A blustery winter day in Ottawa, and there were a few sour faces among the official opposition ranks following the Board of Internal Economy directive the previous evening. All of the leaders were in the Chamber, and Thomas Mulcair led off, asking about more layoffs in Toronto. Stephen Harper said that it has to do with particular decisions of particular companies, but their Economic Action Plan™ has created more jobs than were lost. Mulcair insisted those new jobs were part time and precarious, then listed more retail layoffs. Harper retorted the NDP position was simply to raise taxes. Mulcair then moved to the issue of CSIS, and whether the thirty year-old SIRC has the tools to oversee the agency today. Harper insisted that the system was robust and had safeguards, but the solution was not to go after the police but the terrorists. “Arthur Porter, come on down,” Mulcair quipped and noted SIRC’s report saying that CSIS had misled them just last year. Harper said that the example shows that the system works. Mulcair gave a line about freedom and safety going hand-in-hand, and saying that Harper has been decisive about it. Harper insisted that the bill already enhances oversight. (Really? Where?) Justin Trudeau was up next, demanding income splitting be cut in favour of more investment in infrastructure. Harper insisted that they were already running the largest, longest infrastructure programme in history and that he recently announced more funding — and that the Liberals want to raise taxes. Trudeau pointed out the massive difference difference in funding over the last two years and that an April budget meant municipalities would miss construction season. Harper repeated his insistence that they were already spending record amounts and accused Trudeau of being bad at math. Trudeau repeated the question in French, and got much the same answer in French, with an added promise for a balanced budget and targeted tax breaks.

Round two, and Guy Caron noted the list of creditors that Target owes money to (Kenney: We are helping those workers about to lose their jobs), Peggy Nash demanded a plan for retail jobs (Kenney: We are making services available like training and EI; do you think we should subsidise this failed American business?), Mike Sullivan wanted the government to institute the NDP plan (Moore: We saw how well that worked in provinces with NDP governments), Marjolaine Boutin-Sweet and Matthew Kellway asked about municipal infrastructure and housing (Braid: Highest infrastructure spending ever!), Jinny Sims and Alexandre Boulerice asked about the “secret deal” with Alberta about temporary foreign workers with pending permanent residency applications (Kenney: Stop being hypocrites, you asked for us to do this and we did), and Nathan Cullen gave his usual bout of kitchen sink outrage (Kenney: You voted against every plan). Frank Valeriote asked about the way in which the veterans minister tabled his report on the New Veterans Charter (O’Toole: I was in Hamilton talking to veterans and I don’t apologise for it), Stéphane Dion decried the loss of the long-form census (Moore: We got good quality data from our voluntary survey, and you should support a different bill instead), and Chrystia Freeland disputed Moore’s assertions (Moore: The CEO of StatsCanada said we got the data we require). Pierre-Luc Dusseault and Craig Scott asked if the minister of democratic reform consulted the Chief Electoral Officer on the foreign voting bill (Poilievre: We are attempting to to ensure that people vote with ID), and Randall Garrison and Rosane Doré Lefebvre wanted more oversight for CSIS (MacKay: The oversight in place is just great).

Round three saw questions on firefighters and train derailments, the negotiation for a new border crossing at Windsor, coordinating with allies about further military support for Ukraine, plans to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the flag, Canada Post delivery changes, environmental concerns at the Port of Quebec, immigration sponsorship timelines, and meeting with the premiers.

Overall, the NDP continued on with bizarre questions about retail closures — Target, Mexx, etcetera — while trying to make the government sound responsible for them, which didn’t make any sense whatsoever. In fact, one wonders what they want the government to do — forbid the closures? Subsidise their continued operations? Jason Kenney finally asked as much of them, but got no snappy reply. There was a little more attention paid to the issue of CSIS oversight in the first round today, but the questions were not followed on very effectively, and we are left with the PM insisting that SIRC is just fine, thank you very much.

Sartorially speaking, snaps go out to Pierre Poilievre for a dark grey tailored suit with a crisp white shirt and purple tie, and to Lisa Raitt for a grey dress with a black sweater. Style citations go out to Marie-Claude Morin for a somewhat bizarre black tunic dress with a grey honeycomb pattern across it and a floppy turtleneck collar, and to LaVar Payne for a dark grey suit with a black shirt with a white collar and a white tie.