Despite it only being a Thursday, the major leaders were elsewhere in the country, busy campaiging instead of doing their jobs. Megan Leslie led off, bringing up job losses at Bombardier and wondered why the government wasn’t doing more for manufacturing. Pierre Poilievre gave a pro forma expression of sympathy before touting the government’s job creation record. Leslie asked again in English twice again, got the same answer, and then Alexandre Boulerice took another kick at it in French. Poilievre was just as adept in repeating the good news talking points in French. Marc Garneau led for the Liberals, also asking about the job losses, and Poilievre put a “Liberals would raise taxes” spin on his same talking points. Judy Sgro took a kick at it, naming some of the other closing plants and job losses, but Poilievre kept insisting the Liberals would raise taxes and kill more jobs.

Round two, and Peggy Nash asked about Nortel pensioners (Holder: The lawyer for those pensioners was pleased) and Nash, Anne Quach, and Groguhé asked yet again about manufacturing job losses (Poilievre: Tax Cuts, Trade and Training™!), Denis Blanchette wanted government contracts for Davie Shipyards (Warkentin: Look at these contracts we’ve awarded Davie), Irene Mathyssen read a question about why the government would sell GM shares without securing more commitments from them (Poilievre: You would raise taxes on those companies), Nathan Cullen gave some kitchen sink outrage about the BC economy (Poilievre: Trade, Training and Tax Cuts™!) and John Rafferty and Annick Papillon wondered why the government hasn’t fined anyone for malfunctioning gas pumps (Holder: We took action). Emmanuel Dubourg touted the Liberal child benefit plan (Poilievre: Our plan benefits all families), and Ralph Goodale took another shot (Poilievre: You would kill all of our programs). Rosane Doré Lefebvre and Andrew Cash asked about the lack of resources to counter cyber-attacks (Blaney: Look at these funds in the budget), and Charlie Angus and Pierre Dionne Labelle asked about CRA employees falling for phishing schemes (Findlay: That was a training exercise, we are improving security and training).

Round three saw questions on abortions in developing countries (Brown: We will not export controversy), military justice with regards to sexual harassment and assault, the status of forces agreement with Iraq, the RCMP illegally destroying long gun registry data, shootings in Surrey, the Deschamps Report, forestry, GHG emission targets, and the CRA not acting on wine smuggling.

Overall, it was such a repetitive day that today’s recap was pretty much “Ibid., Ibid., Ibid.” The monotonous reiteration of the very same scripted questions and answers was pretty much enough to drive a person to distraction. Worst of all, the serious issue that demanded government accountability — the RCMP illegally destroying those records — wasn’t raised until midway through round three. Holding the government to account shouldn’t be rocket scientist, but apparently we missed the memo that QP is now just another time slot for party messaging. And seriously, when the vast majority of questions were simply designed for each of those MPs to be able to have a YouTube clip for their websites, it’s an abuse of House time and resources. Up your game, MPs. This is absolutely pathetic.

Sartorially speaking, snaps go out to Emmanuel Dubourg for a tailored black suit with a crip white shirt and silver tie, and to Rosane Doré Lefebvre for a grey dress with a black three-quarter sleeved jacket. Style citations go out to Peggy Nash for a pastel foral jacket with an off-white scarf, and to Françoise Choquette for a greyish brown suit with a pale orange shirt and brown tie.