While the shock waves of the morning’s bombshell from Justin Trudeau reverberated around the Hill, it was in the Commons where there was the smell of blood in the water. Thomas Mulcair led off with a demand that Julian Fantino apologise for the way he treated those veterans yesterday. Stephen Harper stood up to declare how much his government had done for veterans. Mulcair switched to English, and demanded Fantino’s resignation, but Harper insisted that Fantino had apologised. Mulcair went on to drive home the point about their “support” for veterans by brining up the case of a family of a veteran who committed suicide where the department wanted repayment for benefits. Harper said that once the minister was made aware, he took action. Mulcair carried on about the closure of veterans offices while ministerial staff was being increased, but Harper insisted that the minister took action when the bureaucrats made a mistake, and that it was the unions that didn’t like the closures. For his final question, Mulcair brought up the loss of individual case workers for veterans, but Harper insisted that they were increasing points of service. Justin Trudeau was up next, and rather plainly asked for Harper to fire Fantino. Harper repeated their pledges of support for veterans and the men and women in uniform. Trudeau changed topics and made the suggestion that Harper set his own senators free as he did — to gales of laughter in the Conservative and NDP benches. Harper made a jab about unelected Liberal senators and Senator Cowan’s declaration that little would change.

Round two, and Mulcair took a gratuitous swipe at Trudeau before asking if Harper would support Senate abolition (Harper: Canadians want an elected Senate), before he moved onto whether the PMO was under investigation by the RCMP (Harper: More swipes about NDP principles around the Senate), what are the legal fees for your former staffer for (Harper: something noncommittal), Megan Leslie asked about Leona Aglukkaq’s questionable fundraiser (Aglukkaq: There was an event for a local riding association and they took great care to follow guidelines and only appropriate guideline were accepted), Charlie Angus and Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe gave broad questions about ethical standards (Calandra: The Prime Minister has always set a high ethical standard), and Sylvain Chicoine and Peter Stoffer returned to the issue of the veterans service centre closures, and his behaviour yesterday (Fantino read an apology). Joyce Murray and Jim Karygiannis kept up the calls for Fantino’s resignation (Fantino: You insulted veterans and should resign), and Rodger Cuzner hammered away at the broken promise to veterans (Fantino: Look at our support for veterans). Laurin Liu and Robert Chisholm asked about an oil lobbyist consulting on the Experimental Lakes Area (Shea: We have signed a memorandum of understanding to turn over control of the ELA), and Mathieu Ravignat decried the intimidation of public servants (Clement: There’s nothing of the sort going on).

Round three saw questions on Canada Post changes, Aglukkaq’s questionable fundraiser, the Canada Job Grant, the porcine epidemic diarrhoea problem, cuts at Five Wing Goose Bay, RU-486 abortion pill availability, and an oil leak from a sunken vessel.

Overall, it was a lively day, but once again it wasn’t edifying. That Fantino read his apology off of a cue card wasn’t exactly good form and lacked any sincerity (not to mention human warmth, but that’s also why I refer to him as the M-4 Unit on the Twitter Machine). The back-and-forth between Mulcair and Harper on Senate abolition was also demeaning to Parliament as a whole, for what it’s worth. I was heartened to see that the Speaker finally — finally — shut down a government backbench non-question, which was about time and hopefully will carry on until they get the message about asking real questions, or that the opposition leaders are not the government that MPs are supposed to be holding to account.

Sartorially speaking, snaps go out to Kennedy Stewart for a dark grey suit with a white shirt and a purple tie, and to Rona Ambrose for a tailored grey dress with a black jacket. Style citations go out to Niki Ashton for an orange microfiber jacket with a black dress, and to José Nunez-Melo for a chocolate brown jacket with khakis, a white shirt, yellow tie and orange pocket square.