With the debate on the Iraq deployment underway, QP was a break in the proceedings. Stephen Harper, however, was elsewhere, as was Justin Trudeau, who was off watching the Hillary Clinton speech down the road instead. Thomas Mulcair led off, asking for a national inquiry on missing and murdered Aboriginal women. Kellie Leitch responded that they were already taking action rather than waiting for more reports. Mulcair changed topics and demanded to know why Canadian Forces personnel were being deployed to Iraq before a vote had been held. Rob Nicholson listed some of the forces they would be sending over. Mulcair decried the fact that the government would give tacit support to the Assad regime by getting permission before any air strikes in Syrian territory. Nicholson responded about the threat of ISIS in the region. Mulcair pressed and wondered about the Americans lowering their standards for certainty with air bombardment, giving Nicholson the opportunity to badger him about their support for taking down ISIS. Marc Garneau led for the Liberals, and asked about the humanitarian crises in Turkey and Jordan given the flood of refugees they have accepted, to which Christian Paradis assured him that Canada was sending millions of dollars in aid to those regions. Garneau returned to the question of air strikes within Syrian borders and under what conditions they would negotiate with Assad. Nicholson said that currently they would only make strikes in Iraq, and if that changed Syria might be included.

Round two, and Paul Dewar insisted that some of our G7 allies were engaging only in non-combat operations and why not us too (Nicholson: That’s not true and we are doing our part), the UN resolution was not for air strikes but condemned human rights abuses (Nicholson: ISIS is engaged in atrocities and this is the right thing to do), Elaine Michaud re-read questions on the Syria question in French (Nicholson: Are you suggesting we bomb Syria because of their record?), Hélène Laverdière said that air strikes alienate local populations and would be of more use to Assad’s regime (Nicholson: I disagree and this is one more step to stopping this organisation), before she and Andrew Cash asked why Canada wasn’t resettling more Syrian refugees (Alexander: We are doing are part and why do you ignore how many Iraqi refugees we resettled?), and Sylvain Chicoine and Jack Harris asked about the committee report on the New Veterans Charter (Gill: We have invested almost $30 billion in benefits and services). Joyce Murray wanted the assessment on the original 30-day non-combat mission (Nicholson: It’s part of a larger effort including humanitarian aid and military equipment), Australia has provided their House with a cost estimate of their mission but you haven’t (Nicholson: There will be additional costs for a mission of this type, but here’s a quote from Lloyd Axworthy), and John McCallum asked about future resources to deal with the growing number of refugees from Syria and Iraq (Alexander: Focus on the future with other Canadians that understand that military action is necessary). Françoise Boivin asked about the lack of consultation on the next Supreme Court vacancy (Dechert: We conduct broad consultations), and Libby Davies and Dany Morin demanded a national pharacare programme (Ambrose: I was pleased to discuss this at the ministerial conference and we have been invited to the table).

Round three saw questions on cuts to Parks Canada, climate change affecting polar bear populations, combatting homegrown terrorism threats, credit card user fees, Ukrainian deaths despite the ceasefire and would Canada join a peacekeeping and monitoring mission, the closure of a Health Canada office in Quebec, a veteran who can’t get CPP as he’s dying of cancer (Kenney: There is nothing in the legislation that allows ministerial intervention), Canada Post privatisation plans, and the costs for the reception and flight for those European delegates.

Overall, it wasn’t a great day, and there was little that was illuminating about it. The questions on the Syria issue were repetitive, and Rob Nicholson was less interested in answering questions than hectoring the opposition about their lack of support for the combat mission, never mind that many of their complaints revolve around a lack of information. One would think that they would try to bring the opposition onside, but apparently not.

Sartorially speaking, snaps go out to Kellie Leitch for a grey jacket and skirt with a light blue collared shirt, and to Greg Rickford for a black suit with a crisp white shirt and pocket square and a pale blue tie. Style citation goes out to Jonathan Tremblay for a grey suit with a fluorescent teal shirt and a brown tie with blue, pink and yellow stripes, and to Christine Moore for a pink and white zebra-striped dress with an elastic waist, with a pink bolero jacket and sparkly pink heels.