Caucus day, and all of the leaders were present for the only time this week, Trudeau heading to New York for the rest of the week after things wrapped up. Rona Ambrose led off, mini-lectern on desk, and quoted the PBO’s report yesterday, accusing the PM of misleading Canadians on basic facts. Trudeau thanked the PBO for his report, and noted their commitments to things like a larger tax-free child benefit for nine out of ten Canadians. Ambrose wondered how Canadians could have confidence that the government could protect their jobs, and Trudeau reeled off his list of promises of investments. Ambrose then wondered why the BC LNG projects weren’t moving forward. Trudeau reminded her that they couldn’t get the job done because they didn’t care about the environment at the same time as the economy. Denis Lebel got up to repeat the PBO questions in French, got much the same answer in French as before. Thomas Mulcair was up next, and raised the problem of veterans who have to fill out forms every year to prove that their limbs have not grown back. Trudeau reminded him of the promise to make record investments in veterans. Mulcair snidely called out the talking points and demanded an answer for this particular case. Trudeau reminded him of the mandate letter to his minister on the sacred obligation to veterans and that they were cleaning up the mess left by the previous government. Mulcair demanded marijuana decriminalisation immediately in the lead-up to legalisation, and Trudeau first remarked that it was always a surprise which position Mulcair held on marijuana on every given day, and noted that decriminalisation was a pipeline to profits for criminal gangs. Mulcair thundered about it one last time, and Trudeau repeated that legalisation was all about protecting children and starving criminal gangs.

Round two, and we were back to Blaine Calkins and John Brassard, and Jacques Gourde trying to cast Freeland’s trip to LA as being solely about her vanity, noting that Time Warner paid for the hotel room (Lametti: There is no story here), and Brassard and Gourde then asked why travel claims from the President of the Treasury Board not being posted (Brison: We follow the rules and Freeland is an internationally recognised figure). Roméo Saganash and Charlie Angus noted that the budget doesn’t have more funds for mental health for Indigenous youth (Bennett: We are concerned and we are getting programming for youth; Khera: Health Canada is collaborating with First Nations to build a mental health framework). Lisa Raitt returned to the PBO report (Champagne: Yay our budget), and Mark Warawa and Gerard Deltell raised the projections on the age of OAS eligibility (Champagne: Investing!; Duclos: This helps lift seniors out of poverty). Hélène Laverdière asked about the Saudi LAV export permits (Dion: We take the export permit review seriously).

Round three saw questions on Pacific LNG, the Coast Guard being understaffed and their fleet rusting out, Senate expenses, military procurement, Quebec trying to block gaming sites, the Coast Guard station in Comox closing, the RCMP unionisation bill, and GHG targets.

Overall, I’m curious why the Conservatives included Brassard in their rat pack question series today in place of Karen Vecchio, not that it mattered much in terms of the substance of their question, considering that he didn’t add anything to the show. Meanwhile, we are back to the NDP asking about senate business as though the Senate were a government department. It’s not. It took a bit of convincing from Liberals for Speaker Regan to issue a caution, but then Dominic LeBlanc still got up to answer to make a response that included a kick against the NDP for their satellite offices, well, no. Regan should have disallowed it and moved on. This is ridiculous posturing.

Sartorially speaking, snaps go out to Jody Wilson-Raybould for a black dress with a white chain link pattern and a black jacket, and to Matt DeCourcey for a navy three-piece suit with a crisp white shirt and brilliant purple tie. Style citations go out to James Bezan for a taupe suit with a light purple striped shirt and a dark purple striped tie and pocket square, and to Hedy Fry for her gold and black vortex dress.