A couple of hours after the speech in the Commons by the Aga Khan, things had quieted down considerably, and most of the leaders had fled. Thomas Mulcair was still around, and he led off by by asking about the elimination of vouching at the polls. Pierre Poilievre responded that in some 40 percent of cases of vouching, there was no way to contact the voucher to ensure there was no fraud. Mulcair wondered about cases where fraud by vouching was prosecuted and why not fix the system. Poilievre said that the Neufeld report showed that even when they tried to fix the vouching system and better monitoring it, there were still irregularities in more than 20 percent off cases. When Mulcair pressed, Poilievre reminded him that there were documented case of someone using the voter ID cards to vote more than once in his own hometown. Mulcair accused them of trying to make it harder for people who don’t vote Conservative, but Poilievre stuck to the facts around those documented cases, as part of a comedy show or not. Dominic LeBlanc led off for the Liberals, and thrice asked about the cuts to infrastructure spending and called their announcements little more than “creative accounting.” Peter Braid responded, and insisted that they’ve tripled investments in infrastructure.

Round two, and Irene Mathyssen demanded proof be tabled that Elections Canada has contributed to a decline in voter turnout (Poilievre: Most people don’t have basic information about how to cast their ballots in advance), and evidence of voter ID cards being used fraudulently (Poilievre: The broadcast show is proof), Nycole Turmel asked about the changes in the act that would have data destroyed too soon, which would have made investigating robocalls impossible (Poilievre: Look at these robocall regulations that don’t currently exist), Ève Péclet and Charlie Angus asked about auditors meeting with Senator Tkachuk and alleging interference (Calandra: The auditors appeared at committee and assured everyone there was no interference), and Alexandre Boulerice asked about a former Liberal staffer who is accused of defrauding a bridge contract in Quebec (Calandra: We passed the Accountability Act, and you want a tax-and-spend coalition wight the Liberals). Judy Sgro decried Conservative broken promises (Sorensen: a We’ve kept the promise to lower taxes!), John McCallum the income splitting promise, and wondered if the conflicting stories between Flaherty and Harper would be allowed to continue (Sorensen: Tax-free savings accounts! Income splitting for seniors! Tax cuts for families!) Ryan Cleary, Megan Leslie, Jean Crowder and Romeo Saganash demanded a national inquiry on missing and murdered Aboriginal women (Leitch: We’ve taken concrete action and invested additional funds in the DNA missing persons index).

Round three saw questions on the Canada Job Grant impacting programs for people with disabilities, the end of home mail delivery, amateur sport infrastructure, the demands for sanctions against the former Ukrainian president, Syrian refugees, ocean acidification, veterans with PTSD committing suicide, tax havens, the Canadian journalist held in Egypt, and the reversal of the Line 9B pipeline in Quebec.

Overall, it was a fairly dull day but the questions on missing and murdered Aboriginal women, centred around the recent death of Loretta Saunders, turned into a bit of a tasteless exercise in talking points as Kellie Leitch clumsily recited a line item out of the Economic Action Plan™ that is somewhat connected rather than giving a more heartfelt assurance that they were doing something. The heckling on both sides of the House did little to help the seriousness of the situation either.

Sartorially speaking, snaps go out to Yvon Godin for a dark grey suit with a lavender shirt and purple tie, and to Kellie Leitch for a black dress with a textured black jacket. Style citations to out to Hélène LeBlanc for a mustard yellow turtleneck with a dark grey three-quarter sleeved jacket, and black trousers, and to Mike Sullivan for a black suit with a bright blue shirt and dark brown patterned tie.