With Michael Chong’s Reform Act having taken up the morning’s news cycle, it was going to be a switch to get back into battle mode over the outstanding questions in the ClusterDuff affair. As well, Thomas Mulcair was the only major leader in the House once again, owing to appearances at the Demarais funeral in Montreal, which meant another lacklustre QP. Mulcair started off with by wondering who in the PMO asked to find Benjamin Perrin’s emails. James Moore got up, acting as back-up PM du jour for the first time in months, and reread parts of the PCO letter to the RCMP in response. Mulcair wondered why the head of legal operations wasn’t aware that the emails were frozen, but Moore’s response was little different. Mulcair went onto the rules around emails and the concerns of the Information Commissioner, to which Moore reminded the House that she is independent and can investigate if she wishes. Mulcair went onto a rambling question about PMO employees being warned of the investigation, and didn’t get a response from Moore. Mulcair finally wondered why those emails had been hidden if it wasn’t to further a cover-up, but Moore rejected that premise. Dominic LeBlanc was up for the Liberals, and wondered how it was possible to be unaware of the existence of those emails. Moore repeated that PCO admitted their mistake, and that those emails were now in the hands of the RCMP. Ralph Goodale took over and wondered how PCO could say that they didn’t have the emails in response to his own request for them, but Moore stuck to the PCO letter.

For round two, Charlie Angus got up and wondered about the inconsistencies with what Benjamin Perrin had said previously around his role (Calandra: Reading from the ITO around the Prime Minister’s knowledge of events), Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe asked about the legal fees being paid for by those PMO employees (Calandra: Treasury Board rules are being followed), Alexandre Boulerice followed up and wondered how much those fees were going to cost (Calandra: Treasury Board rules are being followed), Peter Julian decried that the Access to Information Act wouldn’t be extended to the House of Senate — err, except that they aren’t part of the government (John Duncan: Conservatives are voluntarily reporting their expenses and all parties should follow suit), Craig Scott asked about Michael Chong’s bill — despite the fact that private members bills are not government business and he apparently can’t grasp that fact (Poilievre: Your party doesn’t really allow free votes). Carolyn Bennett wondered why the PM was instructing senators to block Gerstein and Michael Runia from appearing before committee — also not government business (Calandra: The Senate conducts its own affairs), and David McGuinty wondered why the Attorney General wasn’t contemplating charges for the attempts to offer an inducement to a sitting senator (Calandra: The Attorney General doesn’t direct the RCMP). Hoang Mai and Olivia Chow asked about the higher rate of runaway trains than previously reported (Weston: We are putting in new regulations and won’t hesitate to take action when they are not complied with), and Mathieu Ravignat asked about the increasing costs of outside contractors (Clement: If we can deliver excellent service using external contractors, that’s the smart thing to do for taxpayers).

Round three saw questions on the lack of federal leadership on healthcare, the lack of mandatory reporting on drug shortages, the lack of action for people with disabilities, the lack of emissions regulations that are holding up the Keystone XL pipeline approval, the loophole in the cluster munitions treaty, the need to negotiate a new Health Accord in 2014, and a Canadian being turned away from the border because of a private medical issue.

Overall, it was a fairly sober QP for the most part, and it was nice to see James Moore back on his feet in the back-up PM du jour role rather than yet more Paul Calandra, who himself was toned down. I remain disappointed by Scheer’s decision not to smack down questions that were outside of government business, whether they be about Senate committees or private members’ business. This kind of frivolous nonsense keeps distracting from the actual work of QP, and of holding the government to account.

Sartorially speaking, snaps go out to Blake Richards for a black suit with a crisp white shirt and pocket square and a purple tie, and to Paulina Ayala for a belted brown dress with a black jacket. Style citations go out to Charmaine Borg for a black turtleneck with a purple skirt and and somewhat gaudy jewellery, and to Maxime Bernier for a chocolate suit with a lemon yellow shirt and pocket square, and a brown and yellow striped tie (which admittedly was well tailored, but just made him look like a walking Nanaimo bar).