QP: Still making a decision

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It was a rainy day in Ottawa, with the Ontario election going on, and the faint thumping sounds of the music being played at the nearby Franco-Ontarian Festival was heard through the walls on the Hill. Stephen Harper and Thomas Mulcair were present, while Justin Trudeau was off in New Brunswick to glad-hand with voters. Mulcair led off by pointing out that the expert review panel didn’t recommend the F-35s (indeed, they didn’t make any recommendations as it wasn’t their role), and would they hold an open competition. Harper stood up to say that they were still making a decision. Mulcair pressed and wanted the report made public, to which Harper reiterated that they were evaluating the report. Mulcair changed topics and asked point blank how many Syrian refugees were accepted into Canada, citing how Chris Alexander hung up on a CBC Radio interview yesterday. Harper responded that the number was over a thousand, before he slammed Mulcair and the NDP for their problematic spending. Mulcair kept at it, pointing out how many refugees other countries had taken in, but Harper reminded him that most of those displaced Syrians were temporarily displaced, and that they weren’t intended to be settled elsewhere permanently. Joyce Murray, leading for the Liberals, asked that the government turn down the Northern Gateway pipeline, to which Greg Rickford told her that they were still making a decision. Marc Garneau was up next and returned to the issue of the fighter jet replacement, and accused the government of being reckless with public money. Diane Finley assured him that the expert panel gave rigorous and impartial advice, which she thanked them for. Garneau demanded a fair, and open competition, to which Finley reiterated that they launched their Seven-Point Plan™.

Round two, and Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe and Jinny Sims revisited the fact that Chris Alexander hung up on CBC radio, and wanted more Syrian refugees resettled (Alexander: We have done more than the 200 government-sponsored refugees than we initially promised and we want more private sponsors), Sims, Rathika Sitsabaiesan and Sadia Groguhé moved onto the issue of the citizenship bill and its constitutionality (Alexander: What is your problem with stripping terrorists of dual citizenship?), and Peter Julian demanded one last time, facing Alexander directly and not the chair (Alexander: same response). Frank Valeriote and Ralph Goodale decried that citizenship measure as a government degradation of new Canadians (Alexander: Pierre Trudeau cheapened Canadian citizenship), and when Emmanuel Dubourg called him on that — his family having arrived in that period (Alexander: Abuses went unaddressed after that period). Jack Harris asked about the internal review of the Canadian Forces on sexual assaults (Nicholson: The Chief of Defence Staff is conducting an external review, not this internal review you’re referring to), at which point Harris and Élaine Michaud kept demanding an external review, which Nicholson said was already in process — because they couldn’t stop from reading their scripts or repeating the very same questions in French.

Round three saw questions on the request for a no-fly zone over Quebec prisons, Northern Gateway pipeline, a Cape Breton rail line in trouble, comments the Minister of Agriculture made about the Americans, changes to EI harming PEI, the union representing flight attendants demanding a meeting with the minister over regulation changes, woodland caribou in Northern Alberta, and the plight of Syrian refugees in Lebanon.

Overall, it was a terrible, terrible day, where there may as well have been a drinking game for every time the Conservatives responded with “When will the NDP repay that money?” That they started changing “Pay it back!” several times did not help make things look any better either. Add to that, the NDP embarrassed themselves by continually repeating a question that got a clear answer, ensuring that the same script in both languages got delivered for a total of four times. Stop. Relying. On. Scripts.

Sartorially speaking, snaps go out to Michelle Rempel for a brown leather jacket over a black dress, and to Greg Rickford for a black suit with a light blue shirt and pocket square and a black and blue cross-hatched tie. Style citations go out to Dany Morin for a black suit with an eggplant shirt and grey tie, and to Isabelle Morin for a multicoloured smock top with a bolero-cut grey sweater and black trousers.