After Thomas Mulcair’s testy and evasive appearance at committee, he was in the House, ready for another round — and Justin Trudeau was also in attendance, which is now rare for a Thursday. Mulcair began by bringing up the centennial anniversary of the Komogata Maru incident and wondered why there had not been an official apology. Tim Uppal asserted that there had been an apology, and that they funded a monument in a Vancouver and they released a stamp. Mulcair switched topics and asked if the minister of Justice was aware of the advice that Justice Nadon resign from the Federal Court and rejoin the Quebec bar. Robert Goguen responded about the advice they received. Mulcair wondered if they would try the tactic with another Federal Court judge, to which Goguen insisted that they would respect the Supreme Court ruling. Mulcair switched topics again and brought up the cuts to refugee healthcare, for which Chris Alexander insisted that genuine, approved refugees would still get covered, but not those who are not approved — and he took a swipe at the Wynne government in Ontario while he was at it. Mulcair gave it another go in French, and got much the same answer. Justin Trudeau led for the Liberals and asked what problems the government thought were present in the Temporary Foreign Workers programme and what their solutions were. Jason Kenney didn’t really answer, but instead took swipes at Trudeau and the Liberals. Trudeau asked about the pathways to citizenship proposals, to which Chris Alexander touted their record on immigration. Trudeau asked his first question again in French, to which Kenney gave vague assurances before returning to his swipes.

Round two, and Ève Péclet and Charlie Angus brought up the attack that the immigration minister made against an immigration consultant (Alexander: The statement from my department never should have been released and I apologized to him), before they both brought up Bruce Carson and his lobbying (Calandra: Pay back the $3 million you spent illegally for satellite offices), Sadia Groguhé and Libby Davies returned to the issue of refugee healthcare (Alexander: The programme has to serve genuine refugees), and Jonathan Genest-Jourdain reiterated his question about what the minister believes the socio-economic causes of missing and murdered Aboriginal women (Goguen: We provided $25 million for this in the budget), and Niki Ashton demanded a national inquiry (Goguen: The time for studies has passed, time to take action). Stéphane Dion asked about government plans for the Canada 150 celebrations (Glover: We’re celebrating all kinds of milestones), Joyce Murray asked about two navy members who are having housing allowances clawed back for no fault of their own (Bezan: We increased their pay and the military is looking into it), and Chrystia Freeland asked why Canada wasn’t sending observers to two hotly contested areas in the Ukrainian election (Baird: We’ll work with our allies to see what can be done). Guy Caron and Nathan Cullen asked about the problems with merging the administration of 11 different tribunals (Goguen: This merger will not hurt them but will improve their operation), before Cullen moved onto veteran clawbacks and temporary foreign workers (Moore: Look at all the groups that support this budget bill), Murray Rankin brought up the problems with FATCA in the bill (Oliver: No new taxes are imposed and only US citizens are affected — ignoring the fact that it’s whoever the US declares to be a citizen, which is part of the problem), and Pierre Dionne Labelle asked about CBC funding (Glover: CBC makes their own spending decisions).

Round three saw more questions on CBC funding (including one from Mulcair), those “getting tough on telecom” ads, a problematic ACOA hiring who hasn’t yet entered the office and was still awarded a performance award, whether the minister would meet with the Confederacy of Nations meeting (Valcourt: I will meet with these chiefs when they withdraw their threats), Canada Post cuts, the HIV education shutdown in Uganda (Baird: I agree that this appalling act requires a concrete response), and signing the optional protocol on torture.

Overall, it was a loud, punchy day, where the NDP, who had previously sworn never to heckle, were at it in full force. The questions remained scattershot (which I fail to see how it can be an effective strategy), and terribly scripted. In Niki Ashton’s case, she responded to an answer that MacKay gave yesterday — something she should have done at the time, and might have if they didn’t have such a tightly controlled speaking list or scripts. Let this be yet another object lesson in why we need to return QP to its roots.

Sartorially speaking, snaps go out to Gerald Keddy for a medium grey three-piece suit with a crisp white shirt and light blue tie, and to Maria Mourani for a black and white Houndstooth-patterned sleeveless dress. Style citations go out to Megan Leslie for a see-through greenish floral blouse with a black skirt, and to Daryl Kramp for a khaki suit and shirt with a dark brown patterned tie. Special mention goes out to Lois Brown for a dark blue jacket with yellow and red patterns across it and floral patterns around the cuffs, with an over-the-shoulder scarf/cape of the same pattern sewn over the left side.