Despite it being a Wednesday and caucus day, only Thomas Mulcair anchored the chamber. Harper was off in Toronto to host his summit on Maternal and Child Health, and Justin Trudeau off in Quebec City to meet the new premier. Mulcair began by asking about the refusal to fund safe abortions as part of the Maternal and Child Health initiative. John Baird responded that they have done a lot of work on maternal and child health, and got a number of other countries on board. Mulcair noted that they refused to fund the UN Population Fund as part of the initiative because of pressure from anti-choice lobbyists. Deepak Obhrai touted the 1.3 million children’s lives saved by their Initiative. Mulcair changed topics and asked about the Temporary Foreign Workers programme not helping unemployed Canadians. Jason Kenney insisted that they employers had an obligation to seek Canadian employees first. Mulcair insisted that posting jobs for TFWs at minimum wage distorted the free market, eliciting roars from the Conservative benches. Kenney noted that those minimum wage rates were largely in the seasonal agricultural sector and that the prevailing median wage was posted for other jobs. Mulcair again changed topics, and noted the objections of Ontario’s Privacy Commissioner to the lawful access provisions of the cyberbullying bill. Peter MacKay insisted that the bill would protect children and the parents of victims of cyberbullying insisted that they pass the bill — not actually true. John McCallum led off for the Liberals asking about the TFW blacklist, to which Kenney insisted that those employers were no longer eligible to get new workers, and Chris Alexander followed up by claiming they were “cleaning up the Liberal mess.” McCallum found that hilarious and an evasion of responsibility, but Alexander insisted that they were indifferent to abuse and that they brought over exotic dancers “by the hundreds and thousands” with no corner for their welfare.

Round two, and Ève Péclet and Charlie Angus decried the use of government jets (Calandra: What about the money you used to open up illegal offices?), before Angus brought up that the PM apparently knew about Bruce Carson’s criminal past before hiring him (Calandra: Your whole caucus is implicated with illegal offices), Mathieu Ravignat asked about the corruption at SNC-Lavalin and that they still get government contracts (Calandra: These problems concern municipal and commercial contracts, and your leader didn’t report on an attempted bribe for 17 years), Françoise Boivin brought up former Justice John Major’s comments about the Nadon spat (MacKay: Major also disagreed with the Supreme Court’s ruling), and she and Peter Julian asked why didn’t they listen to Quebec’s recommendations before the appointment (MacKay: We are meeting stakeholders now). Marc Garneau asked about the risks to Canadian citizens in C-23, such as Tamils tried and convicted in Sri Lanka (Alexander: Our bill actually strengthen’s citizenship), Hedy Fry demanded an answer if the minister would give visas to those Ugandan LGBT activists (Alexander: I can’t discuss individual cases in this place), and Carolyn Bennett decried the unfair treatment Ontario was getting with regard to provincial immigration numbers (Alexander: Your government did nothing). Jack Harris and Christine Moore demanded an independent judicial inquiry on sexual assaults in the military (Nicholson: The Chief of Defence Staff is conducting an investigation), and Megan Leslie wondered who the government considered qualified to talk about climate change (Aglukkaq: We are preserving the environment and moving to a clean energy economy).

Round three saw questions on the hiring problems at ECBC, the missing compensation details with the Canada-EU trade deal, the problem of sexual harassment in the Canadian Forces, gas tax criteria being changed to exclude ecological projects, housing programmes, a pending deportation order, and the Canada-China FIPA.

Overall, it was a loud and scrappy day, with lots of heckling and name calling among the benches. The Speaker even seemed to be losing patience with the juvenile behaviour of the Conservative benches, threatening to take away question slots if they didn’t knock it off. Mulcair was back to being all over the map, and generally squandered any narrative that could have been built up on any one topic.

Sartorially speaking, snaps go out to Chungsen Leung for a dark grey suit with a lavender shirt and purple tie, and to Marie-Claude Morin for a mottled grey dress with a black jacket. Style citations to out to Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe for a greyish wrap dress with multicoloured splashes across it and a black jacket, and to Gordon O’Connor for a tan suit and tie with a bright lemon yellow shirt.