With it being an early end to the week in advance of Easter long weekend and a two-week constituency break, QP was held at the usual Friday time slot of 11 am. And while it was on a Friday schedule, there was better than usual Friday attendance, including one major leader — Thomas Mulcair. Mulcair led off by reading a rambling question about balancing the budget on the backs of the middle class. Andres Saxton responded by reading some talking points about the family tax cuts, and warned that the opposition would take them away. Mulcair made some digs about Senator Nancy Ruth, to which Candice Bergen responded with some non sequitur talking points about those same family tax cuts. Mulcair then read some concerns about the Future Shop job losses, and Pierre Poilievre got a turn about those same talking points. Charlie Angus then got up to ask an out of bounds question about Senate travel — which earned him a warning from the Speaker after the fact, to which Paul Calandra reminded the House about their satellite office spending, and then they had another go around of the same. Marc Garneau led off for the Liberals, demanding infrastructure spending, to which Poilievre gave the same response. Scott Brison took another go of it in English, and Candice Bergen got another turn to deliver the approved lines. Brison then noted the amount of government advertising dollars that could go toward creating summer jobs, but Pierre Poilievre delivered a tired “forty million dollars” line before returning to the family tax cut talking points.

Round two, and Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe and Niki Ashton bemoaned the Senate (Calandra: Satellite offices), Sadia Groguhé and Jinny Sims asked about inadequate childcare spaces in the face of income splitting (Bergen: You’re out of touch with families!), Guy Caron and Megan Leslie asked another cuts to the National Energy Board (Anderson: There are no cuts), Élaine Michaud and Jack Harris asked about the accuracy of Kenney’s cost estimates for the Iraq mission (Kenney: These expenditures are justified), and Peter Stoffer decried the inadequate caregiver benefits for veterans (Lemieux: This is an important new benefit). Judy Sgro asked about the cut to the youth employment strategy while increasing ad spending (Poilievre: Apprenticeships! Family tax benefits!), Francis Scarpaleggia noted retail closures as a sign of economic confidence (Poilevre: Family tax cuts), and Kevin Lamoureux demanded action on job creation (Poilievre: We lowered taxes). Rosane Doré Lefebvre and Randall Garrison took shots at Justin Trudeau in the guise of asking the government to abandon C-51 (Blaney: There are so many checks and balances in this bill I can’t even list them), and Matthew Kellway and Hoang Mai worried about the transportation of dangerous goods through Toronto and other cities (Raitt: We are acting on the recommendations of this working group).

Round three saw questions on lapsed economic development spending, systemic bias in the government against Hungarian Roma, a dragged out international adoption case of an orphaned relative, housing funding, the lack of action on helping a reservist who was misdiagnosed by military doctors, boating speed limits, that Saudi blogger in jail, mutual insurance regulation changes, and access to palliative care.

Overall, it was a terrible, terrible day. Mulcair’s tasteless jokes about Senator Nancy Ruth betrayed a complete lack of class, but the subsequent line of questions bemoaning the Senate were completely out of bounds, having absolutely zero to do with the administrative responsibility of government. And while the Speaker warned them after the first question, he didn’t enforce the warning — and no, Augus’ justification that it is “about Parliament” is bogus. Parliament is not the administrative responsibility of the government — Parliament holds the government to account. If the NDP can’t grasp that most basic tenet of civic literacy, then it’s a sad day for our democracy. Over on the government side, simply taking turns reading the same non sequitur talking points is making a mockery of this whole exercise. Kudos to Lisa Raitt for being pretty much the only member of the front bench who ditched scripts and answered questions respectfully.

Sartorially speaking, snaps go out to Bernard Trottier for a black suit with a crisp white shirt and a lavender tie, and to Mylène Freeman for a burgundy half-sleeved dress. Style citations go out to Charmaine Borg for a black striped dress-length shirt with a thin pink belt over black trousers, and to habitual snappy dresser James Bezan for the misstep of a light taupe suit  with a white shirt and a bight teal toe and pocket square.