a trove of Duffy information when he resigned (Calandra: We’re cooperating with investigators). Joyce Murray brought up the PMO operative named in the email and wondered why the minister of natural resources subsequently hired him (Calandra: Jobs! Hope! Economic prosperity!), and Ralph Goodale brought up that it was Harper’s responsibility and not Wright’s (Calandra: The usual bafflegab). Jonathan Genest-Jourdain and Jean Crowder asked about the forthcoming First Nations Education Act (Valcourt: We’re choosing collaboration, and don’t want to throw good money after bad until the system is fixed), and Chris Charlton and Laurin Liu asked about the PIPSC survey on muzzled federal scientists (Rickford: Ministers are the primary spokespersons for departments).

Round three saw questions on why the changes to the Supreme Court Act are in the budget implementation bill (MacKay: These are declaratory provisions), other provisions in the new omnibus budget legislation, Flaherty’s comments on quantitative easing, Lebel’s comments on the rules for Quebec secession (Lebel: Nobody wants a referendum; Harper: The same again, but more forcefully), changes to temporary foreign worker legislation, the guidelines for ministerial responsibility, 2006 Liberal leadership debts, changes to unemployment insurance appeals, and the inherent problems in the government’s promise for balanced budge legislation.

Overall, while Mulcair was back to prosecutorial form, it wasn’t nearly as punchy as it had been when this was last tried in May, but we should be grateful for any break from the mini-lecterns and the soliloquising. That Harper only bothered to answer the first few questions was fairly indicative of how much importance he placed on Mulcair’s questions, though the fact that he rose in round three to defend national unity was interesting. Trudeau’s strategy also thew everyone for a bit of a loop, Harper included, which wasn’t a bad thing (and probably insulated the Liberals from accusations that they were against CETA). Calandra, it has to be said, was a trooper, not reading from a script no matter how wildly he tried to change the topic from ClusterDuff questions.

Sartorially speaking, snaps go out out James Bezan for a charcoal suit with a crisp white shirt with a green striped tie and pocket squad, and to Susan Truppe for a black top with a gold-chain sewn into the neckline, with a black skirt and a dark melon pink jacket. Style citations go out to Hélène LeBlanc for a brown jacket, fuchsia top and maroon trousers, and to Pierre-Luc Dusseault for a grey suit with a fluorescent blue shirt and striped tie.