As the Olympics distract the masses, the Grand Inquest of the Nation carries on. Well, minus most of the party leaders anyway. Thomas Mulcair was present, and started off by asking about the newly reported debt figures, and demanded action on ATM fees and credit card interest rates. Kevin Sorensen accused the NDP of wanting to “pick the pockets of Canadians,” and that they were encouraging Canadians to be careful with their debts. Mulcair rambled on about budget shoes and slippers, and returned to the same demand, to which Sorensen touted tax cuts that the government had made. Mulcair moved onto the elections bill and the topic of voter identification cards. Poilievre insisted that there was a mistake in one out of six of those cards, meaning that they weren’t secure but there were 39 other form of acceptable identification. Mulcair dropped a non sequitur Olympic reference before returning to the bill and the issue of democracy promotion. Poilievre spoke about more advanced voting days. For his last question of the round, Mulcair decried the gagging of the Chief Electoral Officer, to which Poilievre quoted other sections of the act to disprove Mulcair’s point. John McCallum led off for the Liberals, asking about the tariff changes and Canada Job Grant out of last year’s budget, and if they would be corrected in this year’s. Sorensen touted all the wonderful things their government had done. Ralph Goodale asked about other budget items like job training and infrastructure funds, but Sorensen recited good news talking points.

Round two, and Peggy Nash demanded more budget measure, being hiring credits for hiring and Eco home renovations (Sorensen: Look at everything out government did!) and a crackdown on payday lenders (Sorensen: Look at our praise in the IMF report!), Guy Caron decried more of the same in French (Bergen: Yay our job creation record), Nycole Turmel asked about muzzling the Chief Electoral Officer (Poilievre: That’s based on false information), Chris Charlton brought up the constitutionality of the electoral bill (Poilievre: 25 percent of cases of vouching had irregularities), and Craig Scott decried the use of time allocation on the elections bill and demanded cross-country hearings (Poilievre: We encourage Canadians to submit to the committee). Frank Valeriote decried the coming transfer payment cut for Ontario (Sorensen: Transfer payments went up under our government), Judy Sgro listed the sins of the previous budget (Sorensen: We’ll see the budget tomorrow), and Stéphane Dion denounced the Canada Job Grant (Kenney: The programme makes a lot of sense). Murray Rankin worried about the audits that environmental charities are being subjected to (Findlay: The CRA operates arm’s length from the government), and Glen Thibeault bemoaned the state of complaints levelled against airlines (Raitt: Passengers have rights laid out in rules passed in 2008), and Mulcair insisted that an airline bill of rights was promised (Raitt: Inaudible because she was heckled down by the NDP who promised never to heckle).

Round three saw questions on postal banking, the upcoming citizenship bill, the funding gap for First Nations students, the lack of sections on compelling testimony in the elections bill, First Nations policing funding, veterans centres closing, the situation in the Central African Republic, the farmer who has had his land expropriated to expand CFB Trenton, the Labour Market Agreements, and the way that elections financing laws disadvantages independent candidates.

Overall, it wasn’t an exciting day, nor was it very illuminating given Sorensen’s recitation of talking points throughout. We had another ironic instance of an MP – in this case Guy Caron – demanding that Sorensen “put aside his notes,” err, except that Caron himself was reading his question from notes. Awkward. And tomorrow it’s likely to be all the more insufferable with budget demands by the finance b-teams, while the a-teams are in lock-up with the budget. Won’t that be edifying?

Sartorially speaking, snaps go out to Bernard Trottier for a tailored black suit with a light blueberry shirt and a black striped tie, and to Lisa Raitt for a fitted black leather jacket with a purple v-necked top. Style citations go out to Christine Moore for a peach and black houndstooth dress, and to José Nunez-Melo for a khaki-coloured suit, maroon shirt and blue floral patterned tie.