QP: To appoint or not to appoint to the Supreme Court

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The last Monday of the spring sitting of the Chamber, and Thomas Mulcair and Elizabeth May were the only leaders in the Commons. Justin Trudeau was in Toronto to help campaign for the forthcoming by-elections, while Harper was, well, elsewhere. Mulcair started things off by asking about the government ignoring the advice on reforming suicide investigations in the military, to which Rob Nicholson insisted that he asked the military to account for the decision and to clear up the backlog, of which only ten cases out of 54 remained. Mulcair pressed in French, and Nicholson repeated his response. Mulcair brought up the Prime Minister’s appointment of a Federal Court judge to the Quebec Court of Appeal, and how this was being challenged by the same lawyer who challenged the Nadon appointment. Peter MacKay insisted that they made appointments based on merit, and listed off the accomplishments of that judge. Mulcair insisted that the government was meddling in Quebec’s courts, not that MacKay’s answer changed. Geoff Regan led off for the Liberals, asking about the decision on the Northern Gateway pipeline, imploring that it be denied. Greg Rickford gave his usual talking points that they were carefully reading a report and the decision would be made soon. Joyce Murray brought up the Request For Proposal that would come out for the fighter jet replacements between 2017 and 2019, and would this mean that an open competition would go ahead. Diane Finley insisted that no decisions had been made, and that they went through an independent process.

Round two, and Françoise Boivin returned to the topic of that Quebec judicial appointment (MacKay: He applied for the position, and you’re taking the side of a Toronto lawyer over Quebec’s interests), is he headed for the Supreme Court as you hinted (MacKay: I’m not speculating), François Choquette and Megan Leslie asked why more money was being spent to move the National Energy Board office than it spends on pipeline monitoring (Rickford: They base their decisions on science and not ideology), Leslie asked to call the new NEB chair to committee (Rickford: He has impeccable credentials and shame on you for doubting them), Leslie, Murray Rankin and Nathan Cullen gave another demand to turn down Northern Gateway (Rickford: We rely on the input of First Nations). Joyce Murray kept up the line of questioning, bringing up the special First Nations envoy’s concerns (Rickford: We received his report and we have already acted on two of his recommendations), John McCallum blasted the state of labour market opinions (Bergen: You used the temporary foreign workers to bring in strippers), and Carolyn Bennett asked about the cuts to refugee healthcare (Alexander: You and those activists are misleading Canadians). Andrew Cash carried on the subject of refugee healthcare (Alexander: You are asking to help bogus claimants), and Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe asked about how many promised government-sponsored Syrian refugees are in Canada (Alexander: More than 150 have received Canada’s protection).

Round three saw questions on the Social Security Tribunal, prioritising military commemorations over veterans programming, whether the government intended to appoint that judge to the Supreme Court — reading MacKay’s own words back to him (MacKay: The Quebec Court of Appeal is the supreme court in that province), support for the tourism industry, the issues in Madagascar, a First Nations reserve on a boiled water problem for ten years who’ve lost a necessary water filter, the ice oval rink in Quebec City, one last attempt at calling on the government to turn down the Northern Gateway pipeline, and making prostitution illegal in Canada.

Overall, it wasn’t an uproarious day despite it being late in the sitting calendar, but that could be due to either the fact that it’s a fairly sedate Monday and it’s neither sweltering nor muggy in Ottawa, so MPs weren’t surfing from the weather. That said, it wasn’t terribly edifying, but Sean Casey showed that he could be nimble in answering his questions and read MacKay’s own words from the leader’s round back to him — something the official opposition has yet been unable to do in a single QP.

Sartorially speaking, snaps go out to James Bezan for a dark grey suit with a pale lavender shirt and a purple shirt and pocket square, and to Sadia Groguhé for a taupe short-sleeved top with jacket-like lapels and matching trousers. Style citations go out to Linda Duncan for a white dress with a black, yellow, orange and blue Aztec pattern and a bright orange jacket, and to Ted Falk for a dark grey suit with a maroon shirt and a multicoloured paisley tie.