The first day back from the Easter break, and the day before the budget, and attendance was pretty depressed, and none of the major leaders were present. Megan Leslie led off, demanding the government table a budget that helps families. Kevin Sorensen said she’d have to wait for tomorrow to get the details, but they were going to fulfil their provinces including tax breaks for families. Leslie insisted regular Canadians would face cuts, but Sorenson was not deterred from his good news talking points. Leslie then changed topics to the constitutionality of Mike Duffy’s Senate appointment, to which Paul Calandra reminded the NDP of their satellite offices and demanded they repay them. Peter Julian repeated the question in French, got much the same response, and for his final question, Peter Julian decried cuts to marine safety as demonstrated by the fuel leak in English Bay. Lisa Raitt responded by commending the Coast Guard on their actions, and reminded them that the ship transiting Canadian waters who is solely responsible for their pollution. Scott Brison led for the Liberals, decrying the planned balanced budget legislation, and asked the government to make the law retroactive to repay the five percent penalty for the years that we weren’t in recession. Sorenson praised balanced budgets, and didn’t take Brison’s bait. Brison then decried the doubling of the TFSA limit as helping only the wealthy, and Sorenson responded with some non sequitur past quote of Brison. Brison wanted more help for students instead of advertising (Poilievre: You would raise taxes on students).

Round two and Ève Péclet and Charlie Angus wanted to know what work Mike Duffy did for the government — and both got cautioned by the Speaker for straying from the administrative responsibility of the government (Calandra: You personally owe over $25,000 for satellite offices; your Toronto MPs also contributed to these offices), Angus tried again and got shut down by the Speaker, Sadia Groguhé asked about cuts to veterans services (Calandra: We’re putting more money into the pockets of Canadians), Guy Caron decried poor government budget choices (Poilievre: We are helping the middle class by lowering their taxes), Peggy Nash decried the loss of manufacturing jobs (Poilievre: Trade, training and tax cuts™!), Nathan Cullen delivered some usual kitchen sink outrage (Poilievre: Why do you hate the Canadians whose examples I’m citing?), and Fin Donnelly asked about cuts to the Coast Guard in light of English Bay (Shea: There is no change, and the Kitsilano station would not have made any difference). Marc Garneau asked about the tax cuts benefitting the rich (Poilievre: You would raise taxes and end income splitting for seniors — blatant fictions), changes to the Temporary Foreign Workers programme in Quebec (Poilievre: We keep all of our commitments, and the rules will apply across the country), and Hedy Fry demanded the Kitsilano station be reopened (Shea: We will wait for the review of the response). Élaine Michaud and Jack Harris asked about the stonewalling of the investigation into the death of Sgt. Doiron (Kenney: There are two inquiries and I will make them public when I can), and Randall Garrison and Rosane Doré Lefebvre noted the rallies across the country in opposition to C-51 (Blaney: Canadians can count on our government to keep them safe).

Round three saw questions on food inspector positions at CFIA, concerns by seniors groups, a review of the Prime Minister’s make-up budget in light of Duffy revelations, deaths among the Canadian Rangers, the lack of action by the government on the Arctic Council, funding a Tall Ships festival in Quebec City, pilotage requirements in the Great Lakes, and gasoline price fixing in Quebec requiring changes to the Competition Act.

Overall, it was a pretty dull day, and I’m not sure I understood the NDP strategy. They had an issue they clearly have been agitating on for the past week — the fuel leak in English Bay — and yet it was the last question in both the first and second rounds. Instead, we got a bunch of banal budget questions that were overly broad and simply an invitation for the government to deliver some good news talking points. Scott Brison did a better job of asking pre-budget questions, taking on specific promises, not that it stopped Poilievre from delivering falsehoods about supposed Liberal policy. Also encouraging was the Speaker shutting down questions on Duffy that had nothing to do with the administrative responsibility of government, which he needs to do more consistently.

Sartorially speaking, snaps go out to James Bezan for a medium guy suit with a pale blue shirt and a pink-and-blue striped tie and pink pocket square, and to Michelle Rempel for a black dress with three-quarter sleeves. Style citations go out to Christine Moore for a grey tunic with a floral pattern, a bright pink bolero jacket, and white cowboy boots with black detailing, and to Mike Wallace for a taupe windowpane jacket with a navy blue shirt and a purple diamond patterned tie.