With all of the leaders in the House today, it was hopeful that there would be some excitement. Thomas Mulcair led off by bringing up Brad Butt’s “misspoken” voter card story and wondered if there were any real stories about this kind of fraud. Stephen Harper insisted that there were thirty-nine different options for ID available, and left it at that. Mulcair asked about seniors who don’t have most kinds of ID, but Harper reiterated his answer. Mulcair tried to press about Conservatives being charged for voter fraud, but Harper insisted that it was a question for investigators, and hey, your party was forced to pay back union donations. For his final question, Mulcair wondered if there was any investigation into fraud by way of vouching, but Harper merely praised the bill. Justin Trudeau got up and asked about Harper’s promise about income splitting, and if he ever intended to keep the promise. Harper insisted that the budget was not yet balanced, and that they did not balance themselves. Trudeau pressed, but it wound up being a back-and-forth on who was ducking out of back doors instead of facing the press.

Round two, and Mulcair was back up, asking about a small business tax credit expiring (Harper: This was a time-limited policy), about temporary foreign workers being used to drive down wages in Fort McMurray (Harper: You went to Washington to talk down the oil sands), Chris Charlton and Alexandrine Latendresse asked about the concerns that the Chief Electoral Officer not being able to report on investigations to parliament (Poilievre: You’re misreading the bill), and Charlie Angus and Alexandre Boulerice asked about improper lunches expensed by the PMO (Clement: It’s a false allegation, and we’ve cut hospitality expenses). Judy Sgro and Emmanuel Dubourg asked about the broken promise and diesel prices (Sorensen: Look at all of the taxes we cut!), and John McCallum asked about the rash of broken promises (Sorensen: Look at all the things not talking about). Malcolm Allen and Niki Ashton asked about grain not getting to port (Ritz: We’re working with all members of the supply chain but railways are the weak link), and Hoang Mai and Olivia Chow asked about a diesel train spill (Raitt: We are aware of the spill and we’ve got new recommendations).

Round three saw questions on veterans offices in PEI, a surplus in the EI fund with fewer people eligible, more about the lack of capacity to get grain to port, the loss of door-to-door mail delivery, those expensed lunches in the PMO, the Herring fishery on the west coast, nickel dust at the Port of Quebec, and the desire to build a Quebec international development agency (with federal funds, of course).

Overall, we got out punchy exchanges between Harper and Trudeau, and they were quick with the ad libs, which is always great to see when you compared it to the scripted quips we see far too often. Also, the NDP’s overuse of the term “Ottawa bubble” on several issues was starting to get grating – but at least they didn’t push the Speaker on “cheating” today, or mouth back to him.

Sartorially speaking, snaps go out to Megan Leslie for a fuchsia jacket over a black dress, and to Emmanuel Dubourg for a nicely tailored charcoal suit with a crisp white shirt and burgundy tie. Style citations go onto to Jonathan Tremblay for a black suit with a dark green striped shirt and a bright blue tie, and to Christine Moore for a second day in a row, for an orange dress with white panels (not unlike a dress made out of a Rebel X-Wing pilot’s flight suit) along with an off-white bolero jacket and fluorescent orange flats. Dishonourable mention goes out to Olivia Chow for a Dijon mustard yellow jacket with three-quarter sleeves and a black dress.