With Harper in the House to play off against, Thomas Mulcair opened QP with a question on Nexen and the criteria for foreign takeovers, to which Harper assured him that the changes that were made to the Act ensured a rigorous process, and any decision would be in the best interest of the Canadian economy. Mulcair then asked a question that started with the leak of the Khadr transcripts, veered over to the shared embassy issue, and settled on asking why Harper wasn’t speaking at the UN General Assembly. Harper assured him that Canadian prime ministers don’t speak every year, but that the minister of Foreign Affairs would do a good job in his stead. For his final question, Mulcair went full-on with the Great British Menace™ that apparently going to swallow our foreign policy (because apparently the NDP are still trying to out-Bloc the Bloc to keep Quebec votes), but Harper’s answer didn’t really deviate. Paul Dewar took the remaining pair of slots, chastising Harper for not being at the General Assembly when he was even going to be in town for it, but Baird responded by singing the praises of Harper receiving the Statesman of the Year award. Bob Rae was up next, first asking about income inequality, per the Liberal opposition day motion (and do believe that I need to shake my head at this opposition day motion like I did the NDP’s – while it is substantive in its policy direction, but it doesn’t state why the government should be denied supply; just the opposite, it attempts to legislate from the opposition benches, which is not the role of the opposition, though as the third party, the Liberals are given a bit more leeway to do these kinds of manoeuvres, not that they should be). Harper responded that they take the issue seriously and listed a bunch of measures they’ve taken. When Rae asked why they voted against a motion to study income inequality (which did pass – just barely), Harper said they prefer action to study. For his final question, Rae wondered that because the government is making LGBT rights one of their foreign affairs priorities if they would also start funding major pride parades in Canada and attending them. Harper dodged and talked about advancing rights for everyone, and touted the creation of the Human Rights Museum in Winnipeg.

Continue reading →