Thursday in the House, and the benches were slowly filling up as a number of MPs, including Thomas Mulcair, made statements about the day of remembrance for the École Polytechnique, which takes place tomorrow. When QP got underway, Mulcair surprised us all by first asking about rail safety and ignored warnings against the company that eventually caused the Lac Mégantic disaster. Harper got up and assured him that the government has invested record amounts in new inspections. Mulcair pressed at length, accusing Harper not not caring enough about the 47 victims, but Harper rather calmly asserted that he was doing a lot for the community and had visited several times. Mulcair switched of English to keep pressing, to which Harper asserted that they don’t know all of the facts, even if Mulcair claimed they did. Mulcair switched tracks, and asked why they weren’t allowing Michael Runia from testifying in the Senate, but Harper insisted that the auditors who performed the audit had already testified that there was no interference. Ralph Goodale was up for the Liberals, and carried on about the allegations against Runia and Gerstein, but Paul Calandra repeated Harper’s talking points. Marc Garneau repeated the he same in French, not that Calandra’s response changed.

Round two, and Mulcair wondered about the broken rules around deleted emails (Harper: We expect people to follow the rules), why does this story keep changing (Harper: There are rules around record retention, and the bureaucracy turned over the records when they found them), is everyone in the PMO to blame but you (Harper: The RCMP document shows that I had nothing to do with this), why did the PCO warn people of the investigation (Harper: There are only two people under investigation), why was your lawyer involved in the Duffy deal (Harper: Only Duffy and Wright are under investigation), were you aware of the plan to repay Duffy’s expenses by party funds (Harper: It was always conveyed to me that he would repay the expenses himself), is your spokesman giving a different answer because he’s allowed to lie — to which the Speaker cautioned him while the Conservative benches shouted “throw him out,” and for his next question, Mulcair repeated the question about the plan for party funds (Harper: Once again, I was told Duffy was to pay his own expenses), were you aware about Gerstein’s plan to repay Duffy with party funds (Harper: There are no charges against Gerstein), and why was Gerstein still in caucus (Harper: He isn’t under investigation). Dominic LeBlanc wondered about the Perrin emails (Calandra: Read for the PCO letter), does the Privy Council not know what an order to produce documents looks like (Calandra: Ibid.), and why did he still have confidence in Gerstein (Calandra: The auditors confirmed there was no interference). Rathika Sitsabaiesan and Huong Mai returned to the questions on rail safety and warnings by the clerk of Lac Mégantic (Weston: Your own transport critic said the record of transporting dangerous goods is quite good), and Guy Caron and Murray Rankin asked about the reluctance to bolster the CPP despite the consensus of premiers (Sorenson: We share the concerns of small businesses that now is not the time to raise their taxes).

Round three saw questions on the call for a national inquiry into missing and murdered Aboriginal women, the universality of service being geared for healthy soldiers and not adequately helping suicidal soldiers, the implementation of a report on resource development, the environmental hazard of a sunken ship leaking oil off the East Coast, the lack of bilingual capacity at a maritime rescue centre, and compensation for cheese producers, the need for consultations with New Brunswick First Nations given the fracking protests there (Harper: We recognize the duty to consult and this is an opportunity for that community).

Overall, with but one exception it was another quiet QP, which it was observed may be to make for unappealing clips for the TV news — not an unreasonable hypothesis. Why the Speaker continued to allow questions about Senate committee business was beyond me, and his caution for Mulcair is getting to be a habit, as Mulcair seems to be testing the boundaries of how far he can push his luck when it comes to slamming people who aren’t in the chamber to defend themselves (one of the reasons I think why Senator Kinsella hit back so hard yesterday). I have also noticed that Justin Trudeau is becoming an infrequent visitor to the Commons, who is showing up even less than Harper these days. Liberals, you may want to knock that off.

Sartorially speaking, snaps go out to Greg Rickford for a dark grey suit with a light blue shirt and a red tie and pocket square, and to Cathy McLeod for a well tailored black jacket and top with a blue skirt. Style citations go out to Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe for a bright reddish-orange tunic that had a black strappy tie around the collar, along with an off-white lace skirt and a black sweater, and to Jonathan Tremblay for a medium grey windowpane suit with a blue shirt with white collar and cuffs, paired with a lavender tie. Special mention goes out to Susan Truppe, whose sartorial theme song this sitting seems to be “Black and Gold.”